Abby Burnett

Gone to the Grave (eBook, ePUB)

Burial Customs of the Arkansas Ozarks, 1850-1950

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

Before there was a death care industry where professional funeral directors offered embalming and other services, residents of the Arkansas Ozarks-and, for that matter, people throughout the South-buried their own dead. Every part of the complicated, labor-intensive process was handled within the deceased's community. This process included preparation of the body for burial, making a wooden coffin, digging the grave, and overseeing the burial ceremony, as well as observing a wide variety of customs and superstitions.

These traditions, especially in rural communities, remained the norm up through the end of World War II, after which a variety of factors, primarily the loss of manpower and the rise of the funeral industry, brought about the end of most customs.

Gone to the Grave, a meticulous autopsy of this now vanished way of life and death, documents mourning and practical rituals through interviews, diaries and reminiscences, obituaries, and a wide variety of other sources. Abby Burnett covers attempts to stave off death; passings that, for various reasons, could not be mourned according to tradition; factors contributing to high maternal and infant mortality; and the ways in which loss was expressed though obituaries and epitaphs. A concluding chapter examines early undertaking practices and the many angles funeral industry professionals worked to convince the public of the need for their services.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Verso
• Seitenzahl: 352
• Erscheinungstermin: 3. April 2015
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781626743427
• Artikelnr.: 43094997

Autorenporträt

Abby Burnett is a former freelance newspaper reporter. She is author of When the Presbyterians Came to Kingston: Kingston Community Church 1917-1951.