About Funerals

Jamestown Press
Jamestown, [Boone County] Indiana
Thursday, Noon, 27 September, 1900

The Darlington Echo voices some sound in the following about funerals:

Did you ever stop to think about the useless display that is now made at funerals? We have no particular funeral in mind, but the whole thing, as a rule, is overdone. We would not have this corpse hauled in a spring wagon, yet in that way my grandparents were hauled to their last resting place. But what we allude to is the useless, even teckless [sic], display that is made at a funerals. Conscientiously we are opposed to church funerals for several reasons. To the average person $10 worth of the necessities of life are preferable to $30 worth of flowers on his or her coffin. To our mind home is the place for funerals. The idea of going to the church and sit through two hours' harrowing up to our feelings is to me a horror, and to a certain extent destroys the solemnity of the occasion. All friends who desire can see the departed at the home, and the family, in their sacred sorrow, are not exposed to the idle gaze of curiosity seekers.

Transcribed by: Janet Isley Price.