Frisco Funeral Care Through the Years.
Late 1800s
Turrentine-Jackson-Morrow’s roots begin at Massie Livery Stable, serving Collin County families
c. 1904
Cabinet maker W. J. Wagoner handles undertaking from his livery stables
1924
W. T. Byrum buys the town’s undertaking business, run with a hardware store at 4th and Main
1932
Byrum opens Frisco’s first true funeral home in a brick house at 4th and Maple
1945
The Turrentine and Jackson families form Turrentine-Jackson Funeral Directors
1949
Benton and Maureen Staley purchase the funeral home from Byrum
1954 to 1960
Benton Staley serves as mayor of Frisco
1971
Harold and Leta Pemberton buy the business and start Pemberton Funeral Home
1972
Pemberton builds a new funeral home on Main Street, across from the Central Fire Station
1989
Jerry L. Cantrell and Turrentine-Jackson-Morrow purchase the Pemberton Funeral Home
Today
Turrentine-Jackson-Morrow Frisco, 8520 Main Street, Frisco, TX 75033
A History of the Funeral Business in Frisco, Texas
W. T. Byrum and Frisco's First Funeral Home
The story of Frisco’s funeral homes begins with W. T. Byrum, known in local accounts and newspapers of his day as Tom Byrum. Byrum bought the town’s existing undertaking business in 1924 and at first ran it as a combined hardware store and undertaking business out of the western half of the bank building at 4th and Main. By 1928, the Frisco Journal was already identifying him as the town’s local undertaker. In 1932 he moved it into a brick house at 4th and Maple purchased from the Nash family, and it became Frisco’s first true funeral home, complete with a funeral parlor and embalming room.
Like many small-town undertakers of the period, the Byrums lived where they worked. The family occupied the east side of the house and ran the business from the west side, which held the viewing parlor, offices, and embalming room. The home earned a lasting reputation among Frisco schoolchildren as the “haunted house” on Maple Street, a legend that owed more to playground lore and the pranks of the Byrum children than to any real ghosts.
Before Byrum, undertaking in Frisco had been a sideline for other trades. The earliest undertakers were cabinet makers, among them W. J. Wagoner, who worked out of his livery stables around 1904. Wagoner later sold to Fred McIntire and Carroll Montgomery, who ran a hardware store with an undertaking business in the back, brought in a licensed embalmer, and bought Frisco’s first motorized hearse. It was Byrum, however, who gave Frisco a dedicated funeral home.
The Staley Funeral Home
Byrum’s successor learned the trade under his roof. Benton A. Staley, whose ancestors had settled in Frisco in 1870, began working for W. T. Byrum as a boy and went on to become an undertaker and funeral director. He and his wife, Maureen Carter Staley, purchased the funeral home from Byrum in 1949 and moved into the Byrum house, continuing the tradition of a family living alongside the business. They operated the funeral home until 1971.
The Staleys were civic fixtures as much as funeral directors. Benton served as mayor of Frisco from 1954 to 1960 and was the founding president of both the Lions Club and the Frisco Youth Center, while Maureen served as president of the Frisco Garden Club. Frisco ISD later honored him by naming Staley Middle School for him. The Staleys remained in the house after retiring, until Maureen’s death in 1986 and Benton’s in 1988. The old Maple Street funeral home was later demolished to make way for a senior living community.
Pemberton Funeral Home
Harold Glen Pemberton and Leta Frances Baker, a nursing graduate, married in Wichita Falls in 1960 and later moved to Frisco, where they started Pemberton Funeral Home in 1971. They bought the business from the Staleys that year and operated from the west side of the Maple Street house for about a year, until they built a new funeral home in 1972 across from the Central Fire Station. That building on Main Street remains in use as a funeral home today.
Cantrell Funeral Home
In 1989, Jerry L. Cantrell, together with Turrentine-Jackson-Morrow, purchased the Pemberton Funeral Home. While Jerry Cantrell ran the business, it operated under the name Cantrell Funeral Home. Born in Blue Ridge, Texas, in 1942, Cantrell was a funeral director who owned Cantrell Funeral Home in both Frisco and Celina. He brought military mortuary experience to the work, having served during the Vietnam era with the headquarters U.S. Army Mortuary Unit in Frankfurt, Germany, from 1966 to 1968. He was also a past master and fifty-year member of the Blue Ridge Masonic Lodge and a recipient of the Golden Trowel Award.
Turrentine-Jackson-Morrow and Berkshire Chapel
When Jerry Cantrell retired, the funeral home took the name Turrentine-Jackson-Morrow, and today it is wholly owned by Turrentine-Jackson-Morrow. The partnership connected Frisco to a funeral lineage older than the town’s own. Turrentine-Jackson-Morrow’s roots trace to the late 1800s, when Massie Livery Stable provided transportation and burial goods to Collin County families; over the years the stable grew into a general store and then a funeral home offering embalming, casket sales, ambulance service, and burial insurance. In 1945, the Turrentine and Jackson families acquired the business and renamed it Turrentine-Jackson Funeral Directors. Today the firm is led by the third and fourth generations of the family.
The Main Street funeral home has a chapel seating 150 and two visitation rooms. Berkshire Chapel, across the street to the west, has a chapel that seats 200 and ample space for receptions or overflow crowds. Its services reflect how much Frisco has grown since Tom Byrum’s day. Turrentine-Jackson-Morrow Frisco serves Frisco, Prosper, Little Elm, and surrounding communities, provides on-site cremation through Ridgeview West Crematory, and serves families of all faiths, including culturally specific care for Hindu and Buddhist funeral services, with Ridgeview West Memorial Park a short drive away.
From a hardware store with an undertaking room in the back to a full-service funeral home serving one of the fastest-growing cities in America, Frisco’s funeral tradition has passed from Byrum to Staley to Pemberton to Cantrell and Turrentine-Jackson-Morrow, with each generation often entrusting its own final arrangements to the next.
Explore More Frisco History
Want to learn more about Frisco’s past? These local organizations and archives preserve the town’s history.
Frisco Heritage Center
The city’s historical park, with the Frisco Heritage Museum, restored buildings, and a steam locomotive.
Heritage Association of Frisco
A nonprofit that researches and shares Frisco history and offers genealogy help.
Frisco Journal on the Portal to Texas History
Digitized issues of Frisco’s first newspaper, published from 1902 to the 1950s.
The Frisco Enterprise on the Portal to Texas History
Digitized issues of the Frisco Enterprise from 1960 to 2003.
Frisco Public Library Genealogy Resources
Free online tools for tracing family history, including historical newspapers and census records.
Collin County Historical Commission
The county’s official history and preservation body, which marks and documents local landmarks.
Frisco Garden Club History
A timeline of Frisco’s oldest civic organization, founded in 1932.
Frisco Chamber of Commerce
The local business and community organization, with a directory of Frisco nonprofits and civic groups.