5. Papa’s Young Protégé

The typical country funeral of sixty years ago was, as I have stated earlier, an event of general public interest.

Papa and I would drive first to the bereaved home and head the long procession of buggies and carriages to the church. Usually the remains of the deceased would be conveyed in a hearse provided by an undertaker from a neighboring town who was primarily a furniture dealer. In that case he would have brought a coffin with him.

At the church door, everybody but the drivers would disembark. Papa would get out and I (feeling very important) would drive to the first vacant hitching rack; and, having made sure our horse wouldn’t get into trouble, I would slip into one of the rear pews. The church would be full; and in one of the “Amen corners” (a group of about four pews on either side of the pulpit platform)a choir of twenty or more adults, mostly young farmers’ wives, would be ready to go into action at the appearance of the funeral cortege.

It would be entering now, Papa leading; and the choir would shrilly blast the peace of the countryside:

Uh—sleep in JEEZ—ZUZ—Bless—ud sleep,
From which none EV—VER wakes to weep.

By now the coffin, in the hands of a half-dozen husky farmers, is squeezing through the narrow aisle, followed by the close relatives, in the order of their relationship, the men leaving their hats on. I do not know why the men kept their hats on. Papa thought the custom might have originated with the idea that the male relatives were so stricken with grief that they forgot to take their hats off.

I know that my papa never wilfully tried to make these sorrowing people cry. What he had to say was spoken in calmness and reassurance. But it was obvious that the choir would be contented with nothing less than an emotional storm. In their opinion, that’s what funerals were for; to give the bereaved a chance to cry it all out.

Indeed it was common practice, in the country, for an officiating minister to stress the family’s loneliness and “the vacant chair” until the whole congregation would have lost all control of its emotions, and would be howling like dogs.

Papa used to tell us of an old “Pennsylvania Dutch” preacher who specialized in such performances. Once, according to Papa’s recollection, the good old man, while “preaching the funeral” of an octogenarian, said, “Now ven you get home, vadder vill not be dere. You vill set down to dinner, and vadder vill not be dere. You vill go to vadder’s bedroom to see dat he is comfort—able, and vadder vill not be dere. Everywhere dere vill be a lackancy!”

But I must get on—and out of this gruesome subject. I’m half-sorry now that I ever got you into it, though I do think it is of quite important psychological interest.

Now the funeral sermon is ended and it is time to “View the remains.” Beginning with the rear pews, presumably occupied by those farthest removed from the close neighbors, long-time friends and the relatives, the audience marches slowly forward to pass the coffin; mothers lifting up bewildered three-year-old tots for their last (and probably their first) look at the deceased.

This seems an endless business. The tension mounts as the procession begins to draw upon the forward pews containing cousins once or twice removed. Now, at last, the immediate family huddles about the coffin, in a complete breakdown. More likely than not, the cold face is kissed. I have seen a mother tuck a warm shawl around the throat and shoulders of the departed.

There is more singing: “Shall We Gather at the RIV—VER?”