On June 10, the Henry M. Malburg Funeral Home celebrated its 40th anniversary with a party on the property. I was invited to the event and had a great time talking with people familiar with the Malburg family and looking through the funeral home's history.
One of the things that the celebration had was a memory book. It contained photographs from various parts of said history as well as blank sheets that people can write about their memories on. One picture that I noticed was the one seen above. That barn was once located on the Henry M. Malburg Funeral Home area and was moved 30 years ago this month.
According to Romeo Observer staff writer John Jamieson, that nineteenth-century English-style barn sat on the property of the funeral home on 32 Mile Road since it was built in Romeo's early days. Jamieson wrote an article about the building in the June 28, 1995 issue. Henry Malburg was going to demolish the barn to expand the funeral home's parking lot, but Romeo resident Patty Kelly bought it that year. Patty and her husband were preservationists and saw the outbuilding as a priceless treasure. She said, "For me, it's just something of the romance of things that have a history. You can see into the stable and note where horses kicked the wood. And you smell the hay. You see with the heart."
Henry was quite relived that he didn't have to destroy the barn. The plan was to relocate it from 32 Mile Road to where the Kellys resided on Benjamin Street. They wanted to use it as a car garage. In addition, Greg Antonelli - owner of Antonelli Construction - was going to restore the stable to its near-original condition.
They had to find a way to move the 38-by-26-foot barn, and luckily, they did. On June 30, 1995, the outbuilding was successfully relocated to Benjamin Street. How did the barn movers do it? First, they put it on a wheeled sled. Then, a building-mover truck drove it carefully to the new location. The barn movers were escorted by country road vehicles in case anything happened. To add more precaution, "crews from Ameritech and Detroit Edison removed telephone and power lines from the path of the barn."
The only thing that needed to be done after the move was rebuilding the stable doors to a different position due to zoning requirements.
This photo and others from that day were taken by Matt Smith. Some of them were displayed on the front page of the July 5, 1995 edition of The Romeo Observer.
The barn still resides on Benjamin Street to this very day. Even though it's no longer a part of the Henry M. Malburg Funeral Home, it's still a part of its history.
Happy 40th Birthday, Henry M. Malburg Funeral Home! Here's to another 40 years.
To learn more about the Henry M. Malburg Funeral Home and barn, you can contact the Romeo Community Archives at rca@romemodistrictlibrary.org or call (586) 690-4890.
Images and sources courtesy of the Romeo Community Archives; Melvin E. and Joan D. Bleich Collection, The Romeo Observer, June 28, 1995, p.3-B and July 5, 1995, p.1-A