Caleb Wilde
(218 comments, 980 posts)
Posts by Caleb Wilde
The Somewhat Strange Story Behind this Double Coffin
From The Madison County Musings, Spring 1987 issue: “On October 15, 1937, Aunt Easter Johnson Eubanks died at her home near Japton after a long illness. Her husband, Uncle Sog Eubanks, a religious man hwo had long expressed the wish that he and Easter would depart this life together, gave his daughters instructions for their burial and began to pray for death. Within a few hours Uncle Sog joined his wife in death.
Sog and Easter Eubanks had been some of the earliest settlers in the Japton area and had raised ten children. Sog was known to all as a good Christian and a staunch Republican. He would lead his entire family to Japton to vote in a block, having agreed on their candidate beforehand. The word of the passing of Easter and Sog spread quickly.
The news of Aunt Easter’s death was carried by messenger down the mountain to Japton. The messenger went to George Harriman, who was working in his blacksmith shop. Mr. Harriman was the natural choice to receive the news first because he was the local coffin maker. A man of large and formidable stature, Harriman was himself a unique individual. Not only did he make caskets, he also kept a general store, a farm, and some cattle, helped manage the lumber mill and grist mill, service the community as blacksmith, carpenter, stone mason, and was a leader in the Japton Church of Christ. Harriman received the news with sadness.
They walked over to where the mill stacked their rough unplaned oak lumber and began to sort out some suitable planks.
It was while he was so engaged that another messenger arrived with the news of Sog’s passing. Harriman signed and his helper, Tommy McCoy, asked him if he had ever made a double coffin. Harriman said, “No, I have made coffins for babies, children, youth and adults of all sizes, but never a double one. He considered the suggestion for a while and then said he thought it was a good idea and that he could do it. Quickly he worked out the dimensions and set to work. Soon, he was joined by Miller Rodgers and John Spurlock, local men who helped with the carpentry.
Harriman sent to Huntsville for a bundle of cotton tucking, fine while muslin, lace trimming, and some brass coffin handles. When these supplies arrived McCoy was given the task of lining the casket and lid. He did so with some carpet tacks and a horseshoe hammer from the blacksmith shop. After the lining was completed the finished coffin was taken by wagon to the Eubanks home.
At the home the bodies had been prepared, but the man who had been asked to shave Uncle Sog was unable to do so until he had braced himself with several stiff drinks. The frail body of Easter, weighing no more than 80 pounds and the tall thin body of Sog were placed together in the double coffin in front of their house and some pictures were taken. The picture that is shown here, shows Eldorado Eubanks, one of Sog’s brothers, standing behind the double casket.
Because of the strong devotion that was shared by Easter and Sog, their united burial in a double casket would be long remembered by all who attended the sinple ceremonies at Groseclos Cemetery, south of Japton. Today a double stone, with a glass encased picture of Easter and Sog, marks their resting place in the quiet, tree bordered cemetery over-looking the Lollars Creek Valley in Madison County.”
Eight Vintage Caskets to Die For
This catalog is full of a number of caskets, coffins, vaults and other sundry items of interest that were sold by “Paxson Comfort and Co.” in 1898. It was given to us by a recently deceased friend whose father-in-law had been an undertaker at the turn of the century.
I paged through it and found some of the more interesting items of sale.
In 1898 many of the caskets/coffins didn’t have hinged lids like the ones today. Instead, like the one below, they had a looking glass on the lid. You could see the deceased’s face through the looking glass. 
Beware the grave robbers. Bwahahahaha! Yes, grave robbers were a legitimate fear, especially for the wealthy and/or famous. In fact, Abe Lincoln’s grave was nearly robbed, but the plot was foiled by a police informant. 
Out of the nearly 100 caskets / coffins in the Paxton Comfort Co. book, there are only a handful that had a hinged lid like this one; most of the caskets had lids that would come completely off. This is a full couch, which is what we generally use in the Southeastern part of Pennsylvania.
This is a variation of the half couch casket, which is what many funeral homes use in the United States. 
Paxton Comfort also offers funeral fur rugs. I have no idea what they were used for. Honestly, they look horrible.
I want this casket. I’d set it up in my living room and just marvel at it’s craftsmanship. “Honey, instead of watching Netflix tonight, let’s grab some popcorn and stare at ‘Design 48’.” It looks like something Dracula would fancy. 
This is another beautiful piece. I imagine it was hand-carved. It’s so beautiful, how could you bury it? I kinda pity the craftsman who worked tirelessly on this gorgeous piece of wood only to have a family purchase it, put a dead person in it and put it in the ground.
For under $65, you can get an ice box … a human ice box. For the bodies that were not embalmed, you could place said body in an “ice box” and let the coolness slow down the decomposition of the corpse.
You can also buy a chic embalming satchel. I’m thinking that after a couple uses those satchels would be stained a permanent dark crimson. 
This is pretty cool. The side folds down so you can see grandma’s hips.
The casket for the uber Christian. The purchase of this casket guarantees a ticket to the celestial paradise. 
Waiting for My Dad to Die: A Guest Post
Today’s writer wishes to remain anonymous.
© 2009 Ulrich Joho, Flickr | CC-BY-SA | via Wylio
I had been waiting for my father to die for three years. That may sound cruel; he was nothing more than an old man with dementia living in a nursing home to the outside world. But to me he was a living lie, an evil, a tear in my soul.
My younger daughter, once a bright little girl, started changing before our eyes into a stranger. I know many parents experience this as their children grow, but what she became was frightening. First came the cutting, drugs, the towering rages full of hate toward us, the suicide attempts, and being put on life support, her father and I just holding each other as we watched the machine breath for her. She spent her teen years in and out of psych units, therapy and drugs. We read everything we could and began to suspect that sexual abuse had occurred, but when we asked she would only say” I have to wait before I can talk about it”.
Three years ago we suffered a loss so great it brought us to our knees. A man we loved as a son was killed. It was his death that unlocked the truth for our daughter. She hit bottom with her grief and very early one morning confessed to her father that grandpa had molested her from the age of 3 to 8. He had told her he loved her and this was how to show special love. My husband held her, but told her she had to tell me. She was fearful, wondering if I would hate her, scream at her and tell her she was a liar. She spoke words that tore deep inside my soul “Grandpa molested me and Grandma knew it”. I actually was not surprised, I had begun to suspect it was him; my father had been exposing himself to children and had been speaking of sexual acts including “I always enjoyed raping my daughters”. I held out my arms and we held each other.
I asked my daughter for permission to speak with my brothers and sisters about this and she gave it to me. And then I found out about the other lies-others in my family had been molested. Family member were present when the police had come with complaints but he was a fine upstanding man so it must be lies, some spoke of my mother begging them not to pursue this. One incident was 58 years ago. My sister said it didn’t happen to me, she watched out for me but who watched out for our daughters. In the beginning they all had stories but a few days later that changed and I was told it never happened,” He couldn’t defend himself because of the dementia, and mom was dead so why raise hurtful subjects”. One of my sisters told me to forgive and forget and we would be fine. That I had to respect him because he was my father. Our family was divided, those whose daughters were molested or had been molested themselves and those who denied it could have ever happened and that we were lying.
And so I waited for him to die. It took three years. Three years where I still paid his bills, did his taxes, made the decisions for his daily living but I never saw him once because with his mental sate he could never answer my questions. My sisters wanted me to give up the legal guardianship (my extended family had been eager for me to take this on years before) I had but I would not, it was the only power I had over him. During those Three years I found out charges would not be brought because of the dementia. And then he died. I was the one to plan the funeral. I picked the minister and kept it simple. No singing, no glorification of the body. I made some family members angry. One half of the family sat upfront and wept. The other half (the ones who came) sat a few rows back in silence. I know both sides were in pain. Questions could never be asked no answers would ever be acceptable. For a few weeks some family members wrote face book posts of “how I miss my daddy.” Having read this post the young women painfully realized that the hopes of a loving extended family supporting them would never be a reality.
I went to the funeral for one reason, so I could attest to my daughter that her Grandfather was really dead and buried. For weeks after the funeral she had nightmares of him reaching out to grab her and She would call in tears asking “was I sure he was dead”. I would assure her that I saw his dead body and he could never touch her again. So now he is dead but his legacy will be with us for a long time, for the rest of our lives. I see my daughter take two steps forward but then I feel him reach out and pull her back a step. We continue to deal with the pain of betrayal and the feelings that we should have known and stopped it. My Husband made a remark to me shortly after we found out. It was “I want to blame you and put this squarely on you because he was your father. And it would be so easy to do. But that would not be true”. I thank God he had the strength to not blame me and yet I continue to blame myself for not knowing. My faith reassures me that while we were denied justice on Earth, my Father did have to stand before his God. I have the unending hope that my daughter will feel joy in her life someday and that this can become a distant memory for us all and I pray the legacy of abuse has ended in our family.
Why I Became a Mourning Doula
Today’s guest post is written by Laura Saba:
© 2003 Derrick Tyson, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio
I’ve been around death A LOT. When I was 4 one of my playmates, a 5 y/o, died of an asthma attack. They buried her and planted a tree at school in her memory. I couldn’t wrap my little brain around it – where did she go, and why did they plant a tree? Was she inside that tree?
A few years later, my grandmother’s tenant died, her body there on the apartment floor. Then when I was 11, my friend and I were about to deliver our newspaper route, when her mom was discovered. She’d had a stroke while leaning over to pull cookies out of the oven. Her face lying on the hot open oven door ’til found was not a pretty scene.
Flash forward to high school and you have the requisite schoolmate suicides, overdoses and car crashes. A few more years spin by and my best friend is murdered in a ”wrong place wrong time” incident, then a few years later my brother was KIA in Iraq (Semper Fi!). Then friends lost to cancer, as well as aging relatives and friends lost along the way.
My work as a birth doula also brought me into the realm of death at times. Soon I was volunteering as a loss doula, for women who would be induced due to a lost baby. There were the stillbirths. Then volunteering with Hospice, as I got really good at working with grief. Along the way I also co-owned a “Grief Gift Basket” business, where we created condolence baskets and our highly popular “Miscarriage Gift Baskets” which addressed the unspoken grief of so many women in a more honest and open way.
Along the way I often stepped in, helping others plan, assisting them as they went to make arrangements. Suddenly I knew the ins and outs of an industry I’d never been in. Too, I saw that supporting people through this process was, in so many ways, calling upon the skill-set of the birth doula, just channeled into a different high-stress time.
It became quickly obvious that people needed an advocate when dealing with this emotionally charged situation. That they needed a 3rd party, not emotionally attached to them or their dearly departed, to advocate for them, to hold their hand, to make necessary phone calls, to run clothing to the funeral home, or help figure out where that green cemetery plot is, precisely. Someone to help them hold it together as they navigate the minutiae in this complicated time – and to ensure they are fully informed, while ensuring they are also physically and emotionally supportive.
It amazed me to see that people responded to this support even more quickly and readily than they initially did to birth doula support. How was it that this Mourning Doula did not exist prior?
I realized it is because in other times we took care of our own dead. Family, friends, our villages rose up and assisted us. As with the birth industry, we need the support because these emotionally sensitive circumstances are no longer handled in the same way, but rather are almost under-the-rug-swept, as we as a culture work to dissociate ourselves from the messy realities of birth and death. Subsequently, there is the potential for someone to take advantage of our vulnerability – not even necessarily out of ill will or greed (though it too often is), but even out of good intentions.
It is simply a fact that no one knows what we would genuinely want if they don’t know us, and aren’t putting advocating for us first and foremost in their mind – especially when there is financial gain involved, it can be all too tempting to sway one in a particular direction over another. Had our culture not distanced itself emotionally and physically from birth and death, if these undertakings had remained undertakings rather than becoming a business, things would perhaps be very different at this time in history. However, as things are, this is how life is in the modern world. We have turned the very bookends that mark our lives into an industry, giving power over some of our most precious moments to others. With power comes at times corruption, and so it is we see the rise of the doula.
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Laura Saba is founder of Momdoulary, LLC, which provides training and certification in the Momdoulary Method of both Birth and End-of-life, Mourning, and Death Doula and Midwifery support, and Post-Loss Life Coaching, and Professional Organizing & Management of Material Artifacts Post-Loss.
Laura’s background in life & loss coaching, doula support, FEMA and Red Cross trainings, and experience providing support following natural and terror disasters, coupled with hospice volunteer support, led to a natural combination of her doula and coaching experience to provide end-of-life and post-loss support. This inclination was reinforced by extensive personal experience with loss, beginning at the age of 4 with the death of a playmate, and extending to the loss of a brother in Iraq, and numerous friends and former colleagues on 9/11.
If you’re interested in being trained to be a End-of-Life doula, Mourning doula, Death doula and/or Death Midwife, you can visit Laura’s website, Mourning Doula.
