International Funeral Directors (1926)
Gate on Kiaochow Road. 1926. The China Press. PastVu.
Building with the chapel, 1926. The China Press. PastVu.
International Funeral Directors 万国殡仪馆 opened in September 1926, on the southwest corner of Kiaochow and Sinza Roads (today’s Jiaozhou and Xinzha Roads 胶州路新闸路). The top photo shows the gate at 71 Kiaochow Road (later renumbered to 207 Kiaochow Road). The building in the lower photo also had the chapel, large enough to accommodate 120 guests. No trace of this place survives, unfortunately.
The founder of the International Funeral Directors was the American mortician Rostel O. Scott, born c. 1892. A graduate of the Renouard Training School of Embalmers, he had operated funeral parlors in New York before coming to Shanghai. Under Scott’s unchanging management, the International Funeral Directors became the most well-known funeral parlor in Shanghai. The last rites for the movie star Ruan Lingyu and the writer Lu Xun took place here, among many others.
The phone number of the International Funeral Directors - initially, West 6001 or 6002, later 34220 - could be dialed day or night. The employees would immediately drive and pick up the body, to have embalmed (“expert, scientific embalming”) and laid to a temporary rest in a “finest, foreign-made” casket in one of the reposing rooms with “splendid motor equipment”. The last rites could be performed in the non-sectarian chapel on the premises, or take place at the cemetery. The chapel, which saw mostly Christian and Masonic rites, was decorated with palm leaves and period furniture for vigil-keeping relatives. The room for children visitors was decorated like a bright nursery, with green wicker furniture and pink cushions. If cremation was selected, the services of the crematorium at the nearby Bubbling Well Cemetery were used; the urns and caskets with ashes would be stored in one of the two columbariums at the International Funeral Directors.
In March 1943, R. O. Scott was interned in the Chapei Camp, together with his wife Mary Scott, who had worked as her husband’s assistant in the funeral business, and daughter Alvarita. The Japanese authorities seized the premised of the International Funeral Directors and confiscated three hearses and several cars. After the end of the Pacific War, in August 1945, the camp prisoners were released, Scott reclaimed and renovated his premises, to relaunch the business in March 1946. A journalist of The China Press who surveyed the place after the renovation remarked that “unlike some other funeral parlor which make you hold your nose or shiver a little, International Funeral Directors has a simple, dignified and serene set-up.” R. O. Scott’s business operated in Shanghai as late as spring 1949.
Below are more images.
First advertising for IFD, in June 1926.
Casket of the US Marine Harvey Earl Dahlgreen, at IFD, in June 1933. PastVu.
Farewell rites for the General Yang Chien, vice-president of Academia Sinica and secretary general of China League for Civil Rights, on July 2, 1933. PastVu.
Last rites for the movie star Ruan Lingyu lasted for two days, ensuring large crowds outside the parlors of the International Funeral Directors, in March 1935. PastVu.
The hearth with the body of the writer Lu Xun is seen driving out of the gate of International Funeral Directors, October 22, 1936. PastVu
1939 Map from Shanghai Commercial Atlas, hosted at Virtual Shanghai.