Death On Display

DEATH ON DISPLAY

Exhibit at Cobblestone Farm depicts 19th century funeral customs

By DON FABER
COMMUNITY AFFAIRS EDITOR

There’s a funeral going on at the Ticknor-Campbell house on the grounds of Cobblestone Farm.

But not to worry. The deceased is only a wax model and the mourners are visitors seeing an exhibit depicting Victorian-era funeral customs.

It was last fall that the staff at Cobblestone Farm Museum decided to do a funeral along 19th century lines.

It fell to interpretive specialist Kerry Adams to do the research and plug in the period elements.

Fortunately for Adams, the journals of Dr. Benajah Ticknor provide insights into the funeral customs of 150 years ago.

The funeral Cobblestone Farm is portraying is that of Benajah Ticknor’s niece Caroline (1832-1852) who was the second child to die in the house after the stone portion was completed.

Ticknor’s journal entry on June 15,1852 reads: “This was a day of severe affliction to my brother’s family, for on this day the long and distressing disease under which his daughter Caroline had been laboring terminated in death."

Ticknor continues: “Caroline was read the Bible and given last rites by the Minister Countiss at the house. She called each member of the family to her, and took her final leave of them, admonishing (them) to give their hearts at once to the Lord, and not neglect a preparation for death as she had done.”

She was buried no one knows where because family records haven’t survived. It’s known, however, that her remains were later transferred to the Ticknor plot in Forest Hill Cemetery.

Caroline succumbed to tuberculosis, or consumption as it was known in those days.

So what do mourners in 1995 see when they enter the house?

First, closed shutters means a house is in mourning. Victorians externalized death in ways we don’t, and talked about its inevitability.

Black crepe hangs from the door. Inside, all mirrors are covered with crepe because the superstition was if the devil saw his reflection, he might steal the soul of the departed.

Funerals were held in the parlor, the most formal and least homey room of the house. A table of refreshments is set out for mourners - oranges and biscuits to eat, with tea, brandy or sherry to drink.

Still today in some places, funeral homes are known as parlors. As the Victorian era faded, an evolution in home design saw “living rooms” take the place of parlors because the latter was associated with death.

The coffin in the Cobblestone exhibit is an authentic family heirloom, dating to the 1870s.

Other accoutrements of a 19th century funeral are a hair wreath, containing locks of hair from members of the deceased’s family, and a memorial print, a mass-produced item that adorned parlor walls as reminders of the deceased and served as testament to a household’s continuing grief.

The exhibit played to more than 125 people on opening day, says Adams, who is working on a master’s degree in historic preservation at Eastern Michigan University.

“I like to say Ann Arbor has two museums,” quips Adams, “a Hands-On Museum and a Hands-Off Museum. “We’re the Hands-Off Museum in that we’ve re-created something here for people to look at but not touch.

“However, we’re doing more living history now because our attendance shows people want more programs,” says Adams. “We want to restore the house to accurately represent the Ticknor period, but we also want to move away from the hands-off, ‘once you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it’ attitude to museum-going.”

“The House in Mourning: 19th Century Funeral Customs” may be seen at Cobblestone Farm until the end of July.

NEWS PHOTO • BOB CHASE
  This is the parlor of the Ticknor-Campbell house at Cobblestone Farm. As part of an exhibit on 19th century funeral customs, the "deceased" lies in a walnut coffin. Refreshments for mourners are on the table at rear, while the mirror above the mantle is covered in black. The reason for that was if the devil saw his reflection, he might steal the soul of the departed. The exhibit runs through July 31.