History of Fox & FRIEND Funeral Home

THE STANFORD FEMALE COLLEGE

Fox & Friend Funeral Home is located in Stanford, Kentucky's second oldest town. Our building was born by an act of the Kentucky Legislature on February 26, 1869, when it became Stanford Female College. In April 1873, an act was passed by the Stanford Female College incorporators to make subscriptions to the capital stock of the college, and there were empowered to erect a building not to exceed $4,000. A large amount, of this money, was raised locally by subscription, and a red brick building was erected on the north side of Main Street, just west of Somerset Street.

The west section of the building was erected first; later added to, with the older portion used to board students. Stanford Female College was a first-class institution and was very successful from the beginning until its closure in 1907. After the closing of the school, the building housed Stanford Elementary school until the 1930's when it was converted into an apartment complex by Stith and Mary Catherine Noe.

The Stanford Female College Historical Marker was dedicated on April 25, 2015, on the lawn at Fox & Friend Funeral Home. The ceremony was hosted by the Friend Family.

THE FUNERAL HOME ERA

In 1939, the Noe's sold the building to John A. Ball and Gilbert "Gip" Morgan and it was opened as Ball & Morgan Funeral Home in April 1939. In 1948, Ball sold his interest, in the company to Morgan.

In 1961, Bill Fox partnered with Morgan. In 1965, he bought Morgan's interest in the company, and the funeral home became Fox Funeral Home.

On September 4, 1985, Fox Funeral Home was purchased by Barnett & Demrow Funeral and Monument Company. In addition to Dan Barnett and Bill Demrow, Scottie Ernst would join the partnership in owning the Funeral Home.

On August 6, 1998, Barnett, Demrow, and Ernst, sold the funeral home to a corporation based in Houston, Texas. The corporation owned the funeral home for 14 years.

On August 28, 2012, John David & Mary Benton Friend purchased the funeral home from the Texas-based corporation. As of today, the funeral home is back to being

LOCALLY OWNED AND OPERATED.

In April 2015, the funeral home changed the name to Fox & Friend Funeral Home, to reflect the funeral home being owned by the Friend Family.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Our heritage in the funeral business is quite interesting and historical. We are proud to have the funeral home ledgers from 1903 to today. We also have the ledgers of the past merged funeral homes of Beazley Funeral Home of Stanford, and Howard Funeral Home of Crab Orchard, KY. Our funeral home opened as Ball & Morgan Funeral Home from 1939-1948, then became Morgan Funeral Home until 1961, and then Morgan & Fox Funeral Home until 1965, Fox Funeral Home until April 2015, and now Fox & Friend Funeral Home.