The Disappearance of a Distinctively Black Way ​to Mourn

By Tiffany Stanley

A funeral procession in Monroe, Georgia, for George Dorsey and Dorothey Dorsey Malcolm, who were lynched in 1946.
A funeral procession in Monroe, Georgia, for George Dorsey and Dorothey Dorsey Malcolm, who were lynched in 1946.

As many African American-owned funeral homes close, the communities they serve are losing a centuries-old means of grieving—and protest.

As a child, Richard Ables played hide-and-seek with his brother among the caskets. He has spent his entire life in the family business, the Hall Brothers Funeral Home, founded in Washington, D.C., by his uncles in 1938. Along with the funeral parlor down the street, they once buried nearly everyone in LeDroit Park, the historically African American neighborhood in the heart of the nation’s capital.

Now 73, Ables still runs Hall Brothers, though the business isn’t what it once was. Its historic brick row home is aging alongside its proprietor. There’s water damage on the ceiling tiles, and the front parlor’s carpet is matted down to a threadbare pile. The steep stairs out front aren’t accessible for all customers, and the property taxes are high. Ables wants to make improvements, but he says it’s hard to get loans for the space’s upkeep. “I would like for the firm to continue on and on and on,” he says, “but that’s up in the air.”

For more than a century, black funeral directors have been serving black communities in the United States, keeping African American funeral traditions alive. But now those institutions, which withstood segregation and prospered through it, are struggling to survive as market forces change. The largest black trade group in the industry, the National Funeral Directors & Morticians Association, or NFDMA, does not track the number of black-owned funeral homes in the U.S. But the organization’s director, Carol Williams, says its membership is shrinking—today, the NFDMA represents 1,200 members, compared to a reported 2,000 members in 1997. Many, she says, “cannot afford to keep their doors open.”

Black funeral traditions are distinctive from other burial rituals in American culture. Funeral directors have long preserved the African American tradition of homegoings, as these Christian ceremonies are often called: Bodies are typically viewed in an open casket, and a richly adorned one at that, with large floral arrangements and ornate fabrics. There are limousines and nice cars to escort families, which lends a sense of pride and pageantry to the lengthy rituals.

“To give a peaceful, celebratory homegoing, it’s the whole idea of a celebration of life,” says Karla F.C. Holloway, a professor of English, law, and African American studies at Duke University. It’s become part of black burial traditions, she says—even though “it is a contradiction to the ways in which many black bodies come to die.”

Homegoings can offer black Americans the respect in death that they don’t always receive in life. Black funeral spaces also provide refuge for the living: A family in mourning can be comforted and understood within a community institution, away from an often-racist world. Mourners can feel at home during an otherwise disorienting moment, knowing their traditions will be honored without question. “Culture and practice and ritual are known and remembered in a black funeral home,” Holloway says. “And that matters in a time of grief.”

Untimely death and dying marked the African American experience at its beginning—from mortality-plagued transatlantic voyages to the violence of forced labor and the privation of the slave quarters. Surrounded by these unnecessary deaths, funeral ceremonies were an urgent and central rite in slave communities. They also formed the foundation of the black church tradition.

From their earliest incarnations, black funerals were political, subversive—a talking back to the powers that be. Particularly in the 17th and 18th centuries, if slaves were allowed to bury their own dead and craft their own rituals, away from the overseeing eyes of whites, they could plan for their freedom, spiritually and physically.

In Richmond, Virginia, in 1800, a slave named Gabriel plotted an insurrection at an enslaved child’s funeral, according to Suzanne E. Smith, the author of To Serve the Living: Funeral Directors and the African American Way of Death. “Slave masters then cracked down, and they created a lot more rules about slave funerals,” says Smith, a professor at George Mason University. “They often insisted masters had to be present.”

Three decades later, Nat Turner led a slave revolt in Virginia. “It was never shown that Nat Turner had organized anything at a funeral, but there were rumors he had,” Smith says. In response, Virginia passed new legal restrictions on slave activities, including funerals. The fear of rebellions prompted similar laws curtailing unsupervised slave gatherings across the South.

001

The end of slavery, and the war that brought it about, transformed American funerals across races. It was the massive death toll of the Civil War—the bloodiest conflict in U.S. history—that brought the modern American funeral industry into being. With so many soldiers dying on battlefields far from home, families scrambled to ship bodies home. Until the war, embalming was practiced primarily by doctors and scientists. During the war, undertakers set up shop near battlefields, selling their wares and ensuring embalmed bodies could make the long journey home without decomposing. As for the many soldiers whose bodies remained where they’d fallen, black soldiers were often assigned the lowly task of burying the war’s dead.

Undertakers had once been tradesmen who simply made coffins and buried bodies. After the Civil War, the craft professionalized. More Americans were dying in hospitals, not in homes, and families gladly handed off the job of caring for bodies at life’s end. Owning a funeral home became a profitable business, and one that attracted African Americans looking for economic opportunities. In 1912, the funeral industry’s major trade association began excluding blacks from membership, officially segregating the industry. Black funeral directors worked to serve and retain black customers, who relied on them to give their loved ones respectful burials, as Jim Crow deepened racial divisions.

The funeral industry created a class of African American millionaires, as Smith notes in her book. In 1953, Ebony magazine headlined an article, “Death is Big Business,” declaring that “Negro undertakers gross more than $120 million for 150,000 [black] funerals each year.” The next year the publication ran an essay by a prominent black undertaker called, “How I Made a Million.” With growing clout, funeral directors often went into politics, and served as mayors, pastors, and community leaders.Funeral directors also played a key role in the civil-rights movement. Not only did they care for those who died in lynchings, protests, and other conflicts, but they also staged large-scale funerals—for Emmett Till, Medgar Evers, and others—that galvanized Americans to the civil-rights cause. They provided bail money when activists were jailed, and offered their premises for meetings. Hearses and funeral-home cars became a way to ferry civil-rights leaders, including Martin Luther King, Jr., around the South inconspicuously. On the night that King was assassinated, a funeral-home worker, acting as his chauffeur, was one of the last people to see him alive.

But those in the industry, both black and white, also faced scrutiny for their perceived profiteering. In 1963, the British writer Jessica Mitford published a muckraking volume The American Way of Death, which sharply criticized the excesses of the then-$1.6 billion dollar funeral business. Writing in what was then The Atlantic Monthly, Mitford’s article “The Undertaker’s Racket” called out swindling funeral directors for their unscrupulous sales methods. In shock at the money being taken from the living, ostensibly on behalf of the dead, she wrote, “The cost of a funeral is the third largest expenditure, after a house and a car, in the life an ordinary American family.” The average funeral in 1963, according to Mitford, cost $1,450 (about $11,000 in today’s dollars).

Mitford’s findings prompted an examination of the industry. But black funeral directors reacted somewhat dismissively to the book, according to Smith. She paraphrases their thinking like this: “Nobody is going to tell us we can’t have an elaborate funeral. We are the ones came when the lynching happened and we picked up the bodies off the ground. We have an elaborate funeral because that’s our tradition and that’s our way of honoring people.”

Today, the overall industry is thriving—it takes in about $16 billion per year, according to the latest data from the National Funeral Directors Association (which is different from, and much larger than, the NFDMA). But the model has changed: Chains and corporations have swallowed up much of the business. Since the 1990s, the largest chain—Service Corporation International, along with its Dignity Memorial products—has bought up competitors and small businesses to amass more than 1,500 funeral homes and more than 20,000 employees across North America, with $3 billion in revenues. The Houston-based SCI is often dubbed the Walmart of death-care, but it rarely passes along its cost-savings to consumers, instead charging more than many small companies, according to reporting from Bloomberg Businessweek. American funerals run an average of $7,000, but top-of-the-line caskets can cost more than $10,000.

Many African American homegoings, though, are still handled by small, family-owned businesses, and these continue to be elaborate, sometimes expensive affairs. Although African Americans are typically much more averse to cremation than other Americans, a growing number of people are choosing this option, which avoids the cost of a casket, burial plot, and embalming. Cost-effective cremations cut into the profits for funeral homes—one of many challenges family-owned firms are facing.

002

Large chains can more easily absorb profit losses because of their size—and because they have capitalized on the cremation industry. SCI, for instance, bought up the largest cremation organization and dozens of crematories. The dominance of chains portends the struggles of many small businesses, which contracted during the recession in 2008. Those issues are compounded for black-owned companies, which are less likely to get loans and comprise only about 7 percent of U.S. small businesses. Black owners often start out with less capital, as the wealth gap between black Americans and white Americans continues to widen. Without money for upkeep, the owners of small funeral homes are finding themselves losing customers to nicer, newer facilities, which are increasingly run by chains.

Richard Ables’s storefront in D.C. is facing these economic issues: Hall Brothers Funeral Home is in a neighborhood whose demographics have shifted. It’s now across from a renovated theater and a row of new restaurants. Ables’s closest competitor, Frazier’s Funeral Home, was shut down in 2008 and its building was converted to luxury apartments. Much of his black clientele has decamped to Maryland or other more affordable places, and his area is now full of new, white residents. In his experience, few whites cross the so-called color line to ask for his services. “Maybe it’s time to move from here to somewhere else,” he says, adding that he will soon need a less expensive location.

His story is not unusual. Where once many black funeral homes catered to black clients across the economic spectrum, some are now located in areas that are increasingly segregated by wealth and race. Low-income residents can’t afford many of their services, and as neighborhoods gentrify and see an influx of white residents, these businesses are left with even fewer patrons. In an effort to broaden their customer base, some black funeral directors are trying to market to white clientele or incoming immigrant families.The challenges of the industry may explain why the heirs of funeral home owners are increasingly moving away from the family business. Carol Williams of NFDMA, the black funeral-home trade association, says succession planning is one of the biggest issues facing her members. Historic black funeral homes have typically been passed from generation to generation, but eager successors are hard to find as the lucrative work dries up. “When [owners] don’t have a succession plan, and something happens when they can no longer operate it themselves, they end up closing,” Williams says.

As Smith, the professor at George Mason, says, “When these funeral homes disappear, you lose all that history. It’s just gone.” But their decline is also a cultural loss for the present moment. Black Americans are still eight times more likely than white Americans to die by homicide. They are more likely to die at younger ages. Last year, young black men were five times more likely to be killed by police than white men of the same age. Directors of historic, black funeral homes know this better than anyone: They’ve tended to these bodies, and those of their loved ones. They understand that even if the moment of death is tragic or violent, care for the dead can be different.

This resonates with the personal experience of Holloway, the Duke professor. In 1999, she was working on a book about African American mourning when her own son died. At the time, he was serving 95 years in prison for a string of crimes, including rape and attempted murder, which she traces in part to his unraveling mental state. He was on a work detail in a prison cotton field when he and two other inmates took off running, attempting to escape. A corrections officer fired 19 shots. Holloway is still haunted by an aerial image taken from a helicopter, shown on the news: a white sheet in the middle of the field, and under it, the body of her black son.

The historical resonance of his state-sanctioned death also haunts her. “After all, the pitiful traverse from plantation landscape to prison cotton fields was only the short matter of a century and a few score years,” she wrote in her resulting book Passed On: African American Mourning Stories, a Memorial.

“I don’t mitigate at all the violence and trauma that my son inflicted on his victims,” Holloway says. “But in the end, he was our son and we were left to bury his body.” She and her husband specifically wanted to work with a black funeral home after their son’s death—it was one way of getting assurance that their son’s body would be treated with respect. “We expected them to treat him as a child who was loved,” she says. “I don’t think I could have had that conversation with a white funeral director.”

Complete Article HERE!

‘Today We Are His Family’: Teen Volunteers Mourn Those Who Died Alone

Brendan McInerney (front, from left), Noah Piou, Emmett Dalton and their fellow students from Roxbury Latin boys' school carry the casket of a man who was left unclaimed by family to a grave site in Fairview Cemetery on Friday.
Brendan McInerney (front, from left), Noah Piou, Emmett Dalton and their fellow students from Roxbury Latin boys’ school carry the casket of a man who was left unclaimed by family to a grave site in Fairview Cemetery on Friday.

On the drive to Fairview Cemetery in the Boston neighborhood of Hyde Park, six seniors from Roxbury Latin boys’ school sit in silent reflection. Mike Pojman, the school’s assistant headmaster and senior adviser, says the trip is a massive contrast to the rest of their school day, and to their lives as a whole right now.

Today the teens have volunteered to be pallbearers for a man who died alone in September, and for whom no next of kin was found. He’s being buried in a grave with no tombstone, in a city cemetery.

“To reflect on the fact that there are people, like this gentleman, who probably knew hundreds or thousands of people through his life, and at the end of it there’s nobody there — I think that gets to all of them,” Pojman says. “Some have said, ‘I just gotta make sure that never happens to me.’ “

The students, dressed in jackets and ties, carry the plain wooden coffin, and take part in a short memorial. They read together, as a group:

“Dear Lord, thank you for opening our hearts and minds to this corporal work of mercy. We are here to bear witness to the life and passing of Nicholas Miller.

“He died alone with no family to comfort him.

“But today we are his family, we are here as his sons

“We are honored to stand together before him now, to commemorate his life, and to remember him in death, as we commend his soul to his eternal rest.”

Each of the young men in turn read a poem, verse of scripture, or passage about death. Emmett Dalton, 18, reads “A Reflection On An Autumn Day,” which ends “death can take away what we have, but it cannot rob us of who we are.”

From left to right, funeral director Rob Lawler; Roxbury Latin students Emmett Dalton, Noah Piou and Chris Rota; Roxbury Latin assistant headmaster Mike Pojman, and Roxbury Latin students Brendan McInerney, Liam McDonough and Esteban Enrique conduct a graveside prayer service for Nicholas Miller on Friday at the Fairview Cemetery.
From left to right, funeral director Rob Lawler; Roxbury Latin students Emmett Dalton, Noah Piou and Chris Rota; Roxbury Latin assistant headmaster Mike Pojman, and Roxbury Latin students Brendan McInerney, Liam McDonough and Esteban Enrique conduct a graveside prayer service for Nicholas Miller on Friday at the Fairview Cemetery.

After the ceremony, the seniors share their thoughts about an experience— in the middle of a school day — that has hit them hard.

“I know I’m going back, and I’m going to go to school and take another quiz,” says 18-year-old Brendan McInerney, “but all that work, you can get caught up in it. … When you kind of get out of that bubble that you can kind of stuck in, you get perspective on what’s really important in life.”

Roxbury Latin seniors Chris Rota, Liam McDonough, Emmett Dalton, Esteban Enrique, Brendan McInerney and Noah Piou, and assistant headmaster Mike Pojman, listen as funeral director Bob Lawler explains the circumstances of the death of Nicholas Mlller, whose body was unclaimed, at the Robert J. Lawler & Crosby Funeral Home.
Roxbury Latin seniors Chris Rota, Liam McDonough, Emmett Dalton, Esteban Enrique, Brendan McInerney and Noah Piou, and assistant headmaster Mike Pojman, listen as funeral director Bob Lawler explains the circumstances of the death of Nicholas Mlller, whose body was unclaimed, at the Robert J. Lawler & Crosby Funeral Home.

Mike Pojman was inspired to start bringing students to these funerals by a similar program at his alma mater, St. Ignatius High School in Cleveland. He turned to local funeral home Lawler and Crosby — which, by coincidence, is one of the very few funeral homes in the state that steps in to help with these kind of burials.

“It’s the right thing to do,” says funeral director Robert Lawler. “You know, you can’t leave these poor people lying there forever.”

Funeral director Bob Lawler sits alone in a visitation room with the casket of Nicholas Miller as he waits for students from Roxbury Latin school to arrive and act as pallbearers for the burial.
Funeral director Bob Lawler sits alone in a visitation room with the casket of Nicholas Miller as he waits for students from Roxbury Latin school to arrive and act as pallbearers for the burial.

When there are no family members or volunteers available, it’s just Lawler by himself, saying a prayer at graveside. After doing this for 42 years, he appreciates the effect it has on people like 17-year-old Roxbury Latin senior Noah Piou. Today’s ceremony for Nicholas Miller was the first funeral he’s attended.

“That’s my first real moment presented with some form of death before me, and I was kind of at a loss for words at the time,” he says. “I’ve never met Mr. Miller before, but even within that I kind of had a connection with him, and I could feel that.”

After the brief ceremony the students laid flowers. Then they piled back into the van, driving back to school in time for their next lesson.

Funeral director Bob Lawler walks back into the Robert J. Lawler & Crosby Funeral Home after the burial at the Fairview Cemetery on Friday.
Funeral director Bob Lawler walks back into the Robert J. Lawler & Crosby Funeral Home after the burial at the Fairview Cemetery on Friday.

Complete Article HERE!

Cat Funerals in the Victorian Era

By Mimi Matthews

inconsolable-grief-by-ivan-kramskoi-18841
Inconsolable Grief by Ivan Kramskoi, 1884.

During the early 19th century, it was not uncommon for the mortal remains of a beloved pet cat to be buried in the family garden.  By the Victorian era, however, the formality of cat funerals had increased substantially.  Bereaved pet owners commissioned undertakers to build elaborate cat caskets.  Clergymen performed cat burial services.  And stone masons chiseled cat names on cat headstones.  Many in society viewed these types of ceremonies as no more than an amusing eccentricity of the wealthy or as yet another odd quirk of the elderly spinster.  Others were deeply offended that an animal of any kind should receive a Christian burial. 

In March of 1894, several British newspapers reported the story of a Kensington lady “of distinction” who held a funeral for her cat, Paul.  An article on the subject in the Cheltenham Chronicle states:

“Except that the Church did not lend its sanction, the function was conducted quite as if it had been the interment of a human person of some importance.  A respectable undertaker was called in, and instructed to conduct the funeral in the ordinary way; the body was to be enclosed in a shell which would go inside a fine oak coffin.  There were the usual trappings, including a plate on which was inscribed the statement that ‘Paul’ had for seventeen years been the beloved and faithful cat of Miss —, who now mourned his loss in suitable terms.  The coffin, with a lovely wreath on it, was displayed in the undertaker’s shop, where it was an object of intense interest and not a little amusement.”

Though Paul’s burial service was not sanctioned by the Church, this did not stop other cat funerals from adopting a religious tone.  An 1897 edition of the Hull Daily Mail reports the story of a clergyman who held a funeral for his cat.  This particular cat is described as an obese, black and white female who was known to go for walks with her master.  Upon her death, the clergyman and his household were “thrown into mourning.” The Hull Daily Mail reports:

“For three days pussy, whose remains were placed with loving care in a beautiful brass-bound oaken coffin, with inner linings of silk and wool, lay in state in the drawing-room.  At the termination of this period, the rev. gentleman hired a cab, drove to the station, and took a train for the North, bearing with him the oak coffin and the precious remains.  Where the funeral took place seems to be somewhat of a mystery – at least there are conflicting accounts – but of one thing people seem to be certain.  The ceremonial respect which had been accorded to the deceased was maintained to the last, and the burial service, or part thereof, was recited at pussy’s grave.”

The majority of historical reports on cat funerals from the Victorian era are recounted with humor.  Others show a darker response to pet burials.  A September 1885 article in the Edinburgh Evening News relates the story of an “old old woman” in Abercromby Street intent on giving her deceased cat, Tom, a “decent burial.”  She applied to the local undertaker to build Tom a suitable coffin and employed a gravedigger, by the name of Jamie, to dig a grave for Tom in the local burying ground.  As the article states:

“…the funeral, which took place in the afternoon yesterday, was largely attended.  Miss — carried the coffin, and on the way to the graveyard the crowd of youngsters who followed became exceedingly noisy, and being apprehensive that the affair would end in a row, ‘Jamie’ closed the iron gate with the view of preventing any but a select few from entering.  The crowd, however, became even more excited, scaled the wall, hooting and yelling vociferously, crying that it was a shame and a disgrace to bury a cat like a Christian.”

sorrow-by-mile-friant-1898
Sorrow by Émile Friant, 1898

Whether this uproar was truly a result of outrage over Tom being buried “like a Christian” or simply an excuse for rowdy youths to misbehave is unclear.  Regardless, the results of the riot that ensued were exceedingly unpleasant for Tom’s elderly, bereaved owner.  The Edinburgh Evening News reports:

“The coffin was afterwards smashed, and the body of the cat taken out, and ultimately the uproar became so great that the police had to be called to protect the gravedigger and the old lady.  The latter managed to get hold of the dead body of Tom, and with the assistance of Constables Johnston and Smith escaped into a house in the neighborhood, where she remained for some time.  In Abercromby Street, where she resides, a number of policemen had to be kept on duty till a late hour in order to protect her from the violence of the crowd.”

Perhaps the main cause of outrage lies in the fact that Tom’s owner was attempting to bury a cat in the human graveyard.  This was not an uncommon complaint.  Many graveyards did not allow pets to be buried in consecrated ground.  As a result, pet cemeteries were established.  One of the most well-known was the Hyde Park Dog Cemetery, opened in 1881.  As the name denotes, this was primarily a burial ground for dogs.  However, according to author Gordon Stables (qtd. in Animal Death 22), the cemetery also admitted the corpses of “three small monkeys, and two cats.”

Other pet cemeteries existed throughout Victorian England, both public and private.  The pet cemetery at the Essex seat of Sir Thomas Lennard had pet monuments dating as far back as the 1850s.  While the pet cemetery at Edinburgh Castle originated as a burial place for 19th century regimental mascots and officers’ dogs.  And I would be remiss if I did not mention author Thomas Hardy, who had a pet cemetery at his home at Max Gate in Dorchester in which all but one of the headstones were carved with the famous novelist’s own hands.

Unsurprisingly, the majority of headstones and monuments in pet cemeteries of that era are for dogs.  Dogs were incredibly popular pets during the 19th century.  They were typically viewed as selfless, devoted friends and guardians.  While cats were, to some extent, still seen as sly, self-serving opportunists (for more on this, see my article Peter Parley Presents the Treacherous 19th Century Cat).  In addition, as author Laurel Hunt points out in her book, Angel Pawprints:

“Queen Victoria’s fondness for dogs strengthened their role as companions in the Victorian era.”

This bias in favor of dogs had no effect on Victorian cat fanciers whatsoever.  Cat funerals continued to take place with just as much pomp and ceremony as dog funerals.  The public reaction to both was very much the same – amusement, outrage, and occasionally scorn.  One of my favorite examples of the latter is from an article in an 1880 edition of the Portsmouth Evening News which reports on a lady who sent out “black-edged funeral cards” upon the death of her dog.  As a sort of disclaimer, the article states:

“It is superfluous to affirm that the owner of that lamented Fido is a maiden lady.”

It does seem that a great many reports of pet funerals in the 19th century news involve some stereotypical variety of spinster – the Victorian cat (or dog) lady, if you will.  Though humorous, I do not believe this was the norm.  The simple fact is that, throughout history, there have been people who have grieved at the loss of their pets.  During the Victorian era, this grief took shape in elaborate pet funerals.  For cats, who were still persecuted in so many ways, these ceremonies strike me as especially poignant.

Elizabeth Platonovna Yaroshenko by Nikolai Yaroshenko, 1880
Elizabeth Platonovna Yaroshenko by Nikolai Yaroshenko, 1880

I close this article with poet Clinton Scollard’s 1893 elegy for his cat, Peter.  In her book Concerning Cats (1900), author Helen Winslow claims that this tribute to a deceased cat is the “best ever written.”  I’ll let you be the judge.

GRIMALKIN.
AN ELEGY ON PETER, AGED 12.

In vain the kindly call: in vain

The plate for which thou once wast fain

At morn and noon and daylight’s wane,

O King of mousers.

No more I hear thee purr and purr

As in the frolic days that were,

When thou didst rub thy velvet fur

Against my trousers.

How empty are the places where

Thou erst wert frankly debonair,

Nor dreamed a dream of feline care,

A capering kitten.

The sunny haunts where, grown a cat,

You pondered this, considered that,

The cushioned chair, the rug, the mat,

By firelight smitten.

Although of few thou stoodst in dread,

How well thou knew a friendly tread,

And what upon thy back and head

The stroking hand meant.

A passing scent could keenly wake

Thy eagerness for chop or steak,

Yet, Puss, how rarely didst thou break

The eighth commandment.

Though brief thy life, a little span

Of days compared with that of man,

The time allotted to thee ran

In smoother metre.

Now with the warm earth o’er thy breast,

O wisest of thy kind and best,

Forever mayst thou softly rest,

In pace, Peter.

In Memoriam by Alfred Stevens, (1823-1906)
In Memoriam by Alfred Stevens, (1823-1906)

Complete Article HERE!

WELCOME TO THE TOWN OF THE DEAD

001

For 75 years, Colma, Calif., has been steadily collecting bodies and it’s constantly getting deader. As of 2009, the city had 1,500 living residents and 1.5 million marked graves. Seventy-three percent of Colma’s land belongs to the dead with the rest occupied by people who have a great sense of humor. The town’s motto: “It’s Great To Be Alive In Colma.”

 

Complete Article HERE!

The Hungry Mourner

From funeral biscuits to cemetery picnics to parsley crowns, here’s how the world marks death with food.

By

Funeral biscuits, a Los Angelitos celebration, a cemetery picnic
Funeral biscuits, a Los Angelitos celebration, a cemetery picnic

Our relationship with food is almost as complicated as the one we have with death. Food can bring comfort, be tied to feelings of guilt or pleasure, and can evoke memories and feelings as powerful as any song. It’s no wonder that throughout history and across cultures, people have used food to help honor loved ones who have died. Here are some ways in which it’s been done.

1. Dumb Supper

During this feast — thought by some scholars to be a precursor to modern Halloween — a table is laid out all in black, with places for both the living and the dead. No one speaks to allow for communion with the dead. Guests bring with them a letter written to a loved one who has passed. When the meal is over the unread letters are burned and one by one the messages within are thought to be carried into the spirit world. Believed to have roots in ancient Celtic tradition, the dumb supper was brought to Appalachia by American settlers. Some living in the region still hold the suppers. It is also observed on Samhain, one of the four Gaelic seasonal festivals, by Pagans and Wiccans.

2. Telling the Bees

One old English custom also practiced in America in the early 19th century — and a risky one, to be sure — involved going out to the beehive to deliver the news that a family member had died. The messenger would tap on the hive and whisper, “Little Brownies, your mistress is dead.” Families would attach an invitation to the funeral on the hive and bring food from the funeral feast to the bees. This was a way to show gratitude and respect for the bees and their gifts of honey, beeswax and pollination. Fail to do so, and you would risk offending the bees, which might choose to move on to a more appreciative family.

3. Fave dei Morti (Beans of the Dead) 

During ancient Roman times, the souls of ancestors were thought to reside in fava beans. At Roman wedding feasts, beans were presented to the bride and groom, who would eat them in hopes of attracting the souls of male ancestors to carry on the family bloodline. (Eating beans on your wedding day — that’s risky in a different way.) As a bonus, beans were also believed to ward off ghosts and vampires, who were easily tricked into thinking the beans were living people. And on All Souls Day in Italy, it is common to consume bean-shaped cookies, or fave del morti. There are many different variations, but the most popular resembles a macaroon-like cake in appearance, but with a rich, buttery texture and sweet almond flavor. More traditional versions are shaped like kidney beans and flavored with almond flour and extract. Here’s a recipe.

4. Obon Figures

Obon is a series of festival days in Japan when the souls of the departed are thought to visit their living relatives. Horses and cow figurines are made from vegetables placed on altars. It is believed that the spirits of the visiting ancestors ride the animals between worlds of the living and the dead.

5. Funeral Biscuits

Funeral biscuits first appeared in 1600s Europe, and were also commonplace up until the early 1900s in America. They were sometimes taken door-to-door and served as a funeral invitation or handed out as a keepsake after the funeral. According to Barts Pathology Museum’s curator Carla Valentine, funeral biscuits were wrapped in a paper that bore a poem or prayer with the name of the deceased, then sealed with black wax and stamped with a skull or hourglass.  Should you want to make a batch, here’s a recipe.

6. Lemons 

In Switzerland, male mourners would wrap a lemon in a handkerchief and place it into their hat. The hat would be carried under the left arm for the duration of the funeral. At the end of the service, the lemons were placed on the grave to symbolize the “sharpness” of their grief.

7. Los Angelitos 

During Mexico’s Days of the Dead, a sacred observance when spirits of deceased family members are believed to return to the earth for a family reunion with the living, one day is set aside to welcome the spirits of children, or Los Angelitos (The Little Angels). Altars are decorated, and food is offered up in miniature portions and served on tiny plates, often with a little glass of milk.

8. Journey Cakes 

A staple of cuisine in the American south is a little corn cake, known as a Johnny Cake. The term “Johnny” was derived from the corn cakes’ original use as “Journey Cakes,” among some African tribes. They were placed in coffins to provide sustenance for the deceased during their long journey to the afterlife.

9. Parsley 

After ancient Greeks dedicated this herb to the goddess Persephone, who reigns over the land of the dead, it became a staple during funeral rites. Parsley was planted over graves and athletes donned crowns of parsley during Funeral Games. The games, depicted in the Iliad, were played in the deceased’s honor and are recognized as the precursor to the Olympics. They included chariot races, wrestling, boxing, discus throwing and running.

10. Cemetery Picnics

During the Victorian era when cemeteries were cultivated as parks and gardens, people came to enjoy a day of leisure, to partake of a meal with loved ones no longer with them or even dine on the family’s prepaid plot. In America, the practice took on a more practical purpose: when communities would come together to help clean and maintain the cemetery grounds. Graves would be tended to, trees and flowers planted, and repairs made. Once the work was done, families would set out their potluck dishes and share in a communal meal.

Complete Article HERE!

What They Left Behind: Photos of Things People Kept to Remember Their Deceased Loved Ones

By Leah Sottile

001

The last time I saw my aunt Pat was at a party on her back deck on a sticky summer afternoon when it seemed like everything was fine. She wanted a party for her birthday and we gave it to her, flying from all corners of the country, knowing it might be her last. She wore her best wig—a smart gray bob—and smiled like there was nothing to be sad about. It didn’t really seem like she was dying.

She’d been in a standoff with cancer for years, but it swiftly took her a few months later, and I found myself again halfway across the country, standing in her home, looking at the spare belongings of a woman who’d lived for years looking over her shoulder, knowing death was close by.

If there was jewelry, I didn’t want it. If there were heirlooms, I didn’t ask for them. Instead, I took a cassette tape—green plastic, with a handwritten label that read: “Nixon’s resignation. SAVE!” I also took a copy of the April 1972 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine, the edition containing Burt Reynolds’ famous bearskin rug centerfold. More than anything else, these things reminded me of my aunt: funny, bookish, smart. You’d never know these are some of my most prized possessions.

If I could cherish an old cassette tape and a dog-eared copy of a magazine, I wondered what other people had saved of the people they loved. What I found was that in death, what we want most aren’t the heirlooms or the valuables, but the things that help us remember our loved ones for exactly who they were.

002

Merrilee

My grandma had a lot of fancy statues, trinkets, and jewelry. When she passed away, I only asked for two things of hers: this toad magnet and a “naughty” light switch cover.

She was really, really funny, and the magnet was just another funny thing of hers. She always played pranks on my aunts and uncles when they were teenagers and she had this huge, wonderful, cackling laugh. She always bought us funny cards—never sappy ones—for our birthdays and she had a light switch cover in one of her spare bedrooms that was a flasher. You know, a naked dude in a trench coat.

I come from a big Italian family and every Sunday growing up, all the local relatives would go to my grandparents’ house for dinner. That toad magnet was on the fridge at grandma and grandpa’s as long as I can remember and now it reminds me of those Sunday dinners and being a kid. My grandparents had a huge yard with a swing set, big raspberry bushes, a jungle gym, a vegetable garden, a flower garden, and an in-ground swimming pool. More fun times were had at that house than I can count. I keep it on my fridge, so I see it every day.

003

KENDRA

The molar is from my dog Rose; the little one is from my dog Hannah. I also kept a lock of hair from my horse I had as a child. I wanted to keep the teeth because after they die, you either bury them or have them cremated, which leaves you with an unrecognizable lump of ash that you can’t touch or hold. I wanted to keep the teeth because I will always have a little piece of them… even if it’s a gross tooth.

004

Kevin

My youngest sister’s body was found ten years ago, on the day dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows. She died by suicide. She became a psych nurse in order to help others who, like her, struggled with depression and the off-kilter life as someone bipolar.

When my brother called with the news, I drove 2,000 miles non-stop as fast as I could. After the wake and the funeral and discussing what best to do for her two sons, we turned to cleaning out her house. I drove home with two boxes of the family china and other mementos. They have remained in the boxes on my front porch for the last ten years. The loss has been that hard to accept.

005

James

My grandmother was always a tremendous positive force in my life. I watched her fight cancer for 20 years and somehow she always managed to have a positive outlook. She could be in tremendous pain and discomfort and still look at me with a smile as she made fun of her misfortune.

I was probably somewhere between six and eight when she fell and knocked her teeth out. I don’t remember the specifics of the story, but I know she lost seven teeth and broke her jaw in several places. I vaguely remember her trying to set me at ease by smiling and trying to joke around with a mouth full of bloody cotton the night it happened.

Her last two weeks of life were spent in the hospital. I stayed by her side as much as I could, sleeping at the hospital and hanging around every day. She died late at night with me holding her hand. We sat alone together like that for about an hour before I alerted the hospital staff.

My mother and I flew to Maine the fall after her death, to spread her ashes at Pemaquid Point. It was her favorite spot as a child. We hung around the lighthouse all day goofing around, taking photos, making fun of people, trying to find a discreet spot to spread her ashes. We finally found a really cool spot to the east of the lighthouse on top of some boulders below an apparently forgotten rusty mermaid statue overgrown with weeds. I remember being surprised that the ashes were heavy. I expected them to scatter in the wind but they kind of fell onto the rocks below in clumps.

Then her bridge bounced off of a few rocks making a very distinctive clink upon hitting each one. My mom and I gave each other the what the fuck was that? look, and I jumped down and immediately started sifting through the dense ash. We knew what it was immediately.

There was still enough shape to it that you could clearly make out the teeth. We both laughed as I shook the rest of my grandma’s remains off of my hands. It wouldn’t have occurred to me not to keep it.

I generally keep it on an old vintage trunk that I use as a nightstand next to my bed, but sometimes I’ll stuff it my pocket at random. I always bring it with me when I travel. I don’t know why I keep it. It’s just as valuable a treasure as the other trinkets I’ve collected over the years—rings, old post-punk pins, a few tie clips, a trilobite or two—and all that’s left of my grandmother.

Joe

My grandfather owned a little corner grocery store in North Jersey, in the town of Roselle. It was called Leo and Fred’s, but when the stock market crashed, Fred killed himself. Leo was the butcher, and my father bought Fred’s half and ran the shop. There was a bar in the back too, so the regulars could have a drink—at a grocery store, because why not?

One of my grandfather’s regular customers worked on Wall Street, and this guy taught my grandfather how to invest in the stock market. And so my grandfather started doing that and would look for other ways to invest—one of which was when coins went down to being mostly made with nickel, in the 60s, I think. Before that there were actually a lot of silver in American coins, which of course has value; nickel does not. So my grandfather would save all the half-dollars and dollars from before a certain date, the silver ones. I have a half-dollar of his, which I often carry in my pocket.

007

Sheri

After my dad died, my mom doused a polyester shirt in his cologne—he wore a lot—and sealed it in a plastic bag. I’ve sort of wanted to get rid of it because whatever my dad wore is super strong and kind of gives me a headache. One time I took him to a bluegrass concert and the people in front of us got up and moved! It was sweet of my mom, but also kind of weird. It isn’t the memento of him I would have saved for myself.

My dad’s library card, on the other hand, means a lot to me given my profession—I’m a librarian. My dad was the one who first took me to the library, on his motorcycle, with a giant helmet balanced on my three-year-old skull. He was totally blue collar, worked as a plumber, but really believed in libraries and had a current library card for most of his life.

I also have his map stash, which is this giant leather-like pouch that he kept behind the seat of his truck. It still smells faintly of cigar. I love that one of the maps dates back to a year after I was born, and another he’s traced colored routes all over. The lines could mean anything.

Complete Article HERE!

The Man Who Buried Them Remembers

By Mark S. King

grave-2

When he conducted the funerals, Tom Bonderenko tells me, he always wore his priestly garments and white stole. Even when no one showed up for the graveside service.

“It was important to show dignity and respect,” Tom says. He taps the coffee cup in his lap nervously. “I’m sorry,” he says. He clears his throat but it doesn’t keep his eyes from welling up. “No one has asked me about this in a really long time.”

We are sitting in his office at Moveable Feast, the Baltimore meal delivery agency for those with life-threatening illnesses, where Tom has served as director for the last eight years. His office is spacious and cheerful, but this conversation is a difficult one. He had discreetly closed his office door behind me when I arrived.

When Moveable Feast was founded in 1989 to deliver meals to home-bound AIDS patients, Tom was engaged in a different, more literal ministry to the disenfranchised. He was a priest staffing a homeless shelter for Catholic Charities of Baltimore. It was there he met someone with AIDS for the first time.

“A young man came to the door of the emergency shelter, sometime in 1987,” he says. “He was covered in black marks. Lesions, you know. Everywhere. He said he needed to clean up before his first doctor appointment the next day.”

Tom had grown up in New York City, and as a gay man he had known people who died very suddenly, as far back as the early 1980’s. But he had never stood face to face with someone so ill with the dreaded disease.

I couldn’t help but ask Tom how he felt, meeting that person.

TomTom stares out his office window, and his eyes are so beautiful, romantically blue, framed with creases of worry. The eyes of a priest. He turns back to me with an answer. “Here was a young man who was going to find out from a doctor the next day that he had AIDS,” he manages. He starts tapping his coffee cup again, and he bows his head reverently. “And he was about to be told that he was going to die.”

Tom never saw the young man again.

People with AIDS became more common at the shelter before long. Tom got to know the regulars, and they began to ask him to perform their funeral services.

“They just wanted to know they would be buried,” he says quietly. “They didn’t want or need anything religious. Most of them were estranged from their families, drug abuse, that sort of thing. I think they were embarrassed to reach out to relatives. Sometimes, when they died we would find a member of the family to come, but usually it was just me and the departed at the gravesite.”

The burials were performed at unmarked graves in a lonely section of Baltimore Cemetery. The caskets were as charity required, simple wooden boxes, and they always contained a body. The funeral home would not cremate someone who died from AIDS because they were afraid of poisoning the air.

“I would always conduct the service out loud,” says Tom, now sharing the sacred details. “I would speak about the departed, and say what I knew of them, about where they were from. And then I would ask if anyone present had been harmed by the departed…”

I imagined Tom, in his vestments and alone in a forgotten graveyard, asking intimate questions out loud to the grass and the trees and the disinterested silence. “I would say that if the departed had harmed anyone,” he goes on, “for that person to please forgive them.” Tom’s voice falters. “And then I would ask the departed to forgive, too. I would tell them, ‘you’re on the other side now. Let it go.’”

Tom B-2Tom’s office becomes very still. I feel as if I’m holding my breath.

“I think they just didn’t want to be alone,” Tom says, and now he looks at me without regard for his tears. “We don’t do this alone.”

Because of you, I think to myself. They weren’t alone because of you, Tom.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, again, wiping his face. “I haven’t talked about this in so long.” He considers the faraway scene he has conjured, his graveside questions to no one, and then adds, “It was the most important, meaningful thing I have ever done.”

I wonder aloud if the experience bolstered his religious faith or challenged it instead. He looks surprised by the question. “Well,” he answers after a moment, “I believe it strengthened my faith. Yes.” I want very much to believe him.

Tom left Catholic Charities, and the priesthood, not long after he conducted the last of his burials for the homeless. A decade later he joined Moveable Feast and embraced its mission to provide sustenance for people in need, people like those to whom he once ministered.

Tom’s fellow staff members know little about his life a generation ago. Most of them aren’t aware of the aching memories beneath the calm surface of their sensitive and capable boss. They may not fully understand why Tom leaves the office once a month to distribute food personally to homebound clients.

But they will tell you that when Tom Bonderenko returns from those deliveries, he always has tears in his eyes.

Mark

Complete Article HERE!