Simkins Expands Due To On-Site Funerals

Simkins Funeral Home in Morton Grove is building a larger chapel to accommodate more on-site services and bigger crowds. It's partly driven by a trend toward cremation, which is a cost-effective way to hold a funeral.

  If you've wondered what's going on with the construction on Dempster Street, Simkins Funeral Home, the longest-running locally-owned business in Morton Grove, is undergoing its first expansion since 1957.  The new $150,000 addition, projected for completion by the end of this month, is being built out to the sidewalk on Dempster for the home, operating at its present site since 1946 and owned by brothers Bill, Jim and Mike Simkins. With more people having one-day services, which include the visitation and funeral in the same day, the funeral home needed more room to accommodate crowds that come in a two-hour visitation time, rather than spread throughout the evening as in a traditional wake, Jim Simkins explained. “We’ve basically …

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