Our Heritage

Our Heritage


CENTRAL CHAPEL – A Home for Funerals

CENTRAL CHAPELS represents the association of two fine firms, CENTRAL CHAPEL and THOMAS McINERNEY SONS FUNERAL HOME which came together in April, 2019.

Robert Moynihan, President of Central Chapels, became a funeral director in 1983. Two years later, the Central Chapel was built on the Southwest Side of Chicago, across the street from Chicago’s Midway Airport, at 6158 South Central Avenue. Originally built by Donald Feeley as Central Funeral Chapel, at a time when many firms had been sold to high cost, impersonal, national funeral chains. It was strategically built four blocks from a Blake-Lamb Chapel, owned by the SCI Dignity chain. The concept was to serve one family at a time, offering a homelike setting and "living room comfort." Central Chapel has all the amenities of a large firm: spacious coffee and reception room and on-premise casket display, yet it does not have the high costs and impersonal treatment we often experience when dealing with large institutions. Central Chapel is unique in offering undivided attention to each family served and offering a quiet, private environment for people in the days following the death of a loved one.

THOMAS McINERNEY’S SONS FUNERAL HOME, now McINERNEY CENTRAL CHAPEL, on the South Side at 4635 South Wallace Street, is the oldest funeral home in Chicago. The firm was established in 1873 and the landmark Wallace Street mortuary was built as funeral home in 1893. Thomas McInerney’s Sons has been a trusted name for funerals for over 150 years. They have served generation after generation in the same families while continually attracting new client families. They have a reliable reputation among families who have worked for our city, including Chicago Police Department and Chicago Fire Department families.

Thomas McInerney’s Sons had a second location from 1970 to 2010 on the Southwest Side of Chicago at 7901 South Komensky Avenue. That location has relocated to our Central Avenue chapel.

The merger of CENTRAL CHAPEL with THOMAS McINERNEY’S SONS was natural. Our Central Avenue location is convenient for families that have relocated to the Southwest Side from the Bridgeport and Canaryville neighborhoods and families that used to rely on the McInerney 79th Street Chapel. At the same time, CENTRAL CHAPEL has always served families in the Bridgeport, Canaryville, Back of the Yards and Brighton Park neighborhoods, so the Wallace Street chapel is an added convenience for these folks.

The unique contribution that CENTRAL CHAPEL and McINERNEY CENTRAL CHAPEL make to 21st-century funeral service in the Chicago area is that it integrates tradition with innovation, affordability with distinction, providing all of this by a remarkably exceptional, caring staff and seasoned funeral directors -- on the shoulders of a century and a half of service by our McInerney founders.

Robert Moynihan, Funeral Director and Founder of Central Chapel, has often been described as the quintessential funeral director. A gifted public speaker on the outside and a stickler for details on the inside, Bob Moynihan believes two things passionately:

1. Every life has meaning and should be honored.

2. Funerals are too expensive.


A torch was passed in November 2023, when Jennifer Berlongieri became one of two women, to our knowledge, in Cook County to own a funeral home that did not enter the business through family or marriage. Jennifer now owns Central Chapel and McInerney Central Chapel. Jennifer grew up in the South suburbs, although she has a lot of family in the Garfield Ridge neighborhood. She became a funeral director in 2006 and worked for Bob Moynihan at that time at Lain-Sullivan and Hirsch Funeral Homes. Jennifer showed herself to be a rare talent from the beginning. Bob remarked, "I do not recall another funeral director as gifted at dealing with grieving families as Jennifer. I take great pride in the fact that Jennifer will carry on the business we worked so hard to build and grow, someone who values our traditions and will continue our vision of being distinctive and affordable."

We are proud of our past, but it's who we are today that is making a difference, making us Chicago's leader in distinctive and affordable funeral care. If you have any questions about our past or our future, please feel free to call us at 773-581-9000 or contact us by email at https://www.chapelc.com/contact-us


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