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Farming For A Better Future, page 382
(Above) Seal and Photographs of the Owners of Royal Funeral Home (royalfh.com)
until 1946, his wife, Carrie Parker Binford and their daughter, Helen Binford, operated the business until they sold it and moved to Pennsylvania to be near family.
The funeral home and accompanying house at 534 Gallatin Street was sold to Lawrence B. and Amanda Rice Hundley. It was the Hundleys who changed the name to Royal Funeral Home. In 1967, the second generation of Hundleys took over the business, James A. and Barbara Hundley Jones.
The RFH, Huntsville's oldest black-owned business, is currently located northwest of downtown after the urban renewal projects, which affected much of the community of color, forced the funeral home to move
“When only memories remain, let them be beautiful,” slogan
in 1972. They relocated to 4315 Oakwood Avenue. The current owners, Karen Jones Smith and her husband, David W. Smith, are the third generation to own and operate the business. As of 2018, the home has been operating for 100 years, 59 of which are in the same family. Over the past century, the Royal Funeral Home has been an essential and significant part of the community of color for many generations of Huntsvillians.
The Scruggs Family
Born a slave in 1860, Dr. Burgess E. Scruggs (18601934) is remembered for being the first physician of color in Huntsville, or Madison County. In 1890,
there were only approximately 900 physicians of color in the entire United States. He also served four terms as a city alderman from 1880-1905, and he was a lifetime member of the Lakeside AME Church in Huntsville, alongside fellow aldermen of color. Dr.
(Above) Ad for Dr. B. E. Scruggs, M. D. Offices on Clinton Street from The Journal, Huntsville, Alabama, January 11, 1895 (Right) Portrait of Dr. Scruggs in 1904 (Huntsville Revisited Facebook Page)
(Top) Excerpt from 1900 Federal Census Showing Scruggs and Family (National Archives and Records Administrations via Ancestry.com) (Above) Excerpt from 1910 Federal Census Showing Scruggs and Family (National Archives and Records Administrations via Ancestry.com)
Scruggs married Sophie Davis Scruggs (1862-c.1925) in 1881. Ms. Scruggs was a school teacher and served as principal at the Councill School in 1906.
Dr. Scruggs is laid to rest in the historic Glenwood Cemetery. Many of the families that previously lived in Pond Beat and Mullins Flat that were interviewed by Redstone in the late 1990s and early 2000s recalled Dr. Scruggs being their physician. The Scruggs Community Center near the Huntsville-Madison County Public Library and the old William H. Councill High School was named in his honor. - (4910)