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I believe that part of the reason may
have been to ease the grieving of relatives who could not attend
the burial. During the Civil War, bodies often could not be
transported back to the soldier's hometown - unless the family
paid for it.
When my aunt passed away in Florida in 1997, my grandmother (my aunt's mother) was 97 and could not make the trip from NE PA to FL. Since she could not be there, she wanted me to take a photo of my aunt in the casket. It did ease bring her a great deal of comfort. When my grandfather passed away in 1979, I was in California on vacation with my mother, sister and brother. The funeral was in NE PA. I could not attend, but no one shot pics for us. There was no closure for me until I attended a Memorial Day service in the Veteran's section of the cemetery he was buried in - the services took place right at his gravesite which was next to the US flag. Since then, most of my relatives have been cremated since they often died far from their cemetery plot is located. With the current state of airline transportation, it just makes sense to be cremated since you couldn't afford to transport a casket via airline and hearse and then hire another funeral home. Chris Telesca On 5/1/14, 10:22 AM, Lea Murphy wrote: When my brother drowned my dad asked that I photograph him in his casket. I was exceptionally uncomfortable with it for a vast array of reasons (not the least of which was that my brother and I were very close and I was grieving deeply) and originally said no, I didn't think I could do it. |
