"They came by South Pass and that country up there by Lander, and came down there and then of course he died when he was about 38 years old, and they were down at Tin Cup, down at the placer mines at Tin Cup when he died. My grandmother, I knew her, she died years later, I remember they kept her in cold storage, she died around Christmas time and they kept her and took her down there next spring and buried her at Tin Cup. " (From my interview with homesteader Andy Hornbeck, 8/2011)
You know how I tell everyone about how serviceberries (colloquial: sarvisberries) are named because they are the first bush to bloom, in spring, indicating the ground is thawed enough to dig graves and hold services for the winter dead? I wasn't lying about the pioneers keeping their relatives in cold storage all winter.
(I borrowed this photo from the Blubabalu blog, which tells me this really interesting fact that I am now going to start including with my stories about sarvisberries:
-The official practice of post-mortem photography was very common through the Victorian era as a way to remember dead loved ones. With children, it was usually the only photograph of the child the family would ever have. This practice faded in the early 20th century, as advances in health and medical care extended our lifespan, and Kodak introduced the Brownie camera, making photographs more readily available to the public and less of an art form. Death became less common in daily life, and society began to shun it. Previous to the turn of the nineteenth century, funerals were commonly held at home in the parlor, or "death room." With the advent of "funeral parlors," funerals started taking place outside the home, and the home parlor began being called the "living room." I hope that is as interesting to you as it is to me! For more post-mortem or "Memento Mori" photographs, please visit this link:)
http://blubabalu.blogspot.com/2011/06/strike-pose-postmortem-photography.html
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