The sponsors of two lovely mansions built approximately in the 1820's, long before the Civil War offer special presentations from time to time. Today it was "Mourning Traditions During the 1800's" and a friend who enjoys historical offerings attended with me. Here are a few things I found unusually interesting as we moved about the house from room to room.
1. First we met Cassie, the slave cook. She had a monologue in which her husband had just died. Slaves were buried at night so as not to take time away from their work for the master by day. Services were held later whenever convenient.
2. Next stop was the living room with a coffin holding a doll. To show respect the windows were covered with black, the piano was draped with black, family photos were turned backward or draped with black--everything very somber.
3. The baby's mother was dressed in deep mourning--solid black for a year and a day and second stage--solid black with a little white for the next year and a day. Black dye for clothing was erratic until it was learned that adding a little arsenic caused the black to stay true. Many women died from inhaling arsenic and the thinking was that she died of a broken heart.
4. Because many women died in childbirth, large women were more desirable for marriage because it was thought they were more likely to survive having children.
5. If a wife or other close kin died, men had to wear mourning garb for only six months. The fact was it was not considered good in those days to be a slave, a woman or a poor person!
6. Special funeral food recipes were provided. In the wealthy homes special white dishes decorated in black were used during the mourning period. When you yard sale or go antiquing, look for black and white dishes with "Wreath" on the back and you might have a real find.
7. And these are just a few of the tidbits my friend and I learned this morning.
5 comments:
That sounds like an interesting morning for you and your friendw. Glad things have changed through the years.
umm "friends". Don't kno why I ca't profred anymor!
Very interesting. It's a lot of fun to have a visual history lesson like that. Wish I were closer to go with you!
Nog Blog, I also wish you were closer to do such fun things--even though the topic here is a bit morbid. That's just the way it was.
Ada, you and I both are glad such traditions have changed. How is this for discrimination: Women mourned for a deceased husband for over two years, whereas as a man was free to resume life as usual six months after his wife died. Another thing I should have shared: photography was popular in the 1800'a and family portraits were made of the deceased alone or in a family portrait with the deceased posed as lifelike as possible. Since long exposures were needed to collect enough light to expose the film, sitting motionless for a short time was necessary. Obviously the deceased was least likely to have a blur from movement! And that's the last tidbit from my unusual morning to learn about mourning.
Wow, sounds very interesting. I would have enjoyed going with you. I'm with Ada and glad things have changed over the years.
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