The "furniture and hardware" and "undertaking" went hand-in-hand. Making a coffin is easier than making fancy curves for tops of bed-posts. A coffin only required gluing of long pieces for the bottom, and adding the 4 sides. Upholstering the inside with material if desired was no different than upholstery of chairs. The "hardware" such as handles differed little from "pulls" used on dresser drawers. Same principles, same type of work. To me, it's kind of ingenious. But it's common sense, as are other businesses: apple orchards + make and sell apple cider; grape orchard + make and sell wine; tannery + create products from skins (ex. pouches to carry items on horses; reins for horses; etc.); merchants selling clothing material often also took in washing (because they knew fabrics); etc. Our ancestors were logical planners and it makes an interesting study for us today to realize how different businesses were so joined together in the past. The split between "furniture and hardware" likely evolved as death became more a scene to be witnessed behind closed doors. Alive customers didn't want to think of death and dying when going to buy a new bed. The "eww" factor and movement toward "others know better that I know" put people in hospitals to die behind closed curtains surrounding the bed, and moved the deceased to "funeral homes" where death would not be associated with furniture stores. These changes made people more fearful of the dying process and, while maybe adding some more "reverence" for the dead, likely increased the spooky beliefs some people hold about the dead. Big difference from dying at home, lovingly washing and re-dressing your own loved one, bringing into the home what the deceased needed (coffin), viewing the body at home at the person's "last residence", and skipping the middle-men by transporting the body to the grave dug by relatives. Because these tasks were more hands on, illness, disease, and death were all less mysterious than it is all made today. Judy On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 1:06 PM, Lona Boudreaux <[email protected]>wrote: > Hi Everyone, > > Judy, enjoyed reading your post on Mortuary in the 1900's. > > My maternal grandma, Suphronia Dee CHANEY HAMILTON, told stories about > helping to prepare the body of a deceased family member laid out a room in > the house. She never went into detail just washing and dressing. If the > lady didn't have a nice dress, grandma said they would take a piece of good > cloth and fashion a scarf around the persons neck and down the front of the > dress. Maybe tuck it under the arms in some way. This was all done in > Armstrong Co., Pa. probably in the early 1900's. > > George McClelland CHANEY, my great grand uncle, left Armstrong Co. Pa. abt > 1881 and in 1889 opened a trading post in Krebs, Oklahoma (known as Indian > Territory at that time). There he and his partner sold furniture and > hardware. By 1909 he had bought out his partner, moved to McAlester and > opened the trading post with a new name. It became Chaney Furniture and > Hardware and Undertaking. It was sometime after 1936, when Uncle George > died, that his son turned the store into just a funeral home. The family > sold the funeral home in 1978. It has changed hands a couple of times > since > then and today is know as the Chaney-Hawkins funeral home. > > Lona Laughlin Boudreaux > Monroe, La. > > > **** > Please visit http://www.chartiers.com/pages-new/pawashin.html for list > information, particularly the bottom of the page. > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message > -- -- WASHINGTON COUNTY PA WEBSITES::: http://freepages.misc.rootsweb.com/~florian/ Coordinator of the Washington County PAGenWeb: http://www.rootsweb.com/~pawashin/