Dennis R. Murphy, 70, a funeral director at the Hennessey Funeral Home & Crematory in Spokane, Wash., on his 1939 Henney Packard hearse, as told to A.J. Baime.

For many years during the middle of the 20th century, the Henney Motor Co. of Freeport, Ill., built hearses out of Packard cars. The one you see here was commissioned by an upscale funeral home in Virginia and was delivered in 1939. The funeral home used it until 1963, at which point it became a rock-band car. The person who owned it before me found it in a...