Gone to the Grave

Before there was a death care industrywhere professional funeral directorsoffered embalming and other services,residents of the Arkansas Ozarks-and,for that matter, people throughout theSouth-buried their own dead. Everypart of the complicated, labor-intensiveprocess was handled within thedeceased’s community. This processincluded preparation of the body forburial, making a wooden coffin, diggingthe grave, and overseeing theburial ceremony, as well as observing awide variety of customs and superstitions.These traditions, especially in ruralcommunities, remained the norm upthrough the end of World War II, afterwhich a variety of factors, primarily theloss of manpower and the rise of thefuneral industry, brought about theend of most customs.Gone to the Grave, a meticulous autopsy of this now vanishedway of life and death, documents mourning and practical ritualsthrough interviews, diaries and reminiscences, obituaries, anda wide variety of other sources. Abby Burnett covers attemptsto stave off death; passings that, for various reasons, could notbe mourned according to tradition; factors contributing to highmaternal and infant mortality; and the ways in which loss wasexpressed through obituaries and epitaphs. A concluding chapterexamines early undertaking practices and the many anglesfuneral industry professionals worked to convince the public ofthe need for their services.Abby Burnett, Kingston, Arkansas, is a former freelance newspaperreporter. She is the author of When the Presbyterians Came toKingston: Kingston Community Church, 1917-1951.