Special Affinity for the Police : Mortician’s Rites Free to the Fallen

Police officers put their “butts on the block” every day, according to Elmer E. Geissler, a man who feels a special affinity toward them because his father is a 24-year veteran of the San Diego Fire Department and five of his in-laws are San Diego police officers.

Geissler, who runs Clairemont Mortuary on Mt. Abernathy Avenue, is not in the charity business, he said, but he does like to help people.

And for nine years now, Geissler has put his funeral home at the disposal--free--of the families of public service officers killed in the line of duty.

Geissler is handling the arrangements for San Diego Police Officer Thomas E. Riggs, who was shot to death Sunday night. Funeral services for Riggs were scheduled for 11 a.m. today at the First Methodist Church on Camino del Rio South in Mission Valley.

Geissler also donated his services for the funerals of Kimberly Tonahill and Timothy Ruopp, the San Diego police officers killed in September in Balboa Park. Ruopp was Riggs’ brother-in-law.

“It makes me feel good inside to know that I can help someone,” said the tall, soft-spoken Geissler, a San Diego native. “We’ll get along better in this world if we can give a little and get nothing in return.”

The families of firefighters, sheriff’s deputies and police officers who put their lives on the line daily can count on his help in coping during a difficult period in their lives.

Geissler didn’t plan to become a mortician; a series of events led him into the profession.

In 1946, Geissler served three years in the Army Air Force as a member of an air-sea rescue team in Japan. Geissler, only 18 at the time, said that being near the ill and injured frightened him. But after he returned to San Diego in 1949, Geissler served a two-year apprenticeship at a mortuary.

Later he worked as a driver for Air City Ambulance Service, now Hartson’s. In 1953, he joined the staff of Goodbody’s Mortuary, holding down such jobs as floral arranger and limousine driver. He had arrived, he said, in the mortuary business.

San Diego police officers seek out the tranquility of his mortuary, Geissler said; some visit the mortuary several times a week to relax, sip coffee, eat doughnuts and prepare reports in a small lounge at the rear of the building. It gives them a change after sitting in a patrol car all day, he said.

Geissler knows his actions won’t change the world, but he said he sleeps well at night knowing he has helped someone.