American Afterlife - Kate Sweeney - [PDF][N27]seeders: 6
leechers: 5
American Afterlife - Kate Sweeney - [PDF][N27] (Size: 2.55 MB)
Description American Afterlife: Encounters in the Customs of Mourning by Kate Sweeney Language: English | Format: PDF | ISBN-10: 0820346004 | ISBN-13: 978-0820346007 Page count: 232 | Date Published: March 15, 2014 | Publisher: University of Georgia Press  Politics & Social Sciences, Sociology, Death CONTENTS COVER CONTENTS PREFACE CHAPTER 1 American Ways of Death CHAPTER 2 Gone, but Not Forgotten DISMAL TRADE: Sarah Peacock, Memorial Tattoo Artist: Under the Skin CHAPTER 3 The Cemetery’s Cemetery DISMAL TRADE: Kay Powell, Obituary Writer: The Doyenne Speaks CHAPTER 4 The Last Great Obit Writers’ Conference CHAPTER 5 Give Me That Old-Time Green Burial DISMAL TRADE: Oana Hogrefe, Memorial Photographer Memory Maker CHAPTER 6 The House Where Death Lives DISMAL TRADE: Lenette Hall, Owner, The Urngarden: The Business at the Back of the Closet CHAPTER 7 With the Fishes DISMAL TRADE: Anne Gordon, Funeral Chaplain: Funerals Are Fun CHAPTER 8 Death by the Roadside AFTERWORD ACKNOWLEDGMENTS NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY Excerpt: American Ways of Death Jon Austin had been working as founding curator at the Museum of Funeral Customs for about a year when he had a curious visitor. His office door is always open to the lobby, so he could observe her as she neared the exit. “Thanks for visiting!” he called. She was an elderly woman, probably in her late seventies or early eighties, and she nodded in his direction as she passed the antique carriage hearse on her way out. But then she stopped and stood completely still for a moment before turning around and returning to his office doorway. “You didn’t tell all of the story,” she said. When recounting this, Jon Austin re-creates his own confused expression: He wanted to be polite, but at the same time, he had worked hard for months to get the museum’s collection of American death memorabilia just right, and so, “there’s kind of this bravado in me,” he says. He asked her, “What exactly have we failed to include?” She paused and then said, “You haven’t explained what they do with the rest of the body.” And Jon Austin thought Rest . . . ? But what he said was, “I’m sorry. But I can’t understand your question. Can you help me? Give me more information?” She repeated it. “You haven’t explained what they do with the rest of the body.” After one more confused exchange, she told him what she meant. When she was a child, a grown-up had told her that what you see in the casket is all that’s present. “That’s why they only open the upper end of the casket. Because that’s all that’s there.” And now, this octogenarian asked, “What do they do with the rest of the body?” Jon Austin’s chief joy in life sprang from putting together picture- perfect exhibits like those here: the 1930s embalming room display with its gleaming metal table, the early twentieth-century home- funeral display with its chrome-plated art deco casket jacks and dark velvet curtains. These opportunities to delve into and re-create his- tory had driven him to pursue a career as a museum director and curator. He had not anticipated ever being faced with counselling a stranger about her personal experiences with funerals and death. He stumbled and stammered out an explanation, offering to put her in contact with a number of funeral directors, friends of his who would support his assertion that human bodies are not cut in half before being buried. Sharing Widget |