grimes county historical commission issue 2 volume 10 ......native american burial customs have...

Issue 2 Volume 10 October 2016

Photo of the Month

Oakland Cemetery Navasota, Texas

Grimes County Historical Commission

Grimes County Historical Commission

Executive Board Chairman Joe King Fultz Vice Chairman Vacant Secretary Vanessa Burzynski Treasurer Joe King

COMMITTEES Historical Markers Denise Upchurch Historic Preservation Sarah Nash Newsletter & Publicity Vanessa Burzynski

Meetings of the Grimes County Historical Commission are held on the Second Monday of the Month at 7:00 pm in the Courthouse Annex in Anderson, Texas

Contact Information Joe King Fultz [email protected] Visit us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/GrimesCountyHistoricalCommission

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GRIMES COUNTY HISTORICAL COMMISSION NEWSLETTER OCTOBER 2016

BURIAL CUSTOMS AND CEMETERIES IN AMERICAN

HISTORY

The types of cemeteries and burial places that might qualify for National Register listing are many and varied. They include:

town cemeteries and burial grounds whose creation and continuity reflect the broad spectrum of the community's history and culture;

family burial plots that contribute to the significance of a farmstead;

beautifully designed garden cemeteries that served as places of rest and recreation;

graveyards that form an important part of the historic setting for a church or other religious building being nominated;

formal cemeteries whose collections of tombs, sculptures, and markers possess artistic and architectural significance;

single or grouped gravestones that represent a distinctive folk tradition;

graves or graveyards whose survival is a significant or the only reminder of an important person, culture, settlement, or event; and

burial places whose location, grave markers, landscaping, or other physical attributes tell us something important about the people who created them.

Examples of these and many other types of burial places appear throughout this bulletin, especially in the section on applying the criteria. Some types of burial places represent events, customs, or beliefs common to many cultures, locations, or time periods. Others are unique representatives of specific people or events. Background information on some of the traditions in American burials that are so common that numerous

examples have been, or are likely to be, identified and nominated is discussed briefly in this section; the omission of other traditions or historical developments should not be interpreted as precluding cemeteries or graves that do not fit into the topics that are included. For example, community cemeteries that reflect early settlement or various aspects of an area's long history may not fall into one of the traditions described in this section. Yet they frequently are nominated and listed in the National Register.

Native American Burial Customs

Native American burial customs have varied widely, not only geographically, but also through time, having been shaped by differing environments, social structure, and spiritual beliefs. Prehistoric civilizations evolved methods of caring for the dead that reflected either the seasonal movements of nomadic societies or the lifeways of settled communities organized around fixed locations. As they evolved, burial practices included various forms of encasement, sub-surface interment, cremation, and exposure. Custom usually dictated some type of purification ritual at the time of burial. Certain ceremonies called for secondary interments following incineration or exposure of the body, and in such cases, the rites might extend over some time period. Where the distinctions in social status were marked, the rites were more elaborate.

The Plains Indians and certain Indians of the Pacific Northwest commonly practiced above-ground burials using trees, scaffolds, canoes, and boxes on stilts, which decayed over time.

More permanent were earthen constructions, such as the chambered mounds and crematory mounds of the


Indians of the Mississippi River drainage. In some areas of the Southeast and Southwest, cemeteries for urn burials, using earthenware jars, were common.

After contact with European Americans, Native American cultures adopted other practices brought about by religious proselytizing, intermarriage, edict, and enforcement of regulations. The Hopi, Zuni, and other Pueblo peoples of Arizona and New Mexico were among the first to experience Hispanic contact in the 16th century, and subsequently, their ancestral lands were colonized. At the pueblos stone and adobe villages where Roman Catholic missions were established, burials within church grounds or graveyards consecrated in accordance with Christian doctrine were encouraged for those who had been converted to the faith. However, Native Americans also continued their traditional burial practices, when necessary in secret.

Throughout the period of the fur trade in the North Pacific, beginning in the late 18th century, Russian Orthodox missions were established among the native populations settled along the coastline and mainland interior of Russian-occupied Alaska. At Eklutna, a village at the head of Cook Inlet, north of Anchorage, an Athabascan cemetery adjacent to the 19th century Church of St. Nicholas (Anchorage Borough - Census Area), illustrates continuity of a burial custom widely recorded in historic times, that of constructing gable-roofed wooden shelters over graves to house the spirit of the dead. In the cemetery at Eklutna, the spirit houses are arranged in regular rows, have brightly-painted exteriors fronted by Greek crosses, and are surmounted by comb-like ridge crests. In this particular example, variation in the size of the shelters is an indication of social status, while clan affiliations are identified by color and by the styling of the crest.

Colonial and Early American Burial Customs

The earliest episodes of Spanish, French, and English settlement on the eastern shore of North America followed voyages of exploration in the 16th century. The original attempts at colonizing were made in Florida, the Carolinas, and Virginia. In 1565, the first lasting European community was established by the Spanish on the east coast of Florida, at St. Augustine, which survived attack from competing forces in colonization of the New World. An essential feature of the fortified settlement was the Roman Catholic mission church with its associated burial ground. Where they are uncovered in the course of modern day improvement projects, unmarked burials of the 16th and 17th centuries provide evidence for identifying the historic locations of successors to the founding church sites that gradually disappeared in the layerings of later town development. The archeological record shows shroud-wrapped interments were customary in the city's Spanish Colonial period. Traces of coffins or coffin hardware do not appear in Colonial burials before the beginning of English immigration to the area in the 18th century. Graves of the Spanish colonists occurred in consecrated ground within or adjacent to a church. They followed a pattern of regular, compact spacing and east-facing orientation. These characteristics, together with arms crossed over the chest and the presence of brass shroud pins are a means of distinguishing Christian burials from precolonial Native American burials sometimes associated with the same site.

With the notable exception of the secular graveyards of Puritan New England, the ideal during the Colonial period in English colonies was to bury the dead in churchyards located in close proximity to churches. Churchyard burials have


remained standard practice into the 20th century for European Americans and other cultures in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Early Puritans rejected churchyard burials as they rebelled against other "papist" practices, as heretical and idolatrous. Instead, many 17th century New England towns set aside land as common community burial grounds. Headstone images from this period also reflect the rejection of formal Christian iconography in favor of more secular figures, such as skulls representing fate common to all men.

In areas such as the Middle Atlantic region and the South, settlement patterns tended to be more dispersed than in New England. Although early towns such as Jamestown established church cemeteries, eventually burial in churchyards became impractical for all but those living close to churches. As extensive plantations were established to facilitate the production of large scale cash crops, such as tobacco, several factors often made burial in a churchyard problematical: towns were located far apart, geographically large parishes were often served by only a single church, and transportation was difficult, the major mode being by ship. The distance of family plantations from churches necessitated alternative locations for cemeteries, which took the form of family cemeteries on the plantation grounds. They usually were established on a high, well-drained point of land, and often were enclosed by a fence or wall. Although initially dictated by settlement patterns, plantation burials became a tradition once the precedent was set. Along with the variety of dependencies, agricultural lands, and other features, family cemeteries help illustrate the degree of self-sufficiency sustained by many of these plantations. Pruitt Oaks, Colbert County, Alabama, is one of many National Register examples of such a plantation complex.

Origins of the "Rural" Cemetery Movement

In the young republic of the United States, the "rural" cemetery movement was inspired by romantic perceptions of nature, art, national identity, and the melancholy theme of death. It drew upon innovations in burial ground design in England and France, most particularly Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, established in 1804 and developed according to an 1815 plan. Based on the model of Mount Auburn Cemetery, founded at Cambridge, near Boston by leaders of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in 1831, America's "rural" cemeteries typically were established around elevated viewsites at the city outskirts. Mount Auburn was followed by the formation of Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia in 1836; Green Mount in Baltimore, 1838; Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn and Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York, in 1839; and ultimately many others.

After the Civil War, reformers concerned about land conservation and public health agitated for revival of the practice of incineration and urn burial. The cremation movement gathered momentum rapidly around the turn of the century, particularly on the west coast, and resulted in construction of crematories in many major cities. Columbariums and community mausoleums were erected in cemeteries to expand the number of burials which could be accommodated with the least sacrifice of ground space.

Perpetual care lawn cemeteries or memorial parks of the 20th century represent a transformation of the "rural" cemetery ideal that began in the last half of the 19th century. At Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati (Hamilton County), Ohio, superintendent Adolph Strauch introduced the lawn plan system, which


deemphasized monuments in favor of unbroken lawn scenery, or common open space. Writing in support of this concept and the value of unified design, fellow landscape architect and cemetery engineer Jacob Weidenmann brought out Modern Cemeteries: An Essay on the Improvement and Proper Management of Rural Cemeteries in 1888. To illustrate his essay, Weidenmann diagrammed a variety of plot arrangements showing how areas could be reserved exclusively for landscaping for the enhancement of adjacent lots.

"Modern" cemetery planning was based on the keynotes of natural beauty and economy. Whereas 19th century community cemeteries typically were organized and operated by voluntary associations which sold individual plots to be marked and maintained by private owners according to individual taste, the memorial park was comprehensively designed and managed by full-time professionals. Whether the sponsoring institution was a business venture or non-profit corporation, the ideal was to extend perpetual care to every lot and grave. The natural beauty of cemetery sites continued to be enhanced through landscaping, but rolling terrain was smoothed of picturesque roughness and hilly features. The mechanized equipment required to maintain grounds efficiently on a broad scale prompted standardization of markers flush with the ground level and the elimination of plot-defining barriers.

The "Rural" Cemetery ement and its ImpactMov on

American Landscape Design

The "rural" cemetery movement, influenced by European trends in gardening and landscape design, in turn had a major impact on American landscape design. Early in the 19th century, the prevailing tradition was the romantic style of landscape gardening which in the previous century the English nobility and their gardeners had invented using classical landscape paintings as their models. English garden designers such as Lancelot "Capability" Brown, William Kent, Sir Uvedale Price, Humphrey Repton and John Claudius Loudon artfully improved vast country estates according to varying aesthetic theories. To achieve naturalistic effects, gracefully curving pathways and watercourses were adapted to rolling land forms. Contrast and variation were employed in the massing of trees and plants as well as the arrangement of ornamental features. The "picturesque" mode of 18th century landscaping was characterized by open meadows of irregular outline, uneven stands of trees, naturalistic lakes, accents of specimen plants and, here and there, incidental objects such as an antique statue or urn on a pedestal to lend interest and variety to the scene.

The "rural" cemeteries laid out by horticulturists in Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York in the 1830s were romantic pastoral landscapes of the picturesque type. Planned as serene and spacious grounds where the combination of nature and monuments would be spiritually uplifting, they came to be looked on as public parks, places of respite and recreation acclaimed for their beauty and usefulness to society. In the early "rural" cemeteries and in those which followed


their pattern, hilly, wooded sites were enhanced by grading, selective thinning of trees, and massing of plant materials which directed views opening onto broad vistas. The cemetery gateway established separation from the workaday world, and a winding drive of gradual ascent slowed progress to a stately pace. Such settings stirred an appreciation of nature and a sense of the continuity of life. By their example, the popular new cemeteries started a movement for urban parks that was encouraged by the writings of Andrew Jackson Downing and the pioneering work of other advocates of "picturesque" landscaping, most particularly Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted, who collaborated in the design of New York City's Central Park.

With the rapid growth of urban centers later in the 19th century, landscape design and city planning merged in the work of Frederick Law Olmsted, the country's leading designer of urban parks. Olmsted and his partners were influential in reviving planning on a grand scale in the parkways they created to connect units of municipal park systems. Although Olmsted was more closely tied to the naturalistic style of landscape planning, his firm's work with Daniel H.Burnham in laying out grounds for the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago conformed to the classical principles of strong axial organization and bilateral symmetry. The central unifying element of the imposing exposition building group was a lengthy concourse, a lagoon, terminated by sculptural focal points at either end. Following the Chicago World's Fair, civic planning was based for some time on a formal, monumental vision of "the City Beautiful."

The historic relationship of cemetery and municipal park planning in America is well documented in Park and Cemetery, one of the earliest professional journals in the field of landscape architecture.

Inaugurated in Chicago in 1891 and briefly published as The Modern Cemetery, a title that was resumed in 1933, the journal chronicles the growth of an industry and indicates the developing professionalism within related fields. For example, the Association of American Cemetery Superintendents was organized in 1887. Cemetery superintendents and urban park officials held a common interest in matters of design as well as horticulture and practical groundskeeping.

The tradition of naturalistic landscape design that was developed by Olmsted and his followers continued into the 20th century. Widely influential was the work of John C. Olmsted and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., successors of the elder Olmsted and principals of the Olmsted Brothers firm which was consulted throughout the country on matters of civic landscape design. But after 1900, parks and cemeteries took on aspects of formal landscape planning made fashionable by the "City Beautiful" movement and renewed interest in formal gardens of the Italian style. Typically, classical formality was introduced to early 20th century cemetery landscapes in the axial alignment of principal avenues of approach centered on building fronts, and also in cross axes terminated by rostrums, exedras, and other focal features drawn from various traditions in classical architecture. By the 1930s, newer cemeteries and memorial parks showed the influence of modernism in a general preference for buildings and monuments that were stripped of excessive decoration. Greek architecture, admired for its purity and simplicity, was the approved model for monumentation in the early modern age.


Military Cemeteries

Military cemeteries, created for the burial of war casualties, veterans, and their dependents are located in nearly every State, as well as in foreign countries, and constitute an important type of American cemetery. There are over 200 cemeteries established by the Federal government for the burial of war casualties and veterans. These include national cemeteries, post cemeteries, soldiers' lots, Confederate and Union plots, American cemeteries overseas, and other burial grounds. Many States also have established veterans cemeteries. The majority of veterans, however, likely are buried in private and community cemeteries, sometimes in separate sections reserved for veterans.

During the American Revolution, soldiers were buried in existing burial grounds near the place of battle. One of the earliest types of organized American military cemetery was the post cemetery. Commanders at frontier forts of the early-to-mid 19th century buried their dead in cemetery plots marked off within the post reservations. Post cemetery registers reveal a fairly uniform system of recording burials, sometimes even including assigned grave numbers. Management of burial grounds fell to quartermaster officers. In 1850, the U.S. Congress called for the establishment of a cemetery outside Mexico City for Americans who died in the Mexican War. This was a precedent for the creation of permanent military cemeteries over a decade before the creation of a national cemetery system.

During the Civil War, there was a critical shortage of cemetery space for large concentrations of troops. At first, this need was addressed through the acquisition of lots near general hospitals, where more soldiers died than in battle. As the war continued, however, it was clear that this

was not an adequate solution. In 1862, Congress passed legislation authorizing the creation of a national cemetery system. Within the year, 14 national cemeteries were established. Most were located near troop concentrations, two were former post cemeteries, one was for the burial of Confederate prisoners and guards who died in a train accident, and several were transformed battlefield burial grounds. By the end of 1864, 13 more had been added. Two of the best known of the national cemeteries from the Civil War period are Arlington National Cemetery, established in 1864, and Andersonville, established in 1865. Arlington, the home of Confederate General Robert E. Lee at the beginning of the Civil War, was confiscated by the Union army in May of 1861. In 1864, on the recommendation of Brig. Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs, Quartermaster General of the Army, the grounds officially became a national cemetery. Andersonville became the final resting place of almost 13,000 soldiers who died there at the Confederate prisoner of war camp.

The establishment of Civil War-era military cemeteries often resulted from decisions by local commanders or by State civil authorities in conjunction with private associations. Burial grounds were established near battlefields, military posts, hospitals, and, later, veterans homes. Before the creation of the National Cemetery System, these burial grounds were referred to variously as national cemeteries, soldiers' lots, Confederate plots, Union plots, and post cemeteries. Many later were absorbed into the National Cemetery System.

Immediately after the Civil War, an ambitious search and recovery program initiated the formidable task of locating and reburying soldiers from thousands of scattered battlefield burial sites. By 1870, over 90 percent of the Union casualties 45 percent of whose identity were unknown


were interred in national cemeteries, private plots, and post cemeteries. In 1867, Congress directed every national cemetery to be enclosed with a stone or iron fence, each gravesite marked with a headstone, and superintendent quarters to be constructed. Although many national cemeteries contain Confederate sections, it was not until 1906 that Congress authorized marking the graves of Confederates who had died in Federal prisons and military hospitals. The post-Civil War reburial program also removed burials from abandoned military post cemeteries, particularly those in the western frontier, for interment into newly-created national cemeteries.

Following World War I, only 13 percent of the deceased returned to the United States were placed in national cemeteries; 40 percent of those who died were buried in eight permanent American cemeteries in Europe. Similarly, after World War II, 14 permanent cemeteries were created in foreign countries. Today, there are 24 American cemeteries located outside the United States, which are administered by the American Battle Monuments Commission.

Until 1933, the War Department administered most military cemeteries. That year an executive order transferred 11 national cemeteries near national military parks or battlefield sites already under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service to that agency. Today, the National Park Service administers 14 national cemeteries. Originally, hospital military cemeteries associated with former National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers and former Veterans Bureau (later Veterans Administration) hospital reservations were not part of the national cemetery system. In 1973, the Department of the Army transferred 82 of the 84 remaining national cemeteries to the Veterans Administration today the

Department of Veterans Affairs which had been created in 1930 from the merging of the National Homes and Veterans Bureau. Also in 1973, the 21 existing "VA" hospital cemeteries were recognized as part of the National Cemetery System. The system has continued to expand, and there now are 114 national cemeteries managed by the Department of Veterans Affairs, where more than two million Americans including veterans from all of the country's wars and conflicts from the Revolutionary War to the Persian Gulf are buried.

The total number of military and veterans burial places in the United States is unknown because there are numerous veterans plots in private and non-Federal public cemeteries. In 1991, 70 percent of the markers provided by the Federal government to mark new gravesites were delivered to private or State cemeteries, and the remainder to national cemeteries.

This article was taken from the National Park Service website. https://www.nps.gov/nr/publications/bulletins/nrb41/nrb41_5.htm

Arlington National Cemetery Washington, D.C.

https://www.nps.gov/nr/publications/bulletins/nrb41/nrb41_5.htm

https://www.nps.gov/nr/publications/bulletins/nrb41/nrb41_5.htm


On a Hill Far Away

While walking on a limestone hill, Feeling one with all creation -

Watching birds and smelling flowers, Far from city, care and time – I spied a grove of cedar trees

Much higher than their brothers, And slowly climbed the slope to see

Why man had not cut down Like all the others

These tall green spires That beckoned me,

As if a ghost had called. I tripped before I spotted

The rusted barbed wire strands Which marked it’s bounds

A Cemetery old With hewn stones dotting weedy earth

And as I walked on hallowed ground I felt the gates of time close me all around.

The ancient dates I spied. Did not surprise me so.

For it was clear, Those who mourned their loved ones here

Rest in other plots Maybe close but likely far

From where these lived and died I know not where her body lies

No map to lead me there Where I can kneel and tell my child

Your grandma’s mother lies beneath this spot

and over there she worked to rear her brood

near the creek her husband plowed the ground.

And grandma walked on yonder road To a schoolhouse now long gone,

Where Grandpa played and read his books And teased her pigtails bound.

I crossed the fence The gates behind me closed

The birds still chirped and flowers bloomed I walked in silence still

The tear upon my cheek fell off And soaked into the ground To blend with all creation,

Like the souls upon the hill.


GRAVE MATTERS

The tour through winding roads of temple-like mausoleums, angelic statuary and soaring stone monoliths ended with a bus ride back to the Historical Society's auditorium. There, Jane Peters Estes, veiled and in formal black mourning attire, waited to begin a presentation entitled "Grave Matters."

An authority on death customs in Civil War-era America, Estes spoke of the surprisingly complicated protocols of mourning behavior and dress of the period.

"The Victorians had a lot of superstitions associated with death. When there was a corpse in the house you had to cover all the mirrors," she said. "And if a mirror in your house was to fall and break by itself, it meant that someone in the home would die soon. When someone died in the house and there was a clock in the room, you had to stop the clock at the death hour or the family of the household would have bad luck. When the body was taken from the house, it had to be carried out feet first because if it was carried out head first, it could look back and beckon others to follow it into death."

Views and practices related to death and burial in America paralleled those of Europe and began to change significantly in the early 1800s, she explained. Probably the most dramatic manifestation of this change was the graveyard itself. In London and Paris, the concept was revolutionized with the design of elaborate "garden cemeteries" that were lushly landscaped burial grounds as well as public parks. The trend quickly took hold in the U.S. with the construction of facilities like Laurel Hill along the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia, and Harleigh along the Cooper River in Camden.

Socially, decorum demanded that family members adjust their behavior and dress for years after the death of a close relative.

"We have worn particular clothing to mourn our dead all the way back to the 1600s," said Estes. "But it was in the 1830s and 1840s that we saw mourning become an art form. There were many books written on the subject of how to mourn, what to wear, when to wear it. Of course, when Prince Albert died in 1861 and the Queen of England went into mourning, society on both sides of the ocean took on mourning with a vengeance.

That same year, the American Civil War began and death on a massive scale touched communities and families North and South. Mourning became a central fact of wartime life. Formal black mourning clothes -- even items of underwear and accessories like gloves and handkerchiefs had to be black -- were a society-wide necessity.

"The Civil War resulted in approximately 600,000 casualties. In the state of Alabama alone, there were over 80,000 widows -- 80,000 women dressed for mourning as I am today," Estes told the audience.

"If I were to go out on the street in mourning in the 1860s, I would have covered my face with the veil. One reason is that it would shield the fact that I had been crying. You wouldn't see the tears of the mourner. But another of the superstitions they believed in back then was that spirits of the departed would hover around those they loved. And if a passerby looked directly on the mourner's face, that spirit might attach itself to that person. So, the veil was a protection for the wearer as well as a protection for others."


"Mourning clothes were something you needed quickly when there was a death in your family," she said. "As a result, mourning garments became the first off-the-rack clothing you could buy. Remember, this was a time when most clothing was made at home."

"You could either go to a place that sold mourning clothes and buy them, or take everything you had to a merchant who would dye them all black. If you were poorer than that, you would put your own clothes in a large pot in your back yard and dye them black. The reason you did it outside was that black dye was very pungent smelling.

The diary of one woman from Virginia in 1864 mentions that 'the entire town smells of the dye pots'. Unless you know about mourning customs you can't understand what that meant. Basically, everyone in that town was mourning and changing their clothing color for someone. They couldn't afford to buy new clothes and they couldn't afford to have clothes dyed by someone else. They were doing it themselves."

In another area of death lore, she pointed out how the anguish and animosity of the Civil War was literally recorded in stone in some burial grounds.

"I found the gravestone of a Union Soldier who had the misfortune of dying in Fredericksburg, Va.," she said. It read:

"They came from the north to our southern land to venge their fire and make their brand. But this lonely, desolate forgotten spot is all this Yankee bastard got. Come not again to feed our soil but leave us alone to our peace and toil. And let this place in remembrance be, a fitting end and a dread to thee."

Another curious and widespread concern in the nineteenth century was the fear of being buried alive. "This was a superstition that so permeated society that even Mary Lincoln, a relatively well-to-do, well-educated woman, shared in her final instructions her fear of this. She wrote, 'I desire that my body shall remain for two days with the lid not screwed down.'"

"Because of this fear," Estes said, "they developed a coffin alarm. This was a bell attached to the headstone with a chain that led down into the coffin to a ring that went around the finger of the deceased. So, if you were to wake up and find yourself accidentally buried, you could pull on the chain and ring the bell in the cemetery yard.

"Can you imagine being the graveyard caretaker working late one night and hearing one of those bells ring?" she asked.

This is a U.S. patent drawing for a coffin alarm and escape system from the 1860s.


House of Mourning - Victorian Mourning & Funeral Customs in

the 1890s

BEFORE THE FUNERAL The manner of caring for the dead is growing gradually into a closer imitation of life, and we see the dear ones now lying in that peaceful repose which gives hope to those who view them. No longer does the gruesome and chilling shroud enwrap the form. The garments worn in life have taken its place, and men and women are dressed as in life. It gives a feeling of comfort to see them thus, for it imparts a natural look which could never accompany the shroud. Flowers are strewn about the placid face, and one cannot but remember those grand lines from Bryant: "He wraps the drapery of his couch about him, And lies down to pleasant dreams."

WATCHING THE DEAD It is no longer the custom to watch the dead — an excellent omission for many of those vigils were unseemly in their mirth. Some friend or relative sits up in order to give the dead any attention necessary. The preparation of the deceased is always attended to by some kindly friends who are not members of the family, and that agonizing duty is spared the afflicted ones. It is more thoughtful for someone to volunteer to remain with the family, through the long sad night hours. It makes the grief and loneliness of the house less oppressive.

CRAPE ON THE DOOR: "Ring the bell softly,

There's crape on the door." Black crape tied with white ribbon is placed upon the door or bell knob, as an indication that the dread visitor has entered the home, and borne away another prize. This should deter the caller from

ringing, if it is possible to bring the attendant to the door without doing so. No one knows save those who have passed through a sorrow, how the clang of a bell, with its noisy reminder of active life, jars upon the nerves. In many houses, the hall door is left ajar, that friends may enter quietly. The kindly instincts of the heart tell them to speak softly, and be helpful and sympathetic. White crape looped with white ribbon is appropriate for a child or young person. For the aged, black crape and black ribbon are used.

PALL-BEARERS From six to eight pall-bearers are chosen from the immediate friends of the deceased, and near to him in age. A very young girl may be conveyed to the hearse by girls of her own age. The duty of the pall-bearers is to carry the coffin from the house to the hearse — also from the hearse to the grave. The carriage in which they ride precedes the hearse. They are provided with black gloves and crape for the arm, when attending an elderly person, but wear white gloves and white crape for a young person. These are furnished by the family through the undertaker. Notes are sent to those who are to act in this capacity, requesting their services.

AT THE HOUSE OF MOURNING When the sad event has become known, friends call to offer their services, but the afflicted ones are not expected to see any save their most particular friends, whose duty it is to make all arrangements for the burial, consulting with those most interested about the details, receive those who call, or fulfill any and every requirement that may arise. Visits of condolence are not made until after the funeral.


CARRIAGES

The family decides about how many it wishes to invite to the interment, and provides carriages for them. A list is made out, and given to the undertaker, that he may know about how many carriages will be needed, and in what order to arrange them. Many bring their own carriages, but a certain number is provided by the family, among which are those for the pall-bearers, and clergyman, when he accompanies the dead to the grave.

FUNERAL INVITATIONS Do not slight an invitation to a funeral. In cities and towns where death notices are inserted in the papers, the words "Friends invited," is sufficient invitation to the funeral. But in smaller places, it becomes necessary to issue invitations to those whose presence is desired. The invitations are engraved on small-sized note paper, with wide black border, in this manner: "Yourself and family are respectfully invited to attend the funeral of Miss Stella Mason, from her late residence on Wednesday, July 14th, at 11 o'clock A.M. Burial at Forest Home Cemetery."

FUNERAL SERVICES

When the funeral is held at the house, the family did not view the remains after the people have begun to assemble. Just before the clergyman begins the services the mourners are seated near the casket, the nearest one at the head, and the others following in order of kinship. If it is possible, they are placed in a room adjoining, where the words of the service can be heard. They are thus spared the pain of giving way to their grief before strangers. Those who are present should look at the dead before they take their seats for the service, although it is customary for the master of ceremonies (usually the undertaker) ere the coffin lid is closed, to

invite all who so desire, to take a last look, ere parting forever. The casket is never opened at the church, unless it is the funeral of a prominent man and numbers go to the church for that purpose, whom the house would not accommodate. The family, together with those who are to be present at the interment, should be allowed to pass from the house or church before the others do.

"FUNERAL PRIVATE" This announcement has caused many to remain away from a funeral, lest they intrude. But it merely means that the interment will be private, only a few near friends accompanying the remains to the grave; but at the services all who choose to come will be welcome.

MILITARY FUNERALS The sword and sash of an army or navy officer are laid across the coffin lid, and the national flag is draped over him. When the deceased is buried with Masonic or other honors, the lodge or body to which he belongs, conducts the funeral according to its own formulas. In case the deceased is a member of an organization that expects to conduct the services, prompt notice should be sent them, so that they may have time to prepare for the funeral.

FLOWERS How tenderly these emblems of purity and beauty speak to the mourning heart. They are the tokens of sympathy sent by friends to comfort the lonely ones. Their fragrance mingles with the memory of the dear one who has gone. How fitting that their exquisite beauty and perfume should mingle with the last sad rites and consolation be found by silently breathing the heart's emotions in their blossoms, for "They are love's last gifts; bring flowers, pale flowers."


ORDER OF FUNERAL

The carriages containing the clergyman and pallbearers come first. The hearse follows, and behind that are the carriages of the immediate mourners, in their proper order. At the place of burial the minister precedes the coffin. An undertaker who is competent, always directs all the details, so that the family have no part in any such painful duty.

HOW LONG MUST MOURNING BE WORN? A widow's bonnet should be of heavy crape, with white crape or tarletan border, and the veil must be worn over the face. At the end of three months she may wear the veil depending from the back of her bonnet. This deep veil must be worn a year, and mourning must be worn two years. Many widows never return to gay colors, and some wear mourning the rest of their lives. A widower wears mourning for a year. His mourning must consist of a black suit, black gloves and necktie, and a deep weed on his hat. Those are very punctilious in such matters, wear black-edged linen and black studs and cuff-buttons. For parents or children deep mourning is worn for a year. After that, though mourning is worn another year, the material is changed, and crape is dispensed with. A sudden transition at the end of the period of mourning from black to glaring colors, should not be made. Any change of this nature should be gradual.

Crape and soft woolen goods for brothers and sisters are worn for six months; after that gray, black and white can be adopted. Of course there are no set limits to the period of wearing mourning, for these matters vary with the individual tastes and feelings of the wearer. Custom has laid down certain rules, which, however, can be widely departed from at will. For uncles, aunts, cousins and grandparents, black suits without crape are worn. Children wear mourning for a parent one year. It seems an unnatural custom to put very small children into deep black, even for so near a friend as a parent. The little ones do not comprehend the loss that has come to them; why teach them the meaning of their sad garb? Gentlemen in mourning wear weeds, whose depth is proportioned to the closeness of their relationship to the dead. Their mourning is adhered to only as long as the ladies of their household wear it.


WEARING MOURNING

There are many who do not believe in wearing mourning at all. Such have a right to refuse it — it concerns no one but themselves. On the other hand, much can be said in favor of the custom. A mourning dress is a protection against thoughtless or cruel inquiries. It is also in consonance with the feelings of the one bereaved, to whom brightness and merriment seem almost a mockery of the woe into which they have been plunged. With such, garments of mourning are "an outward sign of an inward sorrow," and they cling to them as the last token of respect and affection which they can pay the dead. ATTENDING PLACES OF AMUSEMENT A person in deep mourning does not go into society, or receive or pay visits. Neither are they found at the theater or other public places of amusement, unless it is a musical or concert, for six months. Formerly, a year's seclusion was demanded of a mourner; as also was the fashion of wearing purple, or "half-mourning" on leaving off deep black. There are some natures to whom this isolation long continued, would prove fatal. Such may be forgiven, if they indulge in innocent recreations a little earlier than custom believes compatible with genuine sorrow. It is not in good taste to attend a funeral in gay colors. You are not expected to assume mourning, but nearly everyone has a plain, dark suit that is less noticeable.

CARDS AND WRITING-PAPER Gentlemen or ladies in mourning use black-bordered cards and stationery for their social correspondence, until the period of mourning expires. The width of this border is a matter of taste. But if they write any letters upon business, they use plain white stationery.

MEMORIAL CARDS

Sometimes the bereaved ones send cards announcing their loss to friends. It is far less harrowing than to write, especially when one's circle of acquaintance is large. They should say very little.

CALLS OF CONDOLENCE The first calls of condolence should be made by friends within ten days of the death, but mere acquaintances should not call until the family have appeared at their place of worship. When those who are in mourning feel able to receive visits, they announce the fact by sending out black-edged cards enclosed in envelopes to those who have called upon them. This custom is not general, although a very excellent one.It is best not to allude to the sorrow unless it is seen that it is expected of them to do so. It is a relief with some people to talk of the departed, while it proves a torture to others, and only reopens the wound.

SECLUDING ONE'S SELF It is better for the sorrowing ones to mingle with their fellow creatures as soon as they can endure company. Their own feelings are their best guides. To some dispositions seclusion is a sweet and gentle ministry — they are never alone. But to others the monotony and loneliness strike a chill, and they must have some change to keep them from a settled melancholy. It is not usual to give or attend entertainments within a year of the death of a near relative; but if the custom is broken by the young, it should not excite unkind remarks. Older people should not expect younger ones to observe such strict rules as they lay down for themselves. The "young suffer intensely, but it is a wise provision of nature that it is not as lasting as the grief of maturer years. They should pay a suitable respect for the relatives they have lost; but do not ask them to seclude


themselves until their lives are lastingly shadowed. We owe love and remembrance to the dead; but we also owe a duty to the living. And if we would hallow the memory of those we have lost, we should be more tender toward those who are left us to love and cherish. "What a pleasant thought, that when we come to die people will show us respect, that they will gather round the casket and tenderly lay our remains away in the earth for the angels to watch over till the morning of the resurrection. Tears will fall upon our grave, and appreciative words will be uttered. But would it not be well if honors were not entirely posthumous? if a part of the love and affection that is so freely given to the dead, had encircled them when living?"

There's a beautiful face in the silent air Which follows me ever and near,

With smiling eyes and amber hair, With voiceless lips, yet with breath of prayer,

That I feel, but cannot hear.

The snow-white hand and head of gold Lie low in a marble sleep—

I stretch my arms for the clasp of old, But the empty air is strangely cold,

And so my vigil alone I keep!

There's a sinless brow with a radiant crown, And a cross laid down in the dust;

There's a smile where never a shadow comes now, And tears no more from those dear eyes flow—

So sweet in their innocent trust.

Ah, well! the summer is coming again, Singing her same old song;

But oh, it sounds like a sob of pain As it floats in the sunshine and the rain

O'er the hearts of the world's great throng.

There's a beautiful land beyond the skies, And I long to reach its shore;

For I know I shall find my darling there— The beautiful eyes and amber hair

Of the loved one gone before.


NAVASOTA CELEBRATES 150 YEARS

Navasota will be celebrating 150 years of incorporation on October 22nd, 2016. Please join our community in all of the festivities. The event held in downtown Navasota begins at 9am with the following schedule:

9:00 a.m. – Event begins, vendors open 9:00 a.m. – Union Pacific Mini Train begins rides 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. – Over 80 artists will display and sell art on the second floor of 102 E. Washington Ave 10:00 a.m. -12:00 p.m. – Games on the Lawn (sack races, three-legged races and more) 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. – Church Tours 12:00 p.m. - 1:15 p.m. – Music performance by The Navasota Music Study Club and The Star of Texas Dulcimers in the Municipal Building Lobby 1:15 p.m. – Musical Entertainment by Lil Rob and the Johnny Sacks 1:00 p.m-3:00p.m. – Games on the Lawn 3:00p.m. – The Virgil Garvin Vintage Baseball Game (anyone may participate) 4:00 p.m. – Community Picnic on the lawn of the Municipal Building (bring your blanket, food and drinks; food trucks will be on site as well) 5:00 p.m. – Nostalgic Movie, The Maltese Falcon, at Miller’s Theatre The Navasota Theater Alliance will have showings of The Count Will Rise Again at 2:00 PM and 7:00 PM.

Lanterns and Legends: Politics as Usual

Dig deeper into the history of the men and women who walked the streets of Navasota, settled in this town from far away places, created businesses, and impacted our history. Travel from grave to grave with the light of a lantern, while the history comes alive. Living history actors tell the real tale behind the tomb. Walking guided tours begin every 15 minutes (groups of 15) and last about an hour. Last tour begins at 7:45pm. Wear comfortable shoes (some grounds are uneven) and BRING insect repellent and a flash light. Bring your online receipt. Walk-ups welcome as space is available (cash or check).

Dig deeper into the history of the men and women who walked the streets of Navasota, settled in this town from far away places, created businesses, and impacted our history. Travel from grave to grave with the light of a lantern, while the history comes alive. Living history actors tell the real tale behind the tomb. Walking guided tours begin every 15 minutes (groups of 15) and last about an hour. Last tour begins at 7:45pm. Wear comfortable shoes (some grounds are uneven) and BRING insect repellent and a flash light. Bring your online receipt. Walk-ups welcome as space is available (cash or check).

Everyone is invited to come and enjoy a full day of festivities celebrating Navasota’s 150th Anniversary.

Please call 936-825-6475 or email [email protected] for more information.


grimes county historical commission issue 2 volume 10 ......native american burial customs have...

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