Mother’s Day is coming up, so I feel obligated to do something on the theme of maternal devotion, especially since I previously savaged Motherhood in a piece on Maternal Influence and Monsters.
This first story is a curious tale of apparent psychokinesis focused on a very young child–between 2 and 3 years old, one supposes, from clues in the story.
A PLEASANT GHOST STORY
Supposed Visit of a Dead Mother to Her Child
[From Elizabeth, N.J. Herald.]
A rather a queer story is told and can be vouched for by over a dozen persons in Springfield. It appears about three years ago a young man living in Summit got married, and in due time his wife gave birth to a child, which was a girl. When the child was about one year old the mother died. About five months later the young widower became lonely and took unto himself another wife. But before doing so he took all his first wife’s clothing, packed it in a trunk, locked it up, and allowed no one to have charge of the key but himself. Among the clothing put away was her wedding shawl and a pillow his wife had made for her first-born, and also some toys she had bought just before she died. Then he brought home wife No. 2, who, it is said, made as good a mother as the average step-mothers do. Things went on lively till one night last week, when there was a party at the next neighbor’s house. So, after putting the babe in its little bed, the father and mother No. 2 went over to spend the evening at the party. Shortly after they left, two men came along on their way to the party also. They saw a wonderful light in the house as though it might be on fire. They also heard the cries of the babe, as though in great pain. They went to the house, and as soon as they reached the door the light went out, and all was silent as the grave within. They hastened on to the house where the party was and told the man what they had seen and heard in his house as they came by. Five or six men, including the owner of the house, started to investigate the report. When they arrived they found every room and door fast as they were when the owner left. On going inside everything was found to be in its place except the child, which, after a long search, was found upstairs under the bed on which its mother died, covered up with its mother’s wedding shawl and its little head resting on the pillow its mother made for it, sound asleep. Alongside of it lay its playthings. On examining the trunk it was found to be locked and nothing missing except the above mentioned articles. Now, how the things got out of the trunk and the key in the owner’s pocket, and he half a mile from it, and how the child got upstairs, is a mystery. The above may sound a little dime-novelish, but, as, we said before, the facts of the case can be and are vouched for by over a dozen respectable citizens of Springfield.
The Cincinnati [OH] Enquirer 16 September 1878: p. 6
Here is a similar story, again with inexplicable movements of the child.
A Dead Mother Visits Her Living Child—She Sits at Its Cradle and Caresses It.
Correspondence Cincinnati Commercial.
Richmond, VA., Jan. 23.
A strange story is current in certain circles here. About two years ago Mr. A. married. In due time he became a father, but the wife died when the child was a few months old. On her deathbed she exhibited intense anxiety as to the fate of the little one she was to leave behind her, and earnestly besought her husband to confide it, after her death, to the care of one of her relatives. He promised, and, I believe, did for a while let the child stay in charge of the person whom the mother had designated. Some weeks ago, however, Mr. A. again married, and at once reclaimed the child, who as yet had never learned to speak a word, and was unable to crawl. One day this child was left alone for a few moments in its stepmother’s bedroom, lying in a crib or cradle some distance from the bed. When Mrs. A. returned she was amazed to see the child smiling and crowing upon the middle of the bed—In her astonishment she involuntarily asked:
“Who put you here, baby?”
“Mamma!” responded quite distinctly the child that had never before spoken a word.
On a strict inquiry throughout the household it was found that none of the family had been in the room during Mrs. A’s brief absence from it. This, it is solemnly averred, was but the beginning of a series of spiritual visitations from the dead mother. Whenever the child was left alone it could be heard to laugh and crow as if delighted by the fondlings and endearments of someone, and on these occasions it was frequently found to have changed its dress, position, &c., in a manner quite beyond its own unaided capacity.
Finally, as the account is, the first Mrs. A. appeared one night at the bedside of Mr. A. and his second wife, and earnestly entreated that her darling should be restored to the relative whom she had indicated as the guardian of the child on her death bed. The apparition, which, it is declared, was distinctly seen and heard by both Mr. A. and his wife, promised to haunt them no more if her wish was complied with. Both Mr. A. and his wife were too much awe-stricken to reply; but the next day the child was carried back as directed by the ghostly visitant. Such is the story as seriously avouched by the principal parties concerned, who are most respectable and intelligent people, and no spiritualists.
New Philadelphia [OH] Democrat 10 February 1871: p. 2
It’s practically obligatory for the ghostly mother in this genre of story to assert her dominance over her successor or make sure that her children are being properly treated. Even with some advances in obstetrics, women knew that death was a possibility with every pregnancy and anxiety over what would become of their motherless children is a constant theme in death-bed narratives, as well as ghost stories like the above. Martha Jefferson, for example, fearing the proverbial cruelty of a stepmother (perhaps from personal experience–her father had married twice after the death of her mother), begged Thomas Jefferson not to marry again.
A somewhat novel incident, an excellent illustration of the serio-comic, recently occurred in Cincinnati. A baby had come to a household, but it was still-born and a small funeral was the only thing in order. The little thing was wrapped up and laid up on a chair to await the arrival of the undertaker, but that personage was some time in making his appearance. In the interval a lady of the household, not the one most interested in the baby, had returned from a shopping tour and placed another bundle containing her purchases of silks and laces and similar vanities of the mind feminine. In course of time the undertaker came, the small bundle was put into the small coffin, there was the usual sad scene and the cemetery soon witnessed the burial. Upon the evening of the same day when their sorrow had given away to more worldly reflections, the ladies of the house in mourning assembled to examine the purchases of the lady who had been shopping. The bundle was opened, and the ladies experienced something very like horror. There was no finery in the package, only a little dead baby! The undertaker had mistaken the bundle! There was another procession to the little grave in the cemetery, over which the daisies hadn’t had a chance to start yet, and a resurrection scene. The coffin was exhumed, the finery taken out, and the body of the baby substituted, to the greater satisfaction of all concerned. It was only an undertaker’s blunder, and it was serio-comic, thoroughly
The Hermann [MO] Advertiser 19 June 1875: p. 2
A CABMAN’S MISTAKE.
How a Bundle of Washing Was Buried For a Corpse.
George Weisbrode, of Walnut Hills, now retired, was a sexton for twenty-three years, having helped to move the bodies from the old Jewish Cemetery in 1868.
“In 1870,” said he, “a cabman drove up to the cemetery about 10 o’clock and told me he had the corpse of a child that had died of cholera or smallpox—I forget which now—and that it must be buried at once. I and my man dug a grave, and the cabman then lifted out a big heavy bundle. I thought it queer that they had no coffin, but he said they hadn’t had time to get one. I buried the bundle, and the cabman droved away. In about two hours he came pounding at my door and said he had made a mistake. The bundle I had buried was some washing. I dug up the clothes and buried the body in their place. The cabman carried the clothes off with him again.”
The Cincinnati [OH] Enquirer 31 January 1892: p. 9
A famous corpse collector: Juana la Loca, pictured in 1877 by Francisco Pradilla. Joanna of Castile was said to have carried with her the embalmed body of her husband, Philip. She would have the coffin opened so she could kiss the body and see if he had yet come back to life. Her refusal to have Philip’s corpse buried was one of the factors in her brother having her declared mad and incompetent to rule.
Perhaps I was a curator at the Body World exhibition in a previous life, but one of the categories of stories that fascinates me is that of people who cannot let the bodies of the dead be decently buried. These enthusiasts are discovered keeping corpses— mummified, skeletonized, liquefied, or shrink-wrapped—in freezer, sitting room, bed, or garden. There are, of course, a variety of rationales for this behavior: mental illness, denial, a belief that the dead will be resurrected, social security checks to be cashed, or a crime to cover up. One woman, whose husband’s body lay in their house for nine months after his death said that he had told her that he wanted his corpse to be eaten by birds. There was no word about whether she had left the bedroom window open to facilitate this wish.
This corpus is by no means complete: I’ve omitted the distasteful story of Karl Tanzler/Count Carl von Cosel, and tales of those spouses embalmed and kept in the drawing room due to some mythic clause in the will about enjoying property as long as the dead spouse “remains above ground.” I’ve left out religious rituals like this Indonesia festival and the story of Hannah Beswick, “the mummy of Birchen Bower,” whose mummification and storage in a clock case was dictated by her fear of being buried alive.
The motives of the corpse collectors in this post are more obscure; perhaps due to what is now defined as “complicated grief,” where the bereaved are incapacitated by sorrow and cannot move forward.
In our first case, a heartbroken father took extreme measures to keep his dead children with him.
A FATHER’S VOW
He Declares That His Dead Children Shall Never Leave Him
He Has Their Bodies Embalmed, and the Casket Placed in a Room Where He Keeps Them for Twenty Years.
[Philadelphia Press]
A funeral took place in Palmyra, N.J., on Tuesday last, which furnishes the sequel to one of the most remarkable cases ever known. The bodies of three embalmed children, which had been preserved by an eccentric father for twenty years, were interred in one grave, the father having died three months before, and the remaining members of the family being unwilling to perpetuate his singular ideas, in violation of common custom.
In 1859 Henry Coy lived in a comfortable old-fashioned dwelling, on the northeast corner of Front and Cooper streets, Camden. His family then consisted of himself, a wife and two children—one a girl of five years and the other a curly-haired, handsome boy of two. Mr. Coy was a surgical instrument maker, engaged in business in this city, on Eighth street, near Walnut, and afterward in the neighborhood of Second and Dock streets. He was regarded as a skillful man at his trade, and was said to be worth money, but his reticent disposition and disinclination to mix in society prevented any specific inquiry as to his exact financial standing. People who knew him in a business way, however, were content to spread the rumor that he was a man of no inconsiderable wealth. His entire time out of business hours was spent with his family, to whom he appeared devotedly attached.
THE FATHER’S STRANGE CONDUCT
Soon after the war began, Mrs. Coy died, after giving birth to another child—a girl. She was buried, and after that the father seemed more than ever in love with his children. The little daughter was rather a delicate child, and in 1862 she was taken ill and died after a few weeks’ sickness. Unceasing attendance at the little one’s bedside, and the constant loss of sleep, seems to have strangely affected the fathers mind. He would not permit any of the neighbors to touch or even look at the dead body, and declared that it should never leave his sight while he lived. And the eccentric man then went to work to accomplish that purpose. With the assistance of a mysterious stranger the little corpse was subjected to an embalming process and then incased in an air-tight casket and carefully deposited in one of the upper chambers of the dwelling. Old-time residents of Camden remember well that it was a popular superstition that the spirit of the child used to regularly appear at the windows in a supplicating attitude, and the house was said to be haunted. All attempts to see the mummified corpse or to learn the truth of the queer story were fruitless, and in a few months there were not many persons who gave it credence. Some time between the latter part of 1863 and the summer of 1864 observing people noticed that the baby had disappeared, and the previous appearance of a physician’s chaise at the door a dozen times during the week led to the believe that the infant had died and had been embalmed, as the first one had been. The doctor was a strange one, and nothing could be gleaned from him. Just when the boy died is not known, but it is supposed that he followed not long after the second death, and was also put in a casket and laid alongside his brother and sister.
MOVING THE BODIES
In 1866 the story of the mysterious embalming was renewed, and for some unexplained reason it was whispered about the upper part of Camden that Mr. Coy was a Mormon; that he had a dozen or more wives concealed in the house, and that every night prayers were said over the bodies of the dead children. There appeared no just foundation for these stories, for the father was rarely seen on the street, and during his brief absence form home the dreary-looking old house seemed entirely deserted. The upper stories were never opened, and cobwebs collected over the windows and under the eaves. The man became such a thorough mystery that all efforts to ferret out his secret were abandoned, and the gossips were obliged to build their startling stories of ghosts and uncanny noises by night purely from imagination. Mr. Coy left Camden for a time, and, it was popularly supposed, took the bodies of his children along with him; but nothing definite was known of his movements nor of the truth of the rumor, until five or six years later, when he moved. It was then noticed that three oblong boxes were carefully packed in a wagon, and the father drove away with them.
Nothing more was heard of Coy until his recent death was announced, and then the story of twenty years ago was either forgotten or deemed too incredible for revival. The triple burial at Palmyra on Tuesday, refreshed the strange tale in the minds of a few, and it was shown that the rumor had been correct.
The Cincinnati [OH] Enquirer 6 May 1882: p. 10
Henry Coy is buried at the Epworth Methodist Church Cemetery under a stone which reads “Henry – Sarah Coy and Family.” I wonder if the house has survived and still has a haunted reputation?
John Speaks of North Carolina was equally heartbroken when his young son ran off to join the Army and died in France two years later. He refused to bury the corpse and built a special room for the boy’s coffin.
KEPT FROM THE GRAVE.
DEAD SOLDIER NOT BURIED
VICTIM OF THE GREAT WAR
COFFIN AT A FARM-HOUSE
PARENTS’ FOUR YEARS’ VIGIL
After a four years’ vigil over the remains of his soldier son, Mr. John Speaks, of Iredell County, North Carolina, still refuses to bury the body, which is lying in state in a little annex to his farmhouse. Although a poor man, he has persistently refused to accept the $10,000 insurance which the Government is ready to pay on the life of the dead soldier. He will not take compensation for the life of his son, who was killed by a German shell.
Thomas Boyd Speaks, the son, was 15 years of age when he volunteered for service overseas, without the knowledge or consent of his father. The latter was distressed, and made efforts to secure the release of the boy, but without success. Two years after he had enlisted in the “Iredell Blues,” at Statesville, Thomas Speaks was killed in action near the Argonne Forest, a little over a month before the armistice was signed. He was buried in France, but in 1921 the body was sent to the United States with thousands of other Americans who had fallen in battle.
For seven months John Speaks slept every night in the same room with the flag-draped coffin, and when this became known to the county physician, the sheriff, and the welfare superintendent, acting on reports of neighbours, called on the farmer. They found, however, that the presence of a metal coffin was neither dangerous nor obnoxious to the public. In deference to public opinion, however, the father agreed to the removal of the body from the family living room, and constructed a small building in the garden to shelter it. There it has rested ever since.
The building is only 8 ft. square, is neatly weather-boarded, and has small windows at each end, with a little porch across the front. Pots of flowers and shrubbery adorn the entrance and sides. The coffin is wrapped in the Stars and Stripes, and rests on the box in which it was sent from Europe. The following inscription is on the coffin plate: —”Thomas Boyd Speaks, bugler, Company E, 18th Infantry.” On the walls of the room hang a hat and cap and several other articles of apparel formerly worn by the boy. A clothes brush and a plank on which letters were cut by him with a jack-knife before he enlisted are among the other relics in the room. The parents also carefully preserve a letter from the young bugler, in which he told them how much he wanted the terrible war to come to an end, and how anxious he was to return and tell them of his adventures.
John Speaks, who is 53 years of age, and is a serious-minded man, is surprised that his action has caused any concern.
He declared that any money from the Government for his son’s life would burn his fingers. He does not belong to any church, believing that they are all wrong, but he reads his Bible. Asked why he did not bury his son’s remains. Mr. Speaks said he felt certain it would not be long before the Resurrection of the Dead, and he also mentioned that his son had already been buried once, and he considered that was sufficient. New Zealand Herald, 27 February 1926: p. 2 and Charlotte [NC] Observer 25 October 1925: p. 4
Thomas Boyd Speaks who was only 17 when he died, now lies buried with his parents at Smith Chapel Cemetery in North Carolina.
Another devastated mother of a soldier kept her boy’s corpse in a glass-topped coffin until they could be buried together. It took thirty years.
THIRTY YEARS UNBURIED.
A Mother and Her Mummified Son Laid in the Same Grave.
Louisville, Ky., Feb. 8. A remarkable funeral took place at Rock Island, Tenn., yesterday, that was the talk of the whole county. The dead were a mother and her son, and the most remarkable feature of the event was that the son had been dead and unburied for thirty years. The truth of this is vouched for by responsible parties, who have seen the body at various times.
During the civil war the woman’s son, then a mere lad, enlisted in the Confederate service and was killed at the battle of Murfreesborough. He was an only son—his mother’s idol—and the shock completely prostrated her. She passionately declared that she would never part with her son while she lived, and that when death claimed her also both should be buried in one grave. She had an air-tight cedar casket made with a glass top, in which the body was laid. This was placed in a room assigned for the purpose, where the mother often repaired to commune with the dead. The body did not putrefy, but gradually became mummified. Thirty years it lay there. At last it was removed, and the devoted mother and her son were buried side by side in one grave.
An immense procession followed the bodies to their resting place. New York Times 9 February 1893: p. 1
In a less fraught story, this gentleman, like some very public Bluebeard, kept his first wife to hand in a box.
TWO WIVES BUT NO QUARRELS.
One of the Women is Petrified and Kept in a Box.
J.N. Rickles, the proprietor of a carriage establishment at Chanute, Kan., enjoys the unique distinction of having two wives who do not quarrel, although they are frequently in contact. He was visited recently by Mr. Broadhead of St. Louis. While the two men were talking in Mr. Rickles’ office Mrs. Rickles came in and was introduced.
“This is my wife—that is, one of my wives,” said Mr. Rickles. “She is wife No. 2. My first wife is over there in the corner.”
Mr. Broadhead considered the remark a most unusual one. Noticing his perplexity Mr. Rickles volunteered to explain. He led the salesman to a pine box in one corner of his establishment. Lifting a lid off the box he displayed to the astonished salesman the form of a petrified woman. The form was perfect and the features almost as natural as one could expect to see in life. Mr. Broadhead says that Rickles explained to him that his first wife had died nearly a quarter of a century ago, while he was living in what is known as the “bad lands” in North Dakota. Several years later he had the body exhumed for removal and found that it had turned to stone. He then concluded to keep it in his possession and since then has taken the body with him wherever he went. In this instance Mrs. Rickles No. 2 is not the least bit jealous of having Mrs. Rickles No. 1 in the house. Marshall [MI] Statesman 4 May 1894: p. 6
In this next article, the daughter who so carefully buried her mother and sister in the basement gave an excuse rarely heard in 1913: The two dead women had been afraid of having their bodies snatched.
BODIES OF TWO WOMEN UNEARTHED IN HOUSE
Daughter in Hospital, Held Pending Investigation.
Tells St. Louis Police She Buried Mother and Sister Because They Feared Cemeteries.
St. Louis, Mo., April. 22. The bodies of Mrs. Ernestine Kommichau and her daughter, Selma, were unearthed this afternoon in the basement of a building at 2412 South Broadway. Marie Kommichau, another daughter, confined in the City Hospital with a broken leg, is under arrest and will be held pending an investigation. The three women occupied the house three months ago. Three weeks ago Marie said her sister had died and the mother had taken her body to Illinois for burial.
Albert Stuhr, owner of the building, early today visited the premises and reported the peculiar odor to the authorities. Detectives located the newly-made grave and the bodies were found partially encased in concrete.
Marie Kommichau, whose broken leg resulted from a fall down stairs, is 49 years old. She declared at the hospital this afternoon that her mother had died of senility and her sister of heart trouble caused by excessive use of headache powders. She explained that with her mother and sister she had conducted a notion store in the front room of the house at No. 2412 South Broadway for nearly twenty years.
Afraid of Cemeteries
“My mother and sister were afraid of being buried in cemeteries,” she said. “They were afraid their bodies would be stolen and also afraid that they would be buried alive. That was the only reason I did not have their bodies attended to in the usual way.
Before my mother died, she made sister and me promise that we would not take her body out of the house, so the undertakers could get her,” said Miss Kommichau. “We had no doctor for her—there has not been a doctor in our house for ten years, and a doctor could have done mother no good.
“We put her body in a showcase which we took from the notion store and poured plaster of Paris around the glass and cracks to keep the air out. We kept the showcase containing the body upstairs in ta rear room. No one knew for none of the neighbors had paid any attention to mother and they did not inquire about her.
“When sister died I knew that people would ask about her and that if neighbors found out I was keeping her body they would ask about mother too. So I told the neighbors that mother had died and that Selma had taken her to Illinois for burial.
Buried Both Bodies in Basement
“Then I took both bodies into the basement. I laid them on the basement floor and poured plaster of Paris and cement over them.”
Marie said that she needed help in removing the body of her mother from the showcase and called in a German woman who was passing the store and whom she never saw before.
“She was clumsy,” continued Marie, “and was no help. I told her she needn’t mind about staying. I never saw her again and I don’t know whether she ever told anyone.” Marie said that one man, Adam Almeroth, living here, knew of the deaths.
“He is a very religious man,” said Marie. “He has called on us now and then for a long while. He said prayers over mother’s body and over sister’s body. I don’t think he knew the bodies were buried in the basement, for I don’t remember ever telling him.” Marie asked the police not to allow the bodies of her mother and sister to be removed from the house.
Mrs. Ernestine Kommichau was 79 years old and Selma was 50 years old.
The bodies were so disintegrated that identification was difficult. From the neck of each was suspended a crucifix. At the feet of each was a porcelain urn of the kind sometimes used to hold holy oil. The graves were decorated with two small cedar trees, a wire cross and a mussel shell. Under the corpses was a layer of quick lime. Dallas [TX] Morning News 23 April 1913: p. 2
In 1945 the mummified body of a woman, found in her daughter’s bedroom, caused a sensation in Washington D.C. when it emerged that mummy dearest had died in 1912 and had exacted a strange death-bed promise.
UNDERTAKER SPREADS SOME LIGHT ON MUMMIFIED BODY FOUND IN CAPITAL
Pittsburgh, April 23. Edgar E. Eaton of Wilkinsburg, Pa., veteran undertaker, cast some light on the grisly story of Mrs. Mary E. Woodward, whose mummified body was found in Washington, D.C., this week, more than 32 years after her death. The perfectly-preserved body was found in an ancient casket in her daughter’s bedroom by investigators. The daughter, also named Mary E. Woodward, died two days ago at the age of 79.
Eaton said the eerie situation began in March,, 1912 when Mrs. Woodward died in St. Louis
“There may have been some trouble over burying the mother in St. Louis, but I don’t know,” Eaton said.
“The first I recall is that her body was brought here on March 30, 1912—17 days after her death. We re-embalmed it April 15.
“Miss Woodward asked us to keep the body here and took rooms in Wilkinsburg. We fixed a room, and every day she would come and sit there.”
Eaton said Miss Woodward always brought along a large cat and believe it to be the mummified cat which the investigators also found.
“We were told that she had promised her mother on her deathbed never to be parted from her in this life.
“The body stayed here until the Board of Health told her it would have to be buried, although it was perfectly preserved. We shipped it to Washington on Aug. 23, 1912,” Eaton related.
Eaton said he heard nothing more of Miss Woodward until a Philadelphia embalmer told him of a strange case of a daughter who had kept her mother’s body and brought it to him.
The Charleroi [PA] Mail 23 April 1945: p. 2
It is often found that, in many of these stories, the beloved corpse is either abandoned or kept in less-than-hygienic or respectful conditions. In a notorious recent case in San Francisco, a hoarder daughter kept her mother’s corpse for five years in a house seething with vermin. This father kept his child’s coffin under the porch:
KEPT A CORPSE IN THE HOUSE
Dead Child of a California Man Unburied for Five Years.
Los Angeles, Ca., July 2. For five years past “Whistling” Davis, of Long Beach, has kept the corpse of his dead child in a little coffin in house at a locality known as the Willows. The neighbors have at intervals remonstrated and threatened without avail. He has stubbornly refused to bury the body or permit any one to have it interred. Lately the neighbors became excited about the affair, the coroner was notified, and is about to commence an investigation, it being held that there is a law making it illegal for a person to thus retain the body of a deceased human being. Officers went to the beach to arrest the man. On going to his house they found the little casket containing the body under the porch. They took it in charge, and upon opening found in it the little dried skeleton. An inquest will be held tomorrow. Daily Inter Ocean [Chicago, IL] 3 July 1895: p. 2
In a similar story, from 1904 Kentucky, a child’s corpse was abandoned at the local undertaker’s establishment for eleven years. The infant was at long last buried when it was found that the parents—a local doctor and his wife—had disappeared.
Ruminating over the psychology of corpse-collecting, I have to wonder if there is an as-yet-undefined psychological condition to explain it. It is well-known that hoarding is often triggered by a loss or bereavement. Is there a form of hoarding, that involves a corpse, rather than used tin-foil and cottage-cheese containers?
Alternate theories? chriswoodyard8 AT gmail.com
A chapter titled “Bone of My Bone: Collecting Corpses, Relics, and Remains” in The Victorian Book of the Dead tells of other mourners who just could not let go. The book also tells of a gentleman who lived in his wife’s tomb so he could gaze adoringly at her body in her glass-topped casket.
Belgian cemetery showing cased wreaths and other articles behind glass.
Cemetery Doll-Houses
By George H. Haynes
A cemetery is of interest as reflecting the taste and feeling of the people among whom it is placed. The study of monuments and of burial customs has proved itself a valuable branch of historical investigation, and the side glimpses of life which it gives are scarcely less intelligible, and oftentimes more trustworthy, than the scraps of biography graven on the stones.
Looked at from this point of view, the Baltimore Cemetery impresses one as belonging already to the past. The thickly crowded graves and the few new or costly monuments indicate that wealth and fashion-for are not fashion’s demands imperative even in the choice of a cemetery?-have sought more choice and spacious surroundings for the “haughty memorials which human pride has erected over its kindred dust.” Tall grass and rank brambles form thick, tangled mats over the neglected inclosures among which goldenrods and deep purple asters blossom in lavish profusion.
But this neglect is not universal. Here and there the grass is kept neatly trimmed, while fresh flowers or tastefully grouped shrubs bear witness to loving care. In many a crowded lot space has been found for an iron chair or settee, or a wooden bench, often so large as to trespass on adjoining inclosures. Iron fences with white or gilded doves perched on each side of the gate are not uncommon, while to fence, chair, or bench is often padlocked a huge watering-pot painted black, green, or red.
One cannot wander far from the entrance without having his attention caught by a strange monument utterly unlike the monotonous head-stones which surround it. I shall not soon forget my surprise upon first seeing one of these. Turning from some ordinary inscription, my curiosity was instantly excited by a large glass-sided box, like a show-case, mounted upon a green post some five feet in height. The box itself was about two and one-half feet in length, and one and one-half feet in both width and height. Its white corner-posts supported a white cover or roof ornamented with green scroll-baskets. Of the contents, from a little distance, nothing could be seen except the lace curtains draped just inside the glass. Coming nearer, I found in the center the gilt-framed photograph of a little German girl. At each end a large doll was sitting in a toy chair. Leaning against the back wall were a small garden rake and sickle, while in front were ranged little china vases of paper flowers, bits of china toy furniture, and a “Forget Me Not” cup. There was no name or inscription about this strange monument, but it rose near the foot of a little grave whose plain head-stone bore the inscription :
Close by was another of these “cemetery doll-houses,” as a Baltimore friend called them. A yellow post upheld a white house with a red cupola. A number of tin playthings were scattered over the floor-a tiny watering-pot, a tub, a pail. Framed in a flower wreath, a card bore these sweet lines:
Dein Leben war ein kurzer Traum, Du ahntest seine Freude kaum; Schon in des Lebens Morgenroth Umarmte, Guter, dich den Tod, Und führte, unentweiht und rein, Dich in den Freudenhimmel ein.
There was no hint of name or date. Birds had found the window in the little gable, and had nested there for years.
Three little children were commemorated by another of those strange monuments. It was divided into two compartments, and contained but few playthings. The partition wall was covered with a wreath-framed inscription:
The most unique memorial that I found was in the form of a little white shrine, in size and shape not unlike a fire-alarm signal-box. The pillar supporting it stood in no inclosure, but rose by itself from the midst of a sturdy tree-rose, about which periwinkle and English ivy were twining. An inquisitive branch of the ivy had even found its way inside the wire screen which protected the glass. Long exposure to the weather had loosened the joints of the little house, so that the bolt no longer held, and the door swung loose on its hinges. There, floating before my eyes, were four tiny china angels, with arms devoutly crossed, upborne in their airy flight by golden wings. Upon lace-bordered shelves at the sides of this little shrine were cups and china toys. Lace flowers and a china crucifix over a tiny font hung upon its walls. Its floor was covered with a white, fringed mat. In front were toy dishes, and a little flower-pot containing a hardy plant with green leaves and blue flowers, all of china. the background, upon a little dais covered with a knitted mat, stood a china altar, with crucifix and open book, while over the altar, surrounded by a wreath of white immortelles, was a shield-shaped card, yellow with age, upon which was printed, in letters almost effaced:
As I was leaving the cemetery, I came upon a little tin church, painted green. Within towered a wooden horse, so large that here, as at ancient Troy, the wall must have been taken down to give him entrance. Indeed, this horse so monopolized the available space that the two tin horses, the cart, the bird’s nest, the tin trumpet, drum, and whistle had to be piled upon each other promiscuously. The glass front was broken; the fragments of the inscription painted upon it were unintelligible, yet imagination instantly pictured the active, fun-loving boy who had laughed over these playthings.
The Baltimore Cemetery contains many of these strange monuments, varying greatly in form and contents. nearly all of them are to be found wreaths or bouquets of artificial flowers, dolls, and dolls’ furniture, or other toys. These playthings are not expensive, nor are they of the cheapest. In most cases there is an appropriate bit of verse, always in German; but an inscription giving the child’s name and age is the exception. The dates which can be found among them indicate that most of these “doll-houses” were set up at least twenty years ago. However well constructed they may have been (and some display excellent workmanship), they all show sad signs of exposure to the weather. No time-stained head-stone or moss-covered monument can compare in pathos with one of these weather-beaten play-houses, whose unused toys have been alternately drenched and faded by the rain and sunshine of many years.
Aside from their strangeness, these burial customs are not without interest from a historical point of view. custom may sometimes outlive the belief from which it took its rise. The idea of Walhalla has undergone many changes since the warrior’s horse and armor were buried with him in the same grave. But is there not a slight trace of the primitive faith of remote ancestors still lingering in the feeling which prompted these parents to forever associate their child’s playthings with his grave? To them there seemed little appropriateness in intrusting the memory of a merry child to a slab of cold, unfeeling stone. In what the child held dear they found a more fitting and helpful memorial.
Here, in a mean street in a poor district, is a house let out in rooms. In the lower front room the ragged dirty blind is down. From this house you will see in a couple of hours, if you wait and watch, a grand funeral procession start. There will be an open car drawn by a pair of horses, and on it will be a wreath-laden coffin. Funeral coaches and four-wheel cabs will follow with many mourners, and the street will be filled with a crowd of women and children assembled to see the grand funeral of Widow Wilson’s eldest son.
While you are waiting for the funeral car and carriages to arrive, I will take down the fourth wall. Now you can see inside the room with the drawn blind.
It is a poverty-stricken, squalid room. In the centre is a rickety table, round which the widow and her three remaining children are gathered, making a scanty meal before they put on their black to follow the dead lad to the cemetery. The thin stew has been taken from the fire, and is being served out on chipped and cracked plates to the children, and in the centre of the table at which the family are dining lies the corpse.
I am not inventing the details to paint a picture of life among the poor–I am giving the actual facts as discovered by the School Board officer of the district, who called to inquire why one of the children had not attended school the previous day.
No one seeing the elaborate and expensive funeral that started a couple of hours later from the house could have imagined the scene there was to be witnessed behind the brick wall. The living and the dead had been together in that one room for over a week.
There are many reasons why funerals are not hurried in the poorer districts. Here is a case in which one was delayed for three weeks.
Mrs. Jones’s baby died just as it was completing its first year’s experience of life. Mr. Jones drew the money from the burial club and gave an order to the undertaker. But before the day fixed for the funeral arrived Mr. Jones had lost half the money by backing horses that didn’t win. In his distress he spent the balance at the public-house. “No money, no funeral,” was the undertaker’s motto, so the baby uncoffined, but shrouded in a sheet, was left in the cupboard.
Mrs. Jones, when the disaster was made known to her, told her story to her poor neighbours. They generously clubbed together, and in a few days they handed her the needed amount.
In her gratitude Mrs. Jones invited a few of her neighbours, who had not subscribed, to drink the health of those who had. The health-drinking affected Mrs. Jones so much that returning home she was absent-minded, and the balance of the funeral money was stolen from her by a thief who had followed her out of the public-house.
The body lay in the cupboard for another week, and the news of the delayed funeral reaching the authorities, an official called, and baby was at last taken away and buried by the parish.
That was the greatest punishment that could have been inflicted on the parents.
The Mysteries of Modern London, George Robert Sims, 1906: pp. 144-145.
The black-headed pins holding the shroud were much like these mourning pins, used to pin veils and crape trim.
BOYS HARVEST SHROUD PINS IN PLAY IN OLD GRAVEYARD
St. Piran’s Oratory Supposed to Be Most Ancient Christian Place of Worship in England—Now Is Grewsome Spot.
By Edith Lanyon.
Hertfordshire, Aug. 10. (Special.) Five days ago I said goodbye to the county of Cornwall, grieving to leave the pink, heather-covered cliffs by the sea. In Scotland the heather looks purple but in Cornwall it is a deep glowing pink, not really heather at all, I think, but heath.
Those cliffs have not altered much since primitive man climbed upon them, perhaps wondering what was on the other side of the blue water below, but more likely too busy wondering what he could catch and kill for his next meal.
Church Spot Grewsome.
The old, old church of St. Piran, buried in the sand dunes on the cliffs near Perrauporter [Perranporth], is being dug out. St. Piran’s oratory is supposed to be the most ancient Christian place of worship in England. It is rather a grewsome spot, as all the sands around are strewn with human bones cast up out of the old burying ground. An old man of 80 told me that when he was a boy he and the other boys used to go down there and collect teeth and black pins. The rules of the game were that you took off your shoes and stockings, dug one big toe deep in the sand and then picked up as many teeth and black pins as you could find without taking your toe out of the hole. The one who got most won. The sand was thick with black pins, he said: “But where did they come from?” I asked in surprise.
He chuckled and then told me that when he was a bit older a very old man told him that his father could remember burials taking place there in the sand, which had by that time entirely swallowed up the churchyard. (This must have been over 200 years ago.) No coffins were used, but the bodies were wrapped up in white cloth, pinned with black pins, a hole was scooped in the sand and they were buried as near the consecrated ground below as could be managed. No doubt the next sandstorm unburied them and pulled out the ghastly black pins. I, for one, have no desire to collect the black pins of St. Piran.
Wishing Story Related.
The story arose from our talking one evening about the wishing well on the beach. They told me that you made a wish and threw a pin in the well. If it sank, you got your wish, and if it floated, you didn’t. The old man suddenly spoke up and said: “And I can tell you were to get the pins from—up on the cliffs above. Black ones. Lots of them.” It was a nice tale to hear just before going to bed….
I had tea at the hospital for discharged sailors and soldiers of the country a few days before I left. There were only a few patients left, and they were busy learning to play “poker patience.” One of the matron’s sisters had been down to the ancient manor house which belonged to the Lanyon family for generations, and she was telling me about the celebrated “Oriel chamber” there. This was the death room of the family and was never opened except for the dead. When one of the family died, his coffin was brought into this room, and there he lay in state until the burial.
There are metal clamps in the floor to place the coffin upon. Curiously enough, the design carved upon the oak panels is that of the tree of life, each branch bearing the name of one of the family. I feel no particular desire to inhabit that room of my ancestors. It is as grewsome as the tale of the black pins.
Oregonian [Portland, OR] 29 August 1920: p. 8
Early burials were often made without benefit of coffin–the body was merely shrouded. There is some evidence that the Irish believed that no pins could be left in a corpse’s clothing or shroud or they would be tied to the earth, doomed to haunt as a ghost.
Chris Woodyard is the author of the forthcoming book, A is for Arsenic: An ABC of Victorian Death,The Victorian Book of the Dead, The Ghost Wore Black, The Headless Horror, The Face in the Window, and the 7-volume Haunted Ohio series. She is also the chronicler of the adventures of that amiable murderess Mrs Daffodil in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales. The books are available in paperback and for Kindle. Indexes and fact sheets for all of these books may be found by searching hauntedohiobooks.com. Join her on FB at Haunted Ohio by Chris Woodyard or The Victorian Book of the Dead. And visit her newest blog, The Victorian Book of the Dead.
It is “National Book-Lovers’ Day,” so, naturally, we have stories of death by the book, starting with a PSA about the perils of bad books and bad newspapers.
Killed by a Novel
It is just as important to read good books as it is to eat good food. Introduce poison into the stomach and the man dies. Let a man take something similar to poison into his mind, and it wrecks or kills him.
The other day in Kansas City, Charles Durgin committed suicide because a gloomy chapter in one of Bulwer’s novels had thrown him into a morbid condition of despondency.
If the inside facts about suicide could be definitely ascertained, it is quite probable that many cases would resemble Durgin’s. When a man looks on the dark side of life or reads everything that is horrible and gloomy in literature, he becomes in the course of time practically insane. If Durgin had made it a point to read bright and cheerful books he would have been so well satisfied with his surroundings and prospects that he would have been in no hurry to shuffle off this mortal coil.
One of the greatest mistakes that a man can make is to read a bad book or a bad newspaper. The effect is to bring him to the conclusion that life not worth living, and when a person has once reached this point there is always a probability of suicide. But the happy laughing philosopher–the optimist who always looks on the bright side–never commit the crime of self-murder. Bad literature is filling our asylums, jails and graveyards. It would be better for the masses to fall back into the illiteracy of their ancestors than to spend their time reading the vicious trash which is now found at every news stand.
The Atlanta [GA] Constitution 7 November 1891: p. 4
Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata was censored by the Russian government (which immediately created a marked for bootlegged copies, privately circulated) and its serialized version was not allowed to be sent through the U.S. postal service for its purported obscenity. Not at all what a young lady of good family should be reading…
A young lady of good family of St. Petersburg was driven to insanity by Tolstoi’s “Kreutzer Sonata.” Having read the book she threw her windows open, and crying, “Dissipation, dishonour everywhere!” she attempted to jump out. Her maid-in-waiting prevented her.
Tuapeka [NZ] Times 27 April 1892: p. 6
Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Lady Byron Vindicated: A history of the Byron controversy from its beginning in 1816 to the present time. Stowe’s rehabilitation of Lady Byron’s reputation agitated this friend of Lord Byron.
KILLED BY A BOOK
Mrs. Harriet Beecher’s Stowe’s “Vindication” has produced a result which is the privilege of few books to effect, for it has killed a man. The unfortunate victim was Paul Harro-Harring, the Danish political exile and adventurer, who may be remembered as a visitor in this country some twenty-five years ago, and the author of a few works of fiction, which have been published in New York. He was a friend of Byron’s and fought by his side in Greece, and on reading Mrs. Stowe’s volume recently, his mind, which had long been affected, became so violently excited that he committed suicide, on the 15th of May, by stabbing himself and eating phosphorus off the ends of matches…He maintained himself for some time in Brazil as an artist, and he wrote several volumes of poetry. Of late years he labored under the delusion that he was the special object of the hatred of the Russian Government, whose spies he fancied to be perpetually about him, and he gave great trouble to the English police by his constant application for protection from imaginary foes. He was 71 years of age.
White Cloud [KS] Kansas Chief 30 June 1870: p. 2
It is curious to find suicides blamed on bad books and novel-reading, when it seems more likely that there was some other pathology in play.
READ NOVEL, WENT CRAZY AND DIED
Boston, April 13. After reading Sir Conan Doyle’s House of the Baskervilles,” [sic] which tells of the ghostly dog that tears the throat of man and leaves him dead on the moor, Marcus J. Long,, 65, chopped to pieces all the keys and strings of the piano, smashed a $1,000 violin, then committed suicide by inhaling illuminating gas.
The Spokane [WA] Press 13 April 1909: p. 6
But sometimes there really was poison in books, although this smacks of The Name of the Rose or an urban legend:
A Poisoned Prayer Book. Some curious particulars, said to be authentic and not yet published, have just been made public concerning Madame Frigard, the heroine of the Fontainebleau tragedy. It appears that she declared to the Procureur Imperial that the actual poisoning was not premeditated, that she had only administered a little prussic acid to her friend to make her sleep, in order that she (Madame Frigard) might be at liberty to elope with the famous scapegoat and often-referred-to William, the donor of the poison flask in question. The person is also, if we may believe her, the father of the child of which she is pregnant. It will be remembered that a book of prayers was produced at the trial, and had a certain importance as being a proof of the devotional nature and habits of the prisoner. The book was of course impounded, and it being perceived that many of the pages were marked with particular signs, it was further examined. Between each of the pages so marked there were small pieces of white paper. These were submitted to a chemical analysis, and it has been proved that each piece was impregnated with a dose of arsenic sufficient to destroy the life of at least one person. Madame Frigard was, it is evident, a woman of many resources..
Berrow’s Worcester [Worcestershire, England] Journal 2 November 1867: p. 6
Reading in bed was not a safe activity in the oil lamp era. Irony points for the “Inferno” being the fatal bedtime reading, but this may be an urban legend.
Dante Is Her Death.
Chicago, March. 13 Dante’s “Inferno” was the cause of a fire and panic early today at the Arlington hotel. Mrs. Vivian Holmes was so absorbed in the poem that she neglected a lamp with which she was reading. The wick burned into the oil, causing an explosion. The woman was fatally burned. Her husband was also burned severely.
The Saint Paul [MN] Globe 14 March 1905: p. 7
Then we have the theme of books either valuable or libelous as cause of death.
AN OLD LADY’S SHOCK.
PILGRIM’S PROGRESS STORY.
LONDON, Sept. A curious death has been recorded. Mrs. Elizabeth Lingard, of Llandudno, Wales, aged 90, after reading of the sale of a rare copy of Pilgrim’s Progress” for £6500, died of shock, when she discovered a similar copy on her bookshelf.
New Zealand Herald, 8 September, 1926: p. 13
Killed by a Book—A Sad Sequel of “Cape Cod Folks.”
Barnstable, June 22. Mrs. Consider Fisher, the original of “Adelaide” [Abagail, actually] in the novel of “Cape Cod Folks,” died at her home in Cedarsville last night of consumption caused by mental excitement over the libel suit against the publishers for using real characters.
The Morning Journal-Courier [New Haven, CT] 23 June 1882: p. 3
Of course, books hurled or fallen were equally lethal.
Killed by a Dictionary.
Chicago, Oct. 31. While Herman Webber of 1 Whiting street was loading his wagon with furniture in front of 248 Illinois street a dictionary and several novels fell out of a third-story window and struck him on the head, killing him instantly.
Muscatine [IA] Semi-Weekly News Tribune 6 November 1895: p. 9
Killed by a Hurled Book.
Boston. William E. Litchfield, Jr., thirteen years old, died at his home in Dorchester on Sunday from the effects of being struck on the head by a book thrown at him by a schoolmate on Friday. In a spirit of fun, another lad hurled a book across the room. It struck the Litchfield boy behind the ear, but did not seem to have caused any serious injury at first.
Buffalo [NY] Courier Express 20 May 1902: p. 3
Books in a heavy bookcase were an accident waiting to happen.
MYRTLE KNAPP
Killed By a Falling Book-Case.
Distressing Accident on Price Hill Last Evening–The Little One Crushed To Death.
A distressing accident happened in a family on Price Hill last evening just ass the members of the little household were at the supper table.
The unfortunate victim of the affair was a little girl but 2 years of age. She was sweet little Myrtle Knapp, the pet of the family of Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Knapp, a salesman in a Sycamore-street establishment and residing at Seton and Vincent streets, Price Hill. She was crushed to death almost before her fond mother’s eyes in the library. The little child was very popular and unusually bright, and was quite a pet in the neighborhood. She was caught beneath a heavy book-case and her sweet life crushed out without a moment’s warning. Unable to help herself, her dying cries reached the ears of the mother too late to be of any service.
The little one after supper last evening went into the library and was playing about a heavy oaken book-case when the case fell forward, catching the helpless child beneath it. Little Myrtle’s screams attracted the attention of the mother, who rushed into the library, and was horrified to discover the child under the heavy case. With some difficulty the child was rescued, but not until its breath had been exhausted. All efforts were made to save the little sufferer, who was injured internally. She lingered about half an hour and died. The parents of the little one are almost distracted over the terrible affair, and the mother was beside herself. Little Myrtle was a favorite with the family and neighbors, and the news of the accident was a sad blow to the community.
The Cincinnati [OH] Enquirer 16 July 1893: p. 4
RIP little Myrtle…
And to close the book on the subject, murder by book agent. The book agent—a door-to-door seller of books by subscription—was a pest well known for persistence and patter.
An Ohio spiritualistic medium claims to have been told by a murdered man that he was killed by a book agent. This is hardly probable. The autopsy did not indicate that he had been talked to death.
The Buffalo [NY] News 24 September 1886: p. 2
Chris Woodyard is the author of the forthcoming book, A is for Arsenic: An ABC of Victorian Death,The Victorian Book of the Dead, The Ghost Wore Black, The Headless Horror, The Face in the Window, and the 7-volume Haunted Ohio series. She is also the chronicler of the adventures of that amiable murderess Mrs Daffodil in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales. The books are available in paperback and for Kindle. Indexes and fact sheets for all of these books may be found by searching hauntedohiobooks.com. Join her on FB at Haunted Ohio by Chris Woodyard or The Victorian Book of the Dead. And visit her newest blog, The Victorian Book of the Dead.
Even grave-robbers may once in a while be the unconscious means by which a human life is saved. Mr. Hayward, who lives in Missouri, is the man who went through this strange experience. The Kansas City Journal, which I quote, contained the following: “To be buried alive while sorrowing friends stand about the open grave, and then come to life in a dissecting room, is the actual experience of George Hayward, an Independence jeweler. Although years have elapsed since he was lowered gently into his grave, the memory of the moment when the undertaker screwed down the lid of his coffin, shutting out the sunlight, and the sensations he felt as he was lowered into the grave, while a funeral dirge was being chanted by the village choir, still remains to him as a horrible dream. He was conscious from the time he was pronounced dead until he was snatched from the grave by the medical fraternity and laid on the dissecting table in the ‘interest of science.’ Mr. Hayward still retains the grim recollection of hearing the damp earth falling on the coffin lid, a mournful accompaniment to the sobs of relatives. He was unable to help himself or make a sign, and, knowing this, his agony was at times intense. His greatest agony of mind occurred when the sexton rounded up his grave on top and the sound of receding footsteps smote his ears. Mr. Hayward says that at this moment he fell into a dreamy sensation peculiar to a drowning man. How long he remained in this condition he does not know, but his sense of living again came over him when he heard a scraping on his coffin lid some little time after he had been buried.
Mr. Hayward is a man of sixty-nine years of age. For years he has been in the jewelry business at Independence, and at present conducts a shop on South Main street. He has the belief that many people are buried alive, and his own experience has a tendency to confirm this belief. To a Journal representative Mr. Hayward related this burial and resurrection experience with the unconcern of a man who does not fear death. ‘It was in Marshville, England, County Gloucestershire, where I was buried,’ said Mr. Hayward very grimly. ‘My father had a large family of boys, and he raised us all on the farm near the village. I was quite young, and it was my chief delight to go to the fields with my older brothers. In those days the farmhouses were surrounded with big yards filled with straw. This straw was allowed to rot, and in the fall of the year it was loaded on wagons and carted to the fields as a fertilizer. It was a bright morning when we started for the fields, and I ran ahead of the horses. The horses in England are not driven with reins, but they follow the command of the voice. After reaching the field the pitching of the straw commenced. The men used hop picks, which are fashioned somewhat after a heavy pitchfork. While standing near one of the hands, by accident I was struck on the head with one of the picks. It penetrated my scull, and at the time made me feel faint and dizzy. My injury was not considered serious. After returning to the house I was sent into the cellar, and, much to my surprise, I could see in the dark as well as in the light. After coming from the cellar my strength failed me, and I was soon bedfast. Two doctors were called. One of them insisted that my condition was due to the blow on the head, the other that I had pleurisy. At any rate two weeks elapsed, and my eyes closed in supposed death. It was death as far as my relatives were concerned, yet I was painfully conscious of every movement going on around me. My eyes were half closed, and as I was laid out I heard my elder brother, John, walk into the house. I saw him approach the cot with tears in his eyes, and sympathizing friends consoled him by asking him to dry his tears. “He is gone,” they said, and other similar expressions were used around the bier. Well-known faces would peer down at me as I lay with my eyes half closed. Tears rained on my face as the burial shroud was wrapped around my body. As soon as the undertaker arrived I knew I was to be buried alive. Try as I would, nothing could break the spell which bound me. Every action and every word spoken are as distinct to my mind now as then. Well, the time for the funeral arrived, and the service was preached over my living but rigid body. The undertaker approached and the lid of my little prison-house was fastened down. Life seemed all but gone when this took place; but, as I stated, no effort of mine could break the spell. The coffin was shoved into the wagon, and the trundling of the vehicle sounded in my ears. I was painfully conscious of the fact that I was soon to be lowered into my grave. Strange as it may seem, at times I did not feel fear at my impending fate. The coffin was taken out of the wagon and lowered into the grave. In those days boxes were not used as a receptacle for the coffin. The clods of earth fell heavy on the lid of the casket. There I was being entombed alive, unable to speak or stay the hands of my friends. My effort to move proved futile, and the close air of the coffin seemed stifling to me. Suddenly the shoveling ceased and the silence of the tomb was complete. I did not seem to have the fear then that a person would naturally expect under such circumstances. All I remember is that the grave is a lonely place, and the silence of the tomb was horribly oppressive. A dreamy sensation came over me, and a sense of suffocation became apparent. My whole system was paralyzed; were it otherwise my struggles would have been desperate. How long I remained in this condition I do not know. The first sense of returning life came over me when I heard the scraping of a spade on my coffin lid. I felt myself raised and borne away. I was taken out of my coffin, not to my home, but to a dissecting room. I beheld the doctors who had waited on me at my home, dressed in long white aprons. In their hands they had knives. Through my half-closed eyes I saw them engaged in a dispute. They were trying to decide how to cut me up. One argued one way, while the other doctor took another view of the matter. All this I witnessed through my half-open eyes. My sense of hearing was remarkably acute. Both approached the table and opened my mouth to take out my tongue, when, by superhuman effort, my eyelids were slightly raised. The next thing I heard was: “Look out, you fool, he is alive!” “He is dead,” rejoined the other doctor. “See, he opens his eyes!” continued the first doctor. The other physician let his knife drop, and a short time after that I commenced to recover rapidly. Instead of cutting me up they took me home. There was great rejoicing among my relatives. I owed my life to the doctors’ dispute as to what ailed me during my illness. I suppose I was kept alive for some purpose,” continued Mr. Hayward, as he finished his grewsome tale, “for I am the father of ten children.”
The Encyclopaedia of Death and Life in the Spirit-world, Vol. 3, John Reynolds Francis, 1900
Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: There are a shocking number of actual first-person narratives from persons buried alive, only to be saved by thieves or Resurrectionists. One English doctor investigating premature burial estimated that 2,700 people a year in England and Wales were buried alive. To counteract this distressing trend, an Association for the Prevention of Premature Interment was founded in 1895 by Colonel Edward P. Vollum, a US Army surgeon, and Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson, eminent sanitary reformer and anaesthetic researcher. One of the suggestions made was to leave a flask of lightly stoppered chloroform in each coffin so that the person buried alive could drift painlessly off into a real death. When Dr. Richardson died in 1896, he was cremated–nonsensically, another method advocated for avoiding premature interment. One must question the logic that promotes being burned alive as a more desireable outcome than being trapped in an airless casket.
For more accounts of burial alive, please see this post.
Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes
You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.
This story appears in The Ghost Wore Black: Ghastly Tales from the Past.
In trying to choose a post for Father’s Day weekend, I ran up against the statistical horror that is the father in the 19th-century press. Unnatural fathers, murderous fathers, insane fathers, fathers who forbid engagements, then murder their daughters’ sweethearts, fathers who threaten to behead their children–then carry out that threat. I wanted to counterbalance my cheery Mother’s Day post on “Maternal Influence and Monsters” with something less grewsome, yet still Fortean. But somehow I just didn’t have the heart to use the lurid, but true “Hatchetman” story I’d originally selected. If, after reading today’s offering, you decide you would prefer a tale from my bulging file on Victorian family destroyers, just slip a note into the pneumatic tube to chriswoodyard8 AT gmail. com.
I have previously reported on the mysterious faces that appeared on glass window panes beginning about 1871. The phenomenon was a pervasive theme through the 1910s, although there are a few reports from the early 1920s and not long ago, the Virgin Mary appeared on the glass windows of a health center in Florida. How much of this is self-deception; how much simple human brain pattern matching? I am not qualified to say and at this historical remove, I doubt anyone could sort out the riddle of these images. I will say that, in many cases, they appear to have some element of PK: a severe stress–a death, a murder, a shock–somehow creates an image of a known person, recognized instantly by the immediate family and sometimes, without prompting, by others. This particular story also contains an “omen of death” element. One oddity I note in this image is that it is described (somewhat ambiguously) as being able to be seen by someone inside the room with the window. Every other example of this sort of image I’ve seen can only be seen from the outside. Another enigma….
LEFT A PICTURE ON THE PANE
A Strange Memento of the Death of Husband and Children
Pittsburg, Pa., August 16, 1890. A mystery surrounds the home of the late James Dougherty, at Swissvale. Within four weeks the father and three children have died. The mother refuses to remain any longer in the little home.
Midway between Swissvale and Hawkins stations on the line of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and on a street which leads toward the railroad tracks back of the public school building, stands a little one story frame house. Surrounding this little home is a garden of probably half an acre.
This, until a few days ago, had been the home of the Doughertys—the father, mother, and three children. It was always the father’s delight returning from a hard day’s labor at the Carrie Furnace, where he was employed, to meet his little ones down near the river bank. Taking the short cut through the fields and over hills he would take the children one at a time, place them on his back and carry them to his little cottage.
He had always been a most devoted husband and kind father.
July 5, the second child was taken ill with a fever. It lingered for a few days then died. In just one week from the death of the first child another one, a little boy, was stricken down with the same malady and died within a few days. Hardly a week had passed after the death of the second child when the last and youngest child and the father’s favorite, was stricken with pneumonia and in a few days passed away.
THE FATHER GOES TOO
The death of the three children occurring in as many weeks was a severe blow to the parents.
Last Monday morning the husband departed for his work at the Carrie furnace early in the morning. As he left his wife he bade her the usual goodbye. With the parting salute, “Bear up, dear,” he vanished over the hills on his way to work. This was the last seen of him alive by his wife. That afternoon while engaged at work on a high trestle in one of the departments at the furnace he missed his footing and fell backward to a pile of iron below. He was killed instantly.
Just before the sad news was brought to the unfortunate woman she happened to be near the window in the front of the house.
She was horrified to see imprinted on an ordinary pane of glass in the window before her a picture of her husband as lifelike as if he stood before her himself. On his back was the favorite little girl and in his hand his dinner pail, just as had been his custom in days when all was bright.
The woman was frightened by the sight, and was in the act of notifying her neighbors when a messenger stopped her on the threshold and announced to her the death of her husband.
AFRAID TO STAY IN THE HOUSE.
The news completely prostrated her. The husband was buried yesterday, and Mrs. Dougherty left the house before night, saying she was afraid to remain there. She is now with friends.
Crowds of people have visited the house. The crape still flutters from the door, and one spectator after another files up to the window to see the sight. Every one expressed himself to the effect that it is a wonderful likeness of Dougherty and his favorite child. The picture has the appearance of being ground in the glass. It is near the centre of the pane. It is in such a position that it would really be seen by a woman sitting inside the room and watching the path over which her husband would return home.
New York Herald 17 August 1890: p. 11
Other faces in the window stories? chriswoodyard8 AT gmail.com
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As Mother’s Day approaches, there is always a debate between the angel on my one shoulder and the devil on the other about how or if to appropriately commemorate this holiday. I’ve done poignant tales of ghostly mothers and savage reports of monsters made by maternal influence. Today we look at a theoretically devoted son, somewhat prematurely ordering a lavish funeral for his mother.
COFFIN PLATE MADE
A YOUNG MAN ORDERS A FUNERAL FOR HIS MOTHER
Being Quite Well the Lady Declines the Attention—How the Youth Beguiled the Undertaker and What That Worthy Said About the Transaction.
Yates Vanderwerken, an undertaker of Williamsburg, N.Y., left his shop in Bedford avenue the other afternoon and started out to find a corpse that would fit in a handsome casket which he had made to order. The casket was ordered on a Saturday night by John H. Coe, son of the late Senator Coe, for his mother, who, he said, had just died at Belmar, N.J.
“Mother died suddenly,” said the young man, “and we want to give her a first class funeral.”
“Where is her body?” asked the undertaker.
“At Belmar,” said Mr. Coe.
“Do you want me to send for it tonight?” “No,” said Mr. Coe, “tomorrow will do. The local undertaker in Belmar has embalmed her and will ship the body to you Monday morning. Poor mother! She was a good mother!”
“Do you still live on Rodney street, near Bedford avenue?” asked the undertaker.
“Oh, no,” said Mr. Coe, “we left that house several years ago. Mother owned half of the property in the town of Belmar, so she went to live there. Poor mother! She was a good mother!’
“When would you like the funeral—what day?” asked the undertaker.
“Tuesday,” said Mr. Coe “we’ll bury her in Cypress Hills cemetery, and I want you to open a grave there. I’ll leave that to your own selection. I would like the side of a green hill. Poor mother! She was a good mother!”
“I know she was,” remarked the undertaker, “but here is the casket catalogue.” In a moment a choice was made.
“You have selected one of the finest,” said the undertaker. “That one will cost $350,trimmed.”
“Including a nice silver plate?”
“Yes,” said the undertaker, “including the plate.” “That one will do,” remarked Mr. Coe. “Now, I suppose you want a deposit. I’ll pay you one-third down on the funeral. Suppose I give you a check for $200. I need $50 to pay the Belmar undertaker for his work, so you take the check for $200 and give me $50 change. That will be paying you $150 on account for the funeral. Poor mother! She was a good mother!” It was getting late, and Mr. Coe said he had to hurry back to Belmar to complete the funeral arrangements. Then he produced a check for $200. It was drawn on the Manufacturers’ National bank and signed J.H. Evans. Undertaker Vanderwerken accepted the $20 check and gave young Mr. Coe two $25 checks in return with the understanding that the $50 was to be used for squaring funeral accounts in Belmar. Mr. Coe went away, saying he would ship his mother’s remains to Brooklyn on Sunday or Monday.
On Sunday Undertaker Vanderwerken, according to instructions, went to the office of the New York and Brooklyn Casket company and ordered the casket. It was sent to his shop on Monday, bearing a neat silver plate on which was inscribed the following:
“Hattie W. Coe. Died September, 1897. Aged 49 years.”
Not hearing from young Mr. Coe on Sunday, Undertaker Vanderwerken believed that the young man’s brother had decided to have the body of the mother kept at Belmar until Monday. All day Monday he waited to get further orders regarding the funeral, but he waited in vain. Then he turned his attention to trimming the casket. When this was done, he covered it with a black shroud and left it in his shop ready to be used.
On Tuesday he sent two of his men to Cypress Hills cemetery, where he had purchased a grave for Mrs. Coe, and his men paid $7 to have the grave opened. When his men returned to Williamsburg, the undertaker remarked that it was strange that he had not received a message from young Mr. Coe.
“They may be having trouble with a Jersey coroner,” said the undertaker. “I guess I had better go over to Belmar and ship the body here to Brooklyn.”
So he went to Belmar and driving to the Coe residence, rang the bell.
“I’m the Brooklyn undertaker,” he said. “I came to see about Mrs. Coe’s body.” “Mrs. Coe’s body!” exclaimed a young woman who answered the doorbell. “Mrs. Coe’s body! What do you mean?”
“I am to have the funeral,” said the undertaker.
“What funeral?” inquired the young woman.
“Mrs. Coe’s funeral,” replied the undertaker.
“Why, Mrs. Coe is not dead,” answered the young woman. “She’s here in the house entertaining some friends from Williamsburg. I’ll call her out if you wish to speak with her.”
The undertaker turned pale, but requested that Mrs. Coe be produced. A few minutes later she was talking with him in the reception room. He explained the object of his visit. Then Mrs. Coe fainted. Her friends escorted the undertaker to the railroad station. He telegraphed back to Williamsburg and got a message saying that the $200 check given for the funeral had been returned by the bank stamped “N.G.” Then he decided to remain at Belmar for the night in the hope that he would get material for a Coe funeral before leaving there.
“If I succeed,” he said, “all I need to do is to have a new plate made for that casket—one that will read, “’John H. Coe Cashed In his Last Check.
“If I get hold of him,” said the undertaker, “he’ll need a quicker funeral than that which he ordered four days ago.” New York Sun.
Kalamazoo [MI] Gazette 1 October 1897: p. 7
Heart-warming stuff… And it gets better. Coe disappeared for a few weeks, then was spotted fishing on Jamaica Bay by detectives and arrested. His wife, Minnie, and two daughters were reported as living in destitute circumstances.
Young Coe had a colorful criminal history for the son of a New York State Senator. He was sued in 1887 at age 19 for breach of promise. He was arrested multiple times for passing worthless checks. He failed to support his wife and children. We may get a glimpse of one of the reasons for his stunning lack of character in the following vignette. A boy’s best friend is his mother…:
CALLED A SCAMP BY THE COURT.
John H. Coe, a Senator’s Son with a Forgiving Mother, Judicially Denounced.
None of the men who made charges of grand larceny against John H. Coe, a son of the late State Senator, John W. Coe of Kings county, was present yesterday in the Lee Avenue Police Court, Williamsburg, when the prisoner was arraigned. It transpired that Coe’s mother, who lives at Belmar, N.J., and whom Coe falsely represented as dead in the early part of September, and thereby secured $50 from an undertaker fraudulently, had settled with all the complainants. When he was arraigned and Justice Kramer saw that none of the business men who had accused him was on hand, he said to Coe: “I am very sorry for your mother, but I haven’t the slightest sympathy for you, because you are a scamp. You’ll keep on in this way until you’ve ruined your good mother, and then your end will be in prison, anyway. I am satisfied that you cannot keep out of trouble.
Coe is 26 years old. His wife and three children live at 213 Heyward street. When he was discharged he left the courtroom smiling.
The Sun [New York NY] 30 November 1897: p. 7
Three weeks later Coe’s wife Minnie was dead, ostensibly of consumption. Her doctor stated publically his professional opinion that she died of grief over her husband’s disgrace.
At some point Coe drifted out to California where he missed fulfilling the judge’s prophecy of death in jail by falling down a flight of stairs. A bartender claimed to have seen the fall and that Coe was “very drunk.” While the coroner assumed Coe’s fractured skull was the cause of death, he sent the stomach to the San Francisco city chemist as a “precaution.” The chemist found “Muriatic acid” in Coe’s stomach “in quantity sufficient to kill.” How the acid got there was not stated. [San Francisco (CA) Chronicle 29 March 1904: p. 15]
I’ve not been able to find much sympathy in my heart or an actual death date for Coe’s enabling mother, who is Elizabeth G. Coe in the 1880 census; Hattie W. Coe on her untimely coffin plate; and Elizabeth A. Jackson Coe in the Wikipedia entry on Senator Coe.
I’ve collected a number of examples of mortuary scams like this—there is a story in The Victorian Book of the Dead about an ingenious young swindler who played the part of both the undertaker’s assistant and the fiancé of a deceased young woman in order to scam the cost of her funeral from undertaker and bereaved father alike. There was also a genre of practical jokes played on undertakers, where pranksters summoned multiple morticians to non-bereaved homes, to the consternation of all involved. [Another post, another day.] I believe Coe’s Premature Burial is the first version I’ve found where the prank was perpetrated by a family member.
I think that I’ve seen pre-planning funeral services advertised as the perfect Mother’s Day gift, although I can’t put my finger on an example. I suppose the sentiment could be construed as “love ya, Mom!” as opposed to “wish you were dead!” but most of the mothers I know would prefer dinner out or some good chocolates. And, ideally, children who don’t have the undertaker on speed-dial.
Chris Woodyard is the author of The Victorian Book of the Dead, The Ghost Wore Black, The Headless Horror, The Face in the Window, and the 7-volume Haunted Ohio series. She is also the chronicler of the adventures of that amiable murderess Mrs Daffodil in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales. The books are available in paperback and for Kindle. Indexes and fact sheets for all of these books may be found by searching hauntedohiobooks.com. Join her on FB at Haunted Ohio by Chris Woodyard or The Victorian Book of the Dead.
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