Lakewood Lore

Death stood at shoulder of pioneer family

The need to be remembered was of considerable concern in the pioneer life of Lakewood where families had to accept sudden and early deaths.

Friends and neighbors frequently were sent invitations to attend funerals. Gifts sometimes accompanied the letters -- often black gloves for women invitees and gold-band remembrance rings for the menfolk.

Before funeral parlors became customary in the 1930s, the deceased were viewed in their homes, which were marked during visitation periods by a black wreath on the front door.

In the 19th century, when it was considered bad luck to carry a casket through a door of a home, many frontier dwellings were built with a large "coffin window" for that purpose.

Mourning pictures sewn by girls and women were popular from the late 1700s through the mid-1800s. These homemade needlework memorials, hanging on parlor and bedroom walls, bore figures representing family members who had died.

Sometimes the pictures were done in watercolor on paper or silk. Occasionally thay combined needlework and painting.

Scenes often included tombstones and urns as well as such symbolic adornments as the hour glass (flight of time), crown (reward in heaven), lamp (knowledge of God), butterfly (resurrection), weeping willow (grief), lilies (purity), and violets (humility).

Superstitions relating to journey's end were as plentiful as blackberries.

Among them:

If a dog howls at night when there's illness in the house, it's a bad omen. To counteract, reach under the bed and turn over a shoe.

A white moth inside the house, or trying to enter, means death. Same is true if one dreams of a white horse.

Never carry a shovel through the house. If you must take one indoors, remove it through the door by which you entered.

Cover mirrors in a home where there's a corpse. The person who sees himself may be the Grim Reaper's next victim.

Count the cars of a passenger train, and you will hear of a death.

Bury a woman in all black, and she will return to haunt the family.

To see a light like a lighted candle moving about without anyone holding it means death. This appearance at night was called a "corpse candle."

This article by Dan Chabek appeared in the Lakewood Sun Post May 10, 1990. Reprinted with permission.

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