Ambulance methods have changed over the years

(Editor's Note: This is the second in a short series of articles on ambulance service in Pontiac.)

In 1952, Ed Behrendt bought out Ira Irwin and got into the funeral home business. With the purchase came the acquisition of the ambulance service.

It was more the norm in those days for a funeral home to also run an ambulance service, if for anything else because the funeral home director had a vehicle capable of transporting patients to and from the hospital.

Mike Linskey, who worked for Mr. Behrendt for a time, as did Linskey's father, Tim, recalled that Mr. Behrendt was a World War II veteran, serving as a medic with the Navy. He said that Behrendt went to mortuary school and eventually purchased the Irwin Funeral Home.

When he bought it from Irwin, there were two black Cadillacs as the ambulance fleet and they had red parking lights, Mike Linskey said. “Ed bought a 1956 Mercury station wagon.”

That wasn't the only upgrade that would be made in the Behrendt ambulance fleet over the years.

“He was really interested in the ambulance business,” Linskey said of Behrendt. “Anything new and different, he would by as far as equipment.”

As time marched forward, so did improvements in the ambulance world. The style was moving from the lower station wagon types to something with more room. By the 1960s, vans were becoming popular in American culture.

“When he bought that van in '64, that raised some eyebrows around here,” Linskey said, noting that people were surprised of the change at the time. “He brought a Ford booklet to the house and there was a picture of a brown van. He said, 'that's what I'm getting for an ambulance, what do you think?' My dad was, “I don't know, Ed.' It was tan and he bought it.”

Behrendt bought the van in 1964, and then got a white van around 1970. Unlike today, the ambulance was a just a van and the owner had to put in the equipment.

“Back then you made your own ambulance,” Linskey said. “My dad and Ed, they wired it, they put the cot hooks in them, the wiring for the red lights and sirens and the radios. It was all home constructed. He kept the stations wagon, along with the van for two ambulances. The van was the first out for emergencies.”

Among the things added to the ambulances, certainly by the 1960s, was the radio.

“When they went on an emergency call, they had a direct radio to St. James. They called the patient's condition in and that sort of thing,” Linskey said. “Back in the '60s, Ed Behrendt was a very good friend of the sheriff, a fellow named Joe Alltop. Joe gave Ed a county police radio to put into the ambulance, so when they were running with a patient, Ed would call Livingston County dispatch center, have them call St. James. They would call St. James for Ed.”

The current Duffy-Baier-Snedecor Funeral Home had the ambulance business that actually evolved from the Ira Irwin Funeral Home. The lineage of the current Duffy-Baier-Snedecor Funeral Home can be traced to Pape Funeral Home, which became Irwin, which became Behrendt in 1952, which became Duffy in 1980 before Duffy-Baier-Snedecor in 2010.

Certainly from Irwin through Duffy-Baier-Snedecor, there was an ambulance service connected to the funeral home.

It wasn't the only in town, either. Linskey and Joe Stock said they knew of Raleigh J. Harris Funeral Home having an ambulance service until 1981. And, there was a third funeral home in Pontiac way back when — Harper and Roth Funeral Home, which was located just east of where Trainor BP is now located on Howard Street — that also had an ambulance service.

The Irwin Funeral Home was located where the Curt Myers law office is on Madison Street.

Linskey said that when the Duffy-Baier-Snedecor Funeral Home moved to its current location, among the items found during cleanup was a bench sold to Pape Funeral Home and that Ira Irwin had signed for it.

The Pape Funeral Home was located on Washington Street, Linskey said.

Duffy Ambulance became a fixture in downtown Pontiac with its location at the southwest corner of the Howard and Chicago intersection. It was in the old Arnolts Gas Station, just east of the former Daily Leader building and across Chicago Street from the funeral home.

In September of 2014, a fire started in the Wright's Furniture warehouse just south of the ambulance facility. The fire destroyed the warehouse and the ambulance shed, which then created a need to move elsewhere since the facility had been grandfathered into its location after city ordinances regarding zoning made rebuilding such a facility in that location impossible.

The ambulance business changed location to the Walker Wire building on the edge of town along the Route 66 bypass.

“Robby Ruff let us in there and Troy Schuler also helped us,” Joe Stock said. “They helped us a lot by letting us go up there. We there until the end.”

There is still an Ed Behrendt presence in Pontiac as his daughter, Mary Lee Williams still resides in town, Linskey said.

This article originally appeared on Pontiac Daily Leader: Behrendt Ambulance Duffy Mike Linskey funeral homes