Historic funeral home in Collinsville seriously damaged by truck crashing into chapel
A white Ford truck with Missouri license plates crashed into the historic brick building that houses Kassly-Meridith Funeral Home in Collinsville early Sunday morning.
The male driver was taken to a hospital by Collinsville Fire Department, according to Major Brett Boerm, assistant chief with Collinsville Police Department.
“It is my understanding that the gentleman either lost control or didn’t navigate the turn appropriately and proceeded to drive his (truck) through the side door,” Boerm said.
No one else was injured.
Police aren’t releasing the driver’s name because he hasn’t been ticketed, but that’s likely to happen in the future, Boerm said.
When asked if the man was intoxicated, Boerm said, “It’s still under investigation, but preliminary reports at the scene ... The answer to that, we believe, is ‘no.’ But we’re still following up.”
The former Herbert A. Kassly Funeral Home at 515 Vandalia St. (Illinois 159) was built in the 1930s. On Sunday and Monday, a parade of local residents drove by to view the damage, according to neighbors.
The truck knocked out a column on the porte-cochere (covered drive-thru entrance) and went up several concrete steps before plowing through the door, scattering bricks on either side.
Jim Meridith, owner of Highland-based Meridith Funeral Home, is in the process of buying the landmark business.
“Thankfully, no one was killed or injured too seriously (in the accident),” he said, noting that the truck’s driver was standing in the parking lot talking to police before he was taken to the hospital.
Building at risk of more damage
Meridith has been trying to quickly find a structural-engineering company that can properly evaluate what needs to be done and stabilize the porte-cochere enough to remove the truck.
Few such companies are open on Sunday.
“I don’t know how much longer the canopy will hold, honestly,” Meridith said Monday afternoon. “It has fallen since (the accident) happened, going on 36 hours ago. It has already dipped down, we think, another six inches or a foot.”
The funeral home had no bodies in the building on Sunday.
Meridith plans to continue operating by holding services at churches, private halls or his other metro-east locations until the Collinsville building is repaired.
The crash caused serious damage to the funeral home’s chapel, which has solid-oak pews, stained-glass windows and ornate light fixtures shaped like the papal tiara (pope’s hat).
“Something hit the far wall and broke it apart, and it moved,” Meridith said. “Some doors are broken. We’ve got rock and debris all the way through the chapel into the hallway and even into the other room.”
The half-moon-shaped stained-glass window above the side door where the truck entered is hanging at an angle. Some of the other windows are loose, and one has two broken panes.
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Neighbors heard loud ‘explosion’
The crash woke up several neighbors who came outside to see what was going on about 3 a.m. Sunday.
Gary Carvelot, who lives across Keebler Street from the funeral home, described the sound as “like a bomb or an explosion,” but he thought it was just loud thunder at first and stayed in bed.
Then Carvelot’s dog started barking a second time. Carvelot got up to look out the window and saw flashing lights on emergency vehicles.
“I think (the truck) went through the grass between the cul-de-sac and Kassly Funeral Home then hit the pavement of the Kassley parking lot and went airborne, hit the post and went straight in,” Carvelot said.
The truck’s driver escaped through the front window, which no longer had a windshield; climbed over the top of the cab and exited from the bed, according to neighbors.
“I couldn’t really see if he was hurt,” Carvelot said. “There were so many lights. But they took him on a stretcher to the hospital.”
The former Kassly Funeral Home company was founded in 1906 by John Kassly in East St. Louis, according to a history written by Collinsville historian Lois Metzger. John’s son, Herbert, bought the old Keith Funeral Home in Collinsville in 1936.
Herbert renamed the business Herbert A. Kassly Funeral Home, which operated out of Keith’s building at 313 Vandalia St. while a new building at 515 Vandalia St. was being constructed.
“It became a city of Collinsville landmark property in 2008,” said Leslee Hamilton, head of the genealogy department at Collinsville Memorial Library.
Herbert’s son, Paul Kassly, operated the business until his death in 2019. Meridith Funeral Home began the process of buying it last year. That company also owns funeral homes in Highland, Lebanon, Pocahontas, West Salem, Allendale, Albion and Cisne.
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This story was originally published August 24, 2021 at 7:00 AM.
