TIFTON — The Frank and Solomon Nixon Funeral Home was inducted into the National Funeral Directors and Morticians Association Hall of Fame at that organization’s national convention, which took place August 4-9.

The NFD&MA is the largest  and oldest national association of African American funeral directors, morticians and embalmers.

Several funeral homes from Georgia, Florida and Alabama were selected, including the Nixon’s Funeral Home was one.

“They selected several funeral homes that were long-standing pillars of the community who exemplify funeral service to the best degree,” said Solomon Nixon Jr., third generation funeral director of the family-owned business, which has been in operation since 1925.

Nixon’s brother Ronald Nixon, father Solomon Nixon, and grandfather Frank Nixon all worked in the business.

The fourth generation has started working with nephew James Nixon, who currently assists, and Solomon Nixon III, age seven, helping out with services.

“If you talk to any funeral director who started in the business, they always started at the ground floor,” Solomon Nixon Jr. said. “My first job was to make sure the limousines were clean and the whitewalls on the limousines were white. We didn’t have vacuum cleaners, so we used to use little switch brooms. So with him, he’ll vacuum the floor, he’ll do our board for services… he’s gotten involved early.

“It was kind of amazing to look at some other funeral homes that were honored going back to 1905,” Solomon Nixon Jr. said. “Being there and receiving the honor with everyone else was just fantastic. To see that history and to see how we’ve been able to make an impact on people throughout the funeral service industry was great.”

He said that receiving the honor was great because of his family’s long history of being of service to the community and its people.

“Just to be honored and to have our family, from our patriarchs and matriarchs, all the way to our present day funeral directors receiving that honor was great, just great,” Solomon Nixon Jr. said. “It lets me know that we’re on the right path and that continued service to people is really what’s needed.”

As part of the induction, the Nixons were asked to put together a scrapbook outlining the history of the funeral home.

When the family began looking for records, they discovered documents going all the way back to the beginning of the family’s business impact in the area.

Nixon said that the family was very meticulous in keeping records of all their undertakings.

“Any services they did, from picking up someone who had passed away, to embalming or doing hair, every little thing they always recorded those documents,” Nixon said.

The Nixon family had a grocery store; ran the Citizen’s Burial League (which offered burial insurance to pay for funerals); parceled out land and sold mortgages for homes; and owned and ran the only hotel for African Americans in Tifton in addition to the funeral home, which was started in 1925 by Nixon’s grandfather, Frank, and two partners, the Rev. Jake Parson and Matt Wilson.

“Our book was huge,” said Sharon Nixon, Solomon’s wife. “We had several extenders in the scrapbook by the time we finished, but it was a great journey for us and we were very blessed and fortunate to have records going back to the 1920s.”

She said that going through the records was a wonderful experience.

“Not only were we chronicling our funeral home history and the impact the funeral home and the various family members who led the funeral home have had in Tifton and Tift County, we were also seeing the history of the county and the country in the documents and photographs we found,” Sharon said.

Unbeknownst to the Nixons, the scrapbooks were judged during the convention and their scrapbook won first place for Georgia.

“That scrapbook goes into the archives for the national association,” Sharon said. “So our history will be recorded in their Hall of Fame and in their records, so it’s a huge honor.”