Need more excitement in your life?  Nothing good on T.V.?

Tune in tonight,( September 15th) at 10 p.m. for the first ever (but not the last) So you think you know Oak Grove Cemetery? Jeopardy-style online quiz.

Questions and photo identifications will be posted in rapid fire, each going up after the previous one has been correctly answered.  There will be one winner, with difficult brainbusters in case of a tie. Join us at Friends of Oak Grove Fall River tonight. A prize will be awarded to the winner- and the competition will be fierce! How well do YOU know Oak Grove?

Contents

1-2 Introduction

3-4 History of Oak Grove as described in the report of the Massachusetts

Historical Commission, Office of the Secretary, Boston

5-7 Oak Grove in More Recent Days

8-9 Relating to Oak Grove Cemetery and the Interment of the Dead Chapter XXII

City Ordinances 1859

10-16 1915 Report to the Board of Park Commissioners by Egbert Lawton

17-19 Mr. Egbert Lawton, Superintendent of Oak Grove

19 A-B Salaries of Early Superintendents and Expenses of Interest

20 Initial Expense Report 1856

21-22 Approved City Ordinance Applying to Oak Grove Cemetery

23-29 Symbolism on Victorian Funeral Statuary

30 Map for Tour Circuit #1

31-34 Autopsies of Abby & Andrew Borden, August 11, 1892

35 Funerals of Abby & Andrew Borden, August 6, 1892

36-39 Identifications and Biographies for Tour Circuit #1

40 Map for Tour Circuit #2

41-42 Identifications and Biographies for Tour Circuit #2

43 Map for Tour Circuit #3

44-46 Identifications and Biographies for Tour Circuit #3

47-49 Uncle Lawdwick Borden and the Sad Case of the Deaths in the Cistern:

The Suicide of Eliza Darling Borden and Murder of Her Children

50-55 Other Gravesites of Notables

56 Borden-Related Personalities Not Buried at Oak Grove Cemetery

57-63 The Victorian Celebration of Death: The Borden Funerals

64 Sources Used in the Preparation of This Publication

Update!

Just in time for the anniversary of the crime:  the user-friendly guide to Borden-related graves in Oak Grove Cemetery.  The booklet contains maps, biographies of people connected with the case who are buried at Oak Grove, three walking tours with maps of how to locate both minor and major personalities in the Borden story, a history of the cemetery, fun facts and trivia, who is NOT buried at Oak Grove connected to the Borden case, and articles on the Victorian celebration of death, symbolism on funerary statuary and much more!  Designed in a black and white “Edward Goreyesque” style, the publication will go on sale August 6th.

A Maiden’s Garland still hanging in a church in England

As you are now, so once was I.

As I am now, so you must be.

Prepare for death and follow me.”

The Young Widow 1877, exchanging the wedding gown for mourning

The Victorian preoccupation with death is reflected in the art of the period.  Photographs, paintings, death portraits, steel engravings, lithographs, etchings, and other art forms embraced the most sentimental and heartrending portrayals of loss and bereavement.

These works by both amateurs and the great artists such as Landseer and the Pre-Raphaelites were displayed in the parlor or sometimes in the bedchamber as a perpetual reminder that death is always with us.

The Old Shepherd’s Chief Mourner by Landseer

Animals and children were especially popular as subjects to portray pathos and grieving.

The 1894 sketch above is called For Such is the Kingdom by Frank Bramley and illustrates the custom of little children dressed in white walking in procession in front of a small white coffin containing a young person.  Often four young maidens, also dressed in white attire served as pall bearers for the departed child.  The custom of children wearing white to funerals continued well into the twentieth century.

 

Victorians liked keepsakes of all kinds.  The idea of some sort of printed memorial which could be tucked into family Bibles, placed on mantels in the parlor, and kept for the future generations found great favor in the nineteenth century. The custom of funeral cards is still observed today although the size and intricacy of the funeral card has changed.  Today we often find the 23rd Psalm, the Lord’s Prayer, or a contemporary poem along with the deceased’s dates, name and age.  The Victorian and early twentieth century cards were on very heavy stock and featured the symbolism Victorians understood, such as the opening gate, cross and crown, dove of the spirit, laurel wreath etc.  Suitable mourning poetry was nearly always included below the name and dates of the departed Loved One. Early cards were generally in either black or white with gold or silver lettering.  (Examples from the blogger’s collection).

Kensal Green Cemetery – London UK

The Victorian parlor became the memorial space to display mementoes of every single life, no matter how brief, and great love and care went into arranging the deceased as beautifully as could be done for these photographs.  Many appear to be merely sleeping peacefully. Photographs of children and infants were particularly heart-wrenching, as some grieving mothers tenderly held their little ones for the first and last time in these images. 

These cabinet photographs were framed and displayed on mantels and parlor tables throughout the years, just as if the images recorded there were still part of the family. Smaller portraits were given out to mourning family members to be worn in lockets, often with a curl of hair.  Hair jewelry became an art form of intricate workmanship by loving hands which has never seen an equal since the nineteenth century. 

The Dead were gone- but never forgotten in the hearts of their families.  Every life mattered very much, and its loss felt and remembered forever.

  “Our Darling”

Lizzie Borden’s father, Andrew J. Borden, was a carpenter by training before branching out into farming and real estate, and although not a mortician, he did build coffins and was an “undertaker” in the sense of providing items needed for a funeral such as chairs, coffin stands, conveyance to the grave, and other incidentals. A newspaper article tells of Mr. Borden displaying a prominent Civil War casualty in the arcade window complete with bunting in the storefront  of the furniture business he owned with partner William Almy, so as more citizens could view the body and pay their repects in a time before the rise of the conventional funeral “parlor”. 

 coffin plate

Embalming became a necessity in transporting Civil War dead from a distance back home again, but before those times, the dead were usually quickly buried and not embalmed.  For this reason, in their haste, errors were made and those in comas or showing signs of death were mistakenly buried alive.  Edgar Allan Poe wrote a story of this unsettling possibility in his 1850 story, The Premature Burial.  Many patented safety coffins were invented to prevent this by means of a bell rope tied to the hand of the buried person which would communicate with the living by means of a bell above the ground.  Sometimes a flag could be raised, or even explosives ignited by the unfortunate Undead.

Exhumations over the years have proven that premature burial did indeed take place, however the expressions “saved by the bell” and “dead ringer” do NOT come from this situation. “Saved by the bell” has its origins in the boxing ring, and “dead ringer” refers to substituting a look-alike for the genuine.

A casket originally referred to a small chest for storing and carrying jewels or precious objects.  A casket is a rectangular container of the same width from top to bottom.  It is generally padded and lined, and goes into the ground after the grave has been lined with a vault. Today cemeteries still use concrete vaults or the new resin “grave liners” which also have sealed lids. Caskets usually open at the top so the head and shoulders of the deceased may be viewed at the wake, and have the customary three handles on each side for pallbearers.

For more information on Victorian safety coffins, click on the following link for an excellent article  http://www.americanartifacts.com/smma/life/life.htm

The Prince Albert Memorial in London

With the death of Albert, Queen Victoria set a trend for deep mourning rituals and rules which would dictate the standards on both sides of the Atlantic for decades.  The inconsolable widow declared she was ready to join her beloved spouse in days after his demise due to typhoid fever, but she lived on another 44 years, building memorials to her idolized husband all over England.

Queen Victoria circa 1900

Before the radio, every home which could afford it had a parlor piano, and most young ladies of the family could “play a little”.  The hymnal was a standard to be seen on the music rack, as well as ornate, over-sized pages of sheet music which featured vignettes of touching scenes on their covers.  The tunes were sung to dozing infants in front of the fire, and passed down from generation to generation.

Some of the most sentimental and poignant melodies were inspired by the Civil War, and many featured heart-rending lyrics about waiting mothers.  Perhaps the most popular melody of this type was Just Before the Battle, Mother.

The themes which were so universal to tender hearts everywhere dealt with loss and grief, separation and death.  Motherhood was held in such high regard that many songs had a grieving mother, a mother lost to death, or a child’s loss of its mother as themes.  These became known as “tearjerkers” and were a staple of the music writer’s industry for a time well after WWI.   The Baggage Coach Ahead is one such very popular sad song about the loss of a mother and a father’s explanation to a little child about the mother being in the “baggage coach ahead” as they were taking her body home for burial.  Many of these songs have entered into the realm of American folk music.  Many of the lyrics were written by  women, some were mothers.

http://www.iment.com/maida/family/nana/baggagecoachahead.htm

To hear some of these old favorites, visit the links below- you may need a handkerchief.

http://www.mi5th.org/Songs/JustBefore.htm

http://parlorsongs.com/issues/2006-3/thismonth/feature.asp

http://parlorsongs.com/issues/2001-10/thismonth/featurea.asp