What I Saw
I sit on a green stuffed chair in my Grandma Longenecker’s parlor. The top of my back legs feel a little itchy. My mother has starched my Sunday dress to make the skirt stand out nice and pretty. Because I am little, I can see the tips of my high-top shoes, both of them looking spotless with white shoe polish.
People I know like Uncle Joe and Aunt Bertha and John and Emma Longenecker are mingling with others I don’t know in the living room where I am sitting. I know this is a solemn occasion. Usually we are never quiet at Grandma’s house, sitting stiffly with grown-ups, whispering among themselves. Some of the people walk slowly to the casket at one end, “He looks so natural,” one of them says. Later, I learn that the funeral director has placed two pink torchiere lamps at either end of the casket, the soft light casting a slight glow on the face of my Grandpa, lying dead—unexpectedly from a stroke.
Image from eBay
I understand that this evening is the viewing of my Grandpa’s body at the Longenecker home, with a funeral to follow on Sunday, October 20, 1946 at Bossler Mennonite Church, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania nestled in farm land.
Grandpa Longenecker’s Funeral Announcement
His memorial leaflet shows text typewritten on pre-printed paper with a slight sheen and subtle texture, the only fancy thing about his commemoration. In those days it was customary to include “please omit flowers” at Mennonite funerals because church leaders thought flowers in the sanctuary to be worldly and a frivolous expense even though asters and chrysanthemums may have been blooming gloriously in Pennsylvania gardens at this time of year in 1946.
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How I Remember Grandpa Longenecker
I have two recollections of my Grandfather Henry Longenecker, who died when I was five. I remember him killing a garter snake in the front lawn of the home-place. Another time he bought me a soft drink in a cold, curvy glass bottle after I asked him, “Grandpa, how do you spell ‘Pepsi?’”
Grandpa Henry had the reputation to be shy and “all business.” Family lore has it that Henry as owner of H. R. Longenecker & Sons chauffeured President-elect Woodrow Wilson in a Model A Ford from York to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, sometime before his first term in office 1913 – 1921.
Victorian Houses with Two Front Doors
Victorian houses sometimes had two front doors for practical reasons. Besides offering aesthetic symmetry, one of them permitted guests to enter without disturbing the family’s private space. Before funeral homes were common, funerals were often held at home.
Friends and family attended Grandpa’s funeral at church, but the viewing, a day or two before, took place at the Longenecker house. My dad told me when I was older that the funeral director placed a black wreath on the kitchen door on the east side of the house, so the milkman or newspaper delivery boy would know a death had occurred in the home.
The Longenecker house originally had two front doors side by side, but later the second door (placed at right) was removed, allowing only one front entrance as shown in the photo.
Have you observed a viewing or funeral in a family home?
What do you think of the saying about loved ones who die, “Not lost but gone before”?
Good morning, Marian!
It’s interesting what we remember!
I’ve never been to a viewing or funeral in a home that I can remember. I don’t think I went to any funerals as a child. I don’t know the saying. I imagine it’s comforting if it’s what you believe.
Hi Marian,
You have a good memory! I don’t think I can remember anything from when I was five. There is only one thing, but I’m not sure if it’s an actual memory or because the story has been retold to me a few times, but it’s when I tried to ride a bike for the first time without training wheels and I rode it straight through the nettles into the water-filled ditch along our street. My mom had to jump in and save me from drowning.
As children death doesn’t mean the same as it does when we are adults. That uncomprehension is not present anymore now.
I agree with Merrild that its interesting what we remember of our childhoods for me it is often just a place or food but I don’t have a memory of a viewing or a funeral in a home ever in my life until I lived here…the saying I vaguely remember hearing it before but cannot remember where …
It was common in rural areas especially to have a viewing in the home when I was a child. I don’t recall being to one myself, but my parents were quite protective of me when it came to those things . My great grandparents passed away when I was between 8 and 12, and as was the custom then, the casket was open at the funeral service. I found it unsettling. My dad didn’t like it and asked us to please not do that at his funeral, when the time came. We honoured his wishes. I also don’t visit after a loved one passes away, but respect that others feel the need to. We have just laid my mother-in-law to rest so these things have been on my mind. Five is very young to loose your grandfather. I’m glad you have some memories of him. ♥️
Yes, I remember seeing my grandfather ‘laid out’ – as they use to call it in the South, in the living room. The curtains were drawn, all was quiet and dark, but the kitchen was buzzing with female chatter making sure the food was warm and all were well fed. Men on the front porch smoking and talking politics, farming, and the high cost of living. Who knew then what the high cost of living would become. Marian, you always take me back to a long-forgotten memory. Thank you.
Yes, I have been to many viewings. I have one coming up on Monday.
The first funeral I attended was when I was six. My dad’s sister died.