Dedicated care

Though times have changed and our business has expanded, our commitment to compassionate care, attention to detail and creative funeral solutions has always remained strong.

Located in Orange Park, Hardage-Giddens Rivermead Funeral Home welcomes you with a professional team and a pledge to guide you through one of the more personal and challenging stages of life. We understand that losing a loved one is a difficult, emotional experience, and we are here for you. Our manager, Paul W. Altman, has served his friends and neighbors as funeral director since 1968. Chances are good that he has cared for someone you know.

Hardage-Giddens Rivermead Funeral Home was remodeled in 2009. The facility includes a lovely chapel with stained glass windows and sits adjacent to Jacksonville Memory Gardens Cemetery.

Personalized funeral care

Hardage-Giddens Rivermead Funeral Home believes a funeral or memorial should be as unique as the person it honors. In fact, we take great pride in creating perfectly personalized services that beautifully capture the essence of you or your loved one.

First, we help you find inspiration. Maybe it's in a song or a hobby. It could be a trademark style or a lifelong passion. Everyone has something that has informed their life. We turn that inspiration into a truly unique service filled with thoughtful and meaningful details.

You may want a traditional funeral service in our chapel followed by a catered reception, or you may opt for direct cremation with a scattering in the Atlantic Ocean. Or perhaps the occasion calls for a no-holds-barred celebration, complete with live music, favorite foods, personal tributes and hand-selected mementos. Either way—or anywhere in between—you'll find that there's no limit to the special memorial we can create.

From guitars to golf, crab cakes to cupcakes, bird-shaped urns to blue marble monuments, we take the things that mattered to someone and string them together to create a singular, heartfelt service.

Everything you expect and more

We are a member of the Dignity Memorial^® network of funeral, cremation and cemetery service providers. When you choose a Dignity Memorial^® provider, you get not only the warm, friendly service you expect from a locally operated establishment, but also the value you deserve.

Please call us for immediate assistance planning a funeral or if you would like more information about our services.

History

The history and tradition of Hardage-Giddens funeral homes begins nearly 90 years ago and has touched thousands of Florida lives.

The Hardage side of things

In 1929, Hugh Hardage Sr. and Ralph Williams opened a mortuary at 517 Park St., in the Riverside area of Jacksonville. They called it Hardage & Williams Funeral Home. The company became Hardage & Sons when Ralph retired in 1944 and 4 of Hugh's sons (Hugh Jr., Robert, Gordon and Richard) became partners in the family business. Hugh Sr. died in 1964, and his sons continued operations, expanding by acquiring Estes-Krauss Funeral Home in 1971.

Giddens gets its start

Meanwhile, in 1932, elsewhere in Jacksonville, T.J. Giddens and J.D. McEwen opened the first Giddens Funeral Home, at 85 Riverside Ave. T.J. operated the firm; J.D. was a silent partner and sold his interest to T.J. 3 years later. In 1941, T.J. moved the original funeral home to 116 Riverside Ave.

Ronald Giddens joined his father as a partner in the funeral home in 1947. His first funeral home to open was on S. 3rd St. in Jacksonville Beach. It now operates as Beaches Chapel by Hardage-Giddens, on Beach Boulevard.

In 1960, William Griffith became a partner until his retirement in 1972. In 1970, Ronald opened Edgewood Chapel in the city's Murray Hill neighborhood.

Hardage and Giddens join forces

The firms of Hardage & Sons and Giddens-Griffith merged in 1972, though they operated separately under their respective names. Each continue to expand throughout the city of Jacksonville. In the mid-1980s, the names were merged.

Now all of the homes fall under the Hardage-Giddens Funeral Homes umbrella, and all are members of the Dignity Memorial^® network of funeral, burial, cremation and cemetery service providers.

Ronald, along with his daughter, Robin Giddens Sheppard, remains active in the business, upholding a legacy of excellence and integrity in the community, along with a staff of nearly 200 employees at 11 funeral homes and 5 cemeteries in Florida's Duval and Clay counties.

Hardage-Giddens Rivermead Funeral Home manager Paul W. Altman went to work at Hardage & Sons in 1968 and continues to serve Jacksonville-area families to this day.