Little Egypt Heritage Articles Stories of Southern Illinois (c) Bill Oliver 18 January 2004 Vol 3 Issue: #03 ISBN: pending Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen of Little Egypt, Is there anything worse smellin' than an old sweet ‘tater rottin' in a bucket full of garbage? What does a skunk do before drenching us with "Eau de Pole Cat"? Mephitis mephitis will usually fluff its tail, shake its tail, stamp the ground with its front feet, growl, stand on its hind legs, turn its head and spit before lifting its tail and spraying. Just a hint! I've heard tell that stinky skunks don't like other stinky smells ... such as ammonia. I've said before that I'm Yankee born with one foot north of the Ohio River and the other south of that river. Half of me says grits ain't just for breakfast. Can't repeat what the other half says. Grits is a southern dish, like pecan pie, and chicken. Grits and zucchini suffer the same distaste for me no matter what wonderful recipe you have for them. There are plain grits, cream of grits, grits soup, fried grits, baked grits, and grilled grits. Then there are grits as a main dish, grits as a side dish, biscuits and grits, cheesed grits, grits bread and even grits pie. Then there was Granny on the Beverly Hillbillies talking about possum grits. I was in Oliver's Hollow, Tennessee, one time and ordered my favorite two eggs, sunnyside up, bacon, sausage, home fried potatoes, and two hotcakes for breakfast. What I failed to notice was "also served with" a side dish of gritty looking mashed potatoes. Well, here's to my southern ancestors, they were incredibly tough, resilient and durable. I'll eventually get to the tonight's topic. :) Death has always been very much part of life. Back a century ago bad diet, poor hygiene and very limited medical attention didn't help to prolong life. Back then diseases — scarlet fever, whooping cough, influenza and such — took the lives of children. Hard work and childbearing took wives and mothers. Cemeteries will often show a man with two or three wives flanking him. With farms to run, crops to plant and kids to feed/raise, grieving time was short for men. Of course, burial customs have always depended somewhat on one's income and ethnic background. Queen Victoria made mourning a decade long affair for her Albert. Though there were funeral homes in the [large] cities, mostly all arrangements were carried out by the immediate family. Due to the lack of embalming, one can imagine that those arrangements weren't put off very long. The first arrangement was for the deceased to be carefully washed. They did have "deodorizing washes", but there was good reason to surround the deceased with lots of fragrant flowers. If there were no flowers in bloom, evergreen branches were used. If the eyes were open at death, coins were used to weigh them shut. They were usually silver coins because copper would discolor the skin. Superstitions have always had a part in our customs. Closing the eyes was important because it was believed that the "dearly departed" could see and if you were recognized, you could be "taken" with the corpse. Corpses were not buried with shoes. This could be just practical recycling, however, in some cultures is was considered bad luck. [I'm not sure for whom.] Men were usually buried in dark suits. Children were buried in white to signify their purity and innocence. Young women wore a white burial dress, middle aged women were often in gray, while older women were dressed in color. Orchid, light lavender were often used. Black was reserved for those who died in childbirth. Usually women prepared the body, while the men made the coffins. Premade coffins were not at all popular, so it was a task that waited for someone to need one. They were usually wide at one end and narrower at the other end. In the south, coffins often had an opening covered with mesh so that the mourners could see the deceased without the flies crawling over the body. A wooden plate was screwed down covering the opening before burial. Cotton was often used to pad and line the coffins. This was covered with cloth. Grandma Oliver once said that older quilts were sometimes used to pad a coffin. If there was a newspaper, families would place a death notice in them. Otherwise it was a practice to put notices on fences or posts. While the casket was being made and the body was being placed in it, the women would prepare the house. There was the draping the front door in black cloth. There also was the covering of all mirrors and photographs of the deceased with black cloth or veils. [The thought behind this was to prevent the deceased from seeing themselves.] All clocks were stopped. The filled coffins were placed on saw horses with the foot of the coffin toward the entrance of the house. If candles were lit they were to light the way to heaven for the deceased. Often a [last] picture was taken of the deceased for the family to have as a "keepsake". This type of "keepsake" was probably a technological advancement from the custom of making "death masks" of the deceased's face. This custom in my family seemed to be more paternal than maternal. Grandma Oliver had photos of her sisters who had died in their early adulthood, while there are none on Grandma Lester's side of the family. Kin and close friends would arrive by horse and buggy, the women to fix and prepare food, and the men to dig and later fill in the grave. In those days, when neighbors helped neighbors, doing these necessary tasks was seen as a sign of respect for the deceased and the family. No matter the wealth or status of the deceased, the food at the "wake" was much the same. It was usually simple, cheese and crackers, and gallons of coffee. Some families would also serve sausage with the crackers. Any hard liquor, though not served at a wake, was often brought by the men and shared outside on the porch or lawn. As in most family gatherings, the women usually congregated in the viewing room or kitchen, while the men, after paying their short respects would gather out on the porch and side yards. Funerals always brought some expenses. Thus, it was custom to place a bowl or basket by the coffin and folks were expected to put in a coin or two to defray those costs. We call them "funeral homes" today. When it was time, the casket lid would be screwed down and the casket would be placed in a wagon. Caskets were carried and loaded onto wagons feet first. They were transported to graveyards, for the term cemetery was unknown. In rural areas, the deceased could be buried in a family graveyard on the property or in a community/church cemetery. Whether the pallbearers carried the casket to the family graveyard or to the church cemetery the mourners walked behind the casket. Only in the cities were wagons, called hearses, rented to transport the casket to its final resting place. There they usually put a sign on the side of the wagon with the name, age, date of death and place of interment. In cities hearses were pulled by black horses, unless it was a youth, then the horses were white. City burials were usually some distance from where the funeral ceremony was held. Thus, caravans replaced the walkers to the gravesite. After the hearse, the procession next held the religious personages, followed by immediate family, then parents, grandparents, etc, with other mourners following in the order of degree of kinship. The horses pulling the hearse were trained to pull one step at a time. In New Orleans style funerals, this was usually to the sound of music. Following funerals it was the duty of the man to get on with the daily life, so there were very short periods of time for mourning for men. For women there was a much more rigid time line for mourning. First there was the first year and one day of "deep" mourning, then nine months of "second" mourning, followed by three months of "ordinary" mourning. All this was culminated with an additional six months of "half" mourning. During the "deep" mourning period a black veil reaching to the mid-calf was worn in public. This was called a "widow's mantle" or "weeping veil". During the "second" period the veil disappeared and a "bit" of white trim could be added to the black dress. When "half" mourning was reached colors such as lavender, gray, lilac, or white could be worn. Usually, if black was continued the woman was signaling that she would not marry again. There were other behavioral mandates for widows during the various mourning periods which I may take up in another article one day. However, this article is running a bit long, so I close. e-la-di-e-das-di ha-wi nv-wa-do-hi-ya nv-wa-to-hi-ya-da. (May you walk in peace and harmony) Wado, Bill -=- PostScript: Other sites worth visiting: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/SOIL http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/ILMASSAC http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ne/state/BillsArticles/LittleEgypt/intro.html