P hillips & Luckey Funeral Home was established January of 1936. Opening that year was Rockdale and Caldwell with Giddings opening in 1938. There was also a Phillips & Luckey Funeral Home in Belton, Texas but was closed years ago. Today Phillips & Luckey still operates funeral homes in Rockdale, Giddings and Caldwell with a office and visitation area in Lexington.

Phillips & Luckey was established by E.B. Phillips & P.E. Luckey. Prior to opening the funeral homes they formed Phillips & Luckey Burial Association that grew to be the largest Burial Association in the State of Texas.

P.E. Luckey and E.B. Phillips both worked for Henne and Meyer Hardware where they also sold coffins. Henne and Meyer closed in 1933 due to the Depression. Mr. Phillips was a licensed undertaker and Mr. Luckey was a carpenter. Mr. Phillips kept the ofice and did the embalming and since they had no money for the purchase of coffins, Mr. Luckey built them in a workship behind his home. This home was located just west of the present City Hall.

The first funeral home was located at 240 Burleson in a large home. On Thanksgiving Day 1943 the home burned to the ground. The funeral home was rebuilt at that same site. World War II was going on and the lumber and other materials were hard to come by. As the story goes, because they built caskets they were able to get the materials to build a new funeral home.

Later Mr. Luckey's son Don Luckey and Mr. Phillips's Son-In-Law Boswell Newton joined the funeral home and later became owners of the funeral homes and insurance company and becoming the second generation to operate Phillips & Luckey Co.

After the death of Boswell Newton and later Don Luckey, the funeral homes in Rockdale, Giddings and Caldwell were sold to two long time employees, Clyde Jones and wife Wilma of Rockdale and Alfred Zoch and wife Vernelle of Giddings in May of 1972. The sale did not include the insurnace company. The insurance company later sold in 1980 to Landmark Life Insurance Co. in Brownwood, Texas. The funeral homes kept the name of Phillips & Luckey Funeral Home and the only change was moving the Rockdale office from 233 N. Main to the funeral home at 240 Burleson. Phillips & Luckey also formed the Pre Need Corporation to offer pre paid funeral program. Phillips & Luckey was one of the early pioneers in Texas to form a pre arrangement trust. We still maintain the Pre Need Corporation.