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Welcome to The Group: A.S. Turner and Sons Funeral Home and Crematory

Alex Lewis
Oct 2, 2024
0 min read

The Independent Funeral Group would like to welcome A.S. Turner and Sons Funeral Home and Crematory from Decatur, Georgia!

A.S. Turner & Sons Funeral Home & Crematory 2773 N Decatur Road Decatur, GA 30033 Tel: (404) 292-1551 www.asturner.com

A.S. Turner and Sons has a profound and enduring history in funeral service, beginning as far back as 1903. After his marriage to Myra Haygood, A.S. Turner sold sewing machines for a while and in 1903 was financially able to form the partnership of Turner & Johnson, mainly a hardware store that sold caskets in Conyers, GA. He learned to embalm at the “Boss” Platt School in Augusta. Many times, farmers would drive their wagon into town, purchase a casket, and go back to the farm to have a “do it yourself at home” funeral. Neighbors would come in, help dress the body, and dig a grave on the farm or at the churchyard. Family cemeteries and city cemeteries abounded in the South. If Mr. Turner was employed to embalm a body, it was always done at the home of the deceased. The oldest son of A.S. Turner, A. Mell Turner, was born in 1898, and his daughter, Myrtice, was born in 1900. Mell became active in the business as a teenager, especially with embalming at the home, even at all hours of the night. When the great flu epidemic came in 1918, embalming virtually everyone who had died of the flu was mandatory as a way to prevent the spread of the epidemic. Soon after, Mell was drafted into the Army. Ralph S. Turner, the third son of A.S. Turner, was born in 1920. He graduated from Decatur Boys High School, attended Emory University, graduated from the Cincinnati College of Embalming, and began working for the firm soon after. The funeral business grew and grew, and after outgrowing and moving to larger locations through the years, a second son, Carlton, joined the business. After A.S. Turner’s death in May 28, 1938, Mell and Carlton took over operations of the firm, which had five employees. When World War II came along, Carlton Turner went into the U.S. Navy, and Ralph became a pilot with the U.S. Army Air Corps. Mell ran the funeral home single-handedly until 1945. In December 1945, all three sons of A.S. Turner were helping run the business. Carlton Turner died in 1968, and Mell Turner died in 1977, leaving Ralph as the new Chief Operating Officer. In 1972, Ralph’s only son, Fred Turner, graduated from the University of Georgia and joined the firm. In 1996, Ralph’s middle daughter, Jane Turner, joined the firm. Dr. Pat Turner and her sister Jane Turner, along with Ernie Mosier and Cy Hume, are the current owners of the family business that was started by Pat and Jane's grandfather, A.S. Turner. A.S. Turner and Sons has seen funeral service through the times of a horse-drawn hearse that consisted of a carved-side, enclosed wagon and two beautiful white horses, to the time when the motor hearse was universally used, and funeral directors became part-time ambulance operators. Today, A.S. Turner & Sons remains as one of the largest family-owned funeral homes in Georgia.

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