Mortician co-owned Bryan funeral home
11/23/2005BRYAN - Ralph H. Greenisen, 82, former co-owner of the Greenisen and Tilton Funeral Home here, died Sunday in Mercy Hospital, Grayling, Mich., of injuries from a traffic accident earlier that day in that city.
Mr. Greenisen, a Salem, Ohio, native who was a Navy veteran of World War II, owned and later co-owned the business from 1949 until he retired in 1986.
A graduate of Salem High School and the Cincinnati College of Mortuary Science, he received his 50-year service award from Ohio's Funeral Directors's Association in 2001.
"He was a very compassionate funeral director, and he always did [everything] by the book," his daughter, Judith Ann Lewis, said.
After returning from the Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Chicago where he served during the war, Mr. Greenisen married Ruth Alice Stoudt and, in 1949, bought the former Krill Funeral Home in Bryan, which he renamed Greenisen Funeral Home.
He later went into partnership with Thomas A. Tilton and the business became Greenisen and Tilton Funeral Home.
In retirement, Mr. Greenisen enjoyed spending his summers at his Upper Peninsula cabin and winters at his Bryan home.
Mr. Greenisen was a member of the Wesley United Methodist Church, Bryan.
His other memberships included Bryan American Legion Post 284, of which he was a past commander; Bryan Rotary Club, of which he was a past president, and various Masonic organizations in Bryan and Toledo.
His wife died in 1988.
Surviving are his daughters, Judith Ann Lewis and Joyce Louise Greenisen; brother, Ray Jacob Greenisen; two grandchildren, and two great-granddaughters.
Services will be at 1:30 p.m. Saturday in the Burr Funeral Home and Crematory, Bryan, where the body will be after 2 p.m. Friday.
The family suggests tributes to Wesley United Methodist Church or the Bryan Area Foundation.