Menu
Historic door given new life
rned into a piece of furniture for Mary Kay Beaman.
Beaman, who owns Mary Kay's Place, an antique shop on the square in Uniontown, purchased the door years ago.
"Several years ago, Phillip Shull came to my shop and asked me if I would be interested in a door stored in his garage," Beaman said.
Beaman went to Shull's home and looked at the door.
"It was a big door (seven feet tall) with 'Undertakers Department' painted on the front," she said.
Shull told Beaman that his home at 201 Washington Street in Uniontown had been the first mortuary in Bourbon County.
Beaman purchased the door from Shull.
Fast-forward several years, Beaman showed the door to her friend, Mary Fenoglio, from Pittsburg.
"She suggested she could make a cabinet with it as a door. Mary is a very talented furniture maker," Beaman said.
Beaman had the door made into a cabinet which will find its resting place in her home. The door now opens to a five-shelved cabinet for some of Beaman's possessions.
"Now it's the door to a beautiful cabinet with shelves that I can store my treasures in," Beaman said.
George Konantz's story
Beaman then sought the history of the funeral home in Uniontown by calling Cheney.
"Mike Cheney said 'Yes, the mortuary was at 201 Washington from 1889, then moved to Fort Scott'," Beaman said.
"I don't think it was the first funeral home (in the county)," Mike Cheney of Konantz-Cheney Funeral home in Fort Scott said. "There were two or three that had gone by the wayside that were there before."
The Konantz Funeral Home was founded by George A. Konantz, who worked for the Goodlander Lumber Company, and was later made manager of the Uniontown and Bronson lumberyards, according to the Konantz-Cheney Funeral Home website. As manager of the lumberyards, Konantz was frequently requested to build a wooden coffin or casket. Konantz was a deeply religious and highly respected man in the community.
"Back then, because he could build a casket and was a religious guy,so he could say a few nice words, the lumberyard transitioned to a funeral home," Cheney said.
George Konantz began his career as a funeral home director in 1889, Cheney said. The site for the funeral home was 201 Washington in Uniontown, located on the southwest corner of the Uniontown square.
Konantz was among the first group of licensed embalmers in Kansas in April of 1900.
He moved to Fort Scott from Uniontown in 1903, and opened the Konantz Funeral Home, according to the Konantz-Cheney website. At that time, the Konantz Funeral Home was located at the corner of Wall and National Avenue, Cheney said.