History & Staff

Our History

In 1923, Paul Cook, an 11 year old farm boy from Grant County, Kentucky, moved to Bristol, Tennessee, to live with his uncle, J. W. Huff and the Huff family, in their apartment above the new funeral home at 101 Pennsylvania Avenue in Bristol, Tennessee. He arrived just in time to help move the firm from the old "undertaking parlor" on State Street to the new building, claimed to be “the largest and most modern funeral home facility in the entire area.” Paul Cook followed his uncle in the funeral service profession and went on to serve Bristol and the surrounding area as a funeral director and embalmer for more than fifty years. The Pennsylvania Avenue location was operated as Huff and Campbell Funeral Home, J. W. Huff Funeral Service, Huff-Cook Funeral Home, and Paul Cook Funeral Home, when Paul Cook purchased the Huff family interest in the firm in 1942.

Sid Oakley began working at Paul Cook Funeral Home in 1961 when he was 14 years old. He purchased the funeral home on November 1, 1978, and he and Paul Cook managed the firm together until Mr. Cook‘s death on January 5, 1981. In July of 1981, Sid and his wife, Joyce, purchased a building and 1-1/2 acres of land on Volunteer Parkway in Bristol, totally renovated the property, and opened Oakley-Cook Funeral Home on January 10, 1982. The Pennsylvania Avenue firm was closed in March of that year. The firm became Oakley-Cook Funeral Home and Crematory when what is still the only crematory in Bristol and Sullivan County was installed in April of 1993.