Saturday, we stopped to see Tom Hoffman and the Washington Historical Commission at Town Hall Cemetery on Washington Mountain Road. They were straightening graves in the old cemetery, this was the site of the old church. From the History of Washington-Death was a constant caller in early days when modern medicine was unknown, before anyone knew bacteria or virus infections, and people died of illnesses that today would easily yield to treatment. People lived by their own resources, were sick at home, and died at home in the normal course of vents. Even people unfortunate enough to have strokes or other debilitating sickness had to be cared for in the home. Sometimes it was necessary to put the helpless person in a grown-up sized wooden cradle, near the hearth. Can you imagine the plight of the busy housewife with perhaps a baby in a cradle on one side of the fireplace and an old grandparent in a large wooden cradle on the other? It is still hard to see how anyone could cope with such a situation.

Funerals were almost always held at home until fifty years ago or so. When a person died, friends or neighbors came to “lay out” the body. In earliest times, coffins were homemade of planks-every man was a handyman and could hurriedly put together a suitable one. (At least one man my grandfather knew about had his coffin made while he was relatively young, and he kept it with him wherever he moved, usually putting it under his bed and making it utilitarian by storing his beans and other seeds in it.

The minister came to the home to preach the funeral service. Then chosen men nailed the cover on the coffin, shouldered it and slowly marched out the door. After the earliest primitive cabins, every house had a side door leading from the parlor so that a coffin could be easily taken out. That is why these doors were called “coffin Doors”.

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