For 110 years the Scales family has stood at the corner of community and compassion in Rutherford County — answering a call no one wants to make, with the care every family deserves.
In 1916, the Scales family opened a funeral home at East State Street in Murfreesboro, Tennessee — establishing what would become Rutherford County's oldest continuously operating African-American family-owned funeral business. At a time when segregation shaped every dimension of community life, the Scales family answered a need that no one else in the county was filling for Black families.
It was not a business conceived for profit. It was a calling. The founding generation understood that death required dignity — that every family, regardless of means or station, deserved someone to carry them through with care and without judgment.
The home grew slowly, deliberately. Word traveled as it always does in close communities: through churches, through neighbors, through the quiet testimony of families who had been well served in their worst moment.
The Scales family establishes a funeral home in Murfreesboro, becoming the first African-American family to offer these services in Rutherford County. East State Street becomes home.
The home continues to serve Rutherford County through economic hardship and the Second World War. Veterans returning to Murfreesboro become part of the family we carry.
As Murfreesboro moves through the Civil Rights era, Scales & Sons remains a pillar of the African-American community — a place of gathering, dignity, and resilience on East State Street.
The second generation of the Scales family carries the home forward, expanding services and deepening the family's roots in Rutherford County. The name "Scales & Sons" takes hold.
The third generation leads the home through Murfreesboro's rapid growth — the city expands, the county changes, but the Scales family stays at the same address, serving the same community.
Tonya Scales Haynes takes ownership and directorship of the home — the fourth generation of her family to lead it, and the first woman to do so. The home enters its second century.
Scales & Sons Funeral Home marks 110 years of uninterrupted service to Rutherford County — the oldest African-American family-owned funeral home in the county's history.
Every family that comes through our door is treated with the same respect, the same patience, and the same care — regardless of budget, background, or belief.
When you call Scales & Sons, you speak to a Scales, or someone who has served this community for years. Not a national chain. Not a stranger. A neighbor.
Death does not keep office hours. Neither do we. Our 24-hour line has been answered every day for 110 years. It will be answered tonight, and tomorrow, and always.
We are not a corporation. We are not a chain. We are a Rutherford County family that has chosen to serve this community for four generations and counting.
"110 years is not a marketing number. It is 110 years of families who trusted us with the weight of goodbye."
Scales & Sons Funeral Home · Est. 1916Tonya Scales Haynes and Pastor Derrick Jackson are here to help.