Mourning

(I updated a new mourning blog with more information on the mourning practices of the 19th century. Click here to go to it)

As many social historians may know, mourning the loss of a loved one was quite different in the 19th century as compared to mourning today. In fact, I sometimes wonder if people truly even mourn in this modern time in which I'm stuck.
In case you might not be familiar with the stages of mourning during the mid-to-late 19th century, here is a run-down:

Mourning pertaining to women was in three stages - heavy/deep mourning, full mourning, and half mourning.

Mourning a spouse generally would last one to 2 ½ years:

For a parent: 6 months to a year

For children over 10 yrs old: 6 months to a year

For children under 10 yrs: 3 to 6 months

Infants: 6 weeks and up

For siblings: 6 to 8 months

For aunts and uncles: 3 to 6 months

For cousins: 6 weeks to 3 months

For aunts or uncles related by marriage: 6 weeks to 3 months

Grandparents: 6 months

For more distant relatives and friends: 3 weeks and up

Heavy/Deep mourning lasted the minimum of a year and a day and could last as long as 2 ½ years to life. Black clothing, jewelry, veils, bonnets, outer wear, and crape characterized it. The use of crape to cover outer wear and bonnets usually lasted a year and a day, and then could be removed. By the 2^nd year the woman could add lace. Hats were not to be worn for mourning; bonnets covered in crape would replace them. The veil was of black crape, and very long, but by the 2^nd year it could be shortened. Mourning clothes were expected to be plain with little or no adornment.

Full mourning collars and cuffs were replaced by white, veils were taken off, crape was discarded, and jewelry of a wider variety was worn.

Half mourning included the addition of lilac, lavender, violet, mauve, and gray. The woman was no longer limited to just black. She would use black and white ornaments for evening wear, bonnets were white, lavender silk or straw.

For specific periods of time a widow would not leave her home and did not receive any visitors. After a respectable time, she would then send out black edged cards advising friends and family that her time of heavy mourning had passed and she could now receive visitors. Parties, weddings, and other social affairs were hands off to those in mourning.

I write of this because we recently had a death in our family - my wife's mother, only a couple months ago, passed away quite suddenly at the young age of 61.
Death has been a visitor to my wife's family frequently since this new century began - besides her mother she also lost her father, a sister, and a brother - all rather young and all unexpected.

With death seemingly ever-present, my wife has not truly been able to mourn - to grieve - as she would like. She has been told that "life goes on," to "get over it," and "why do you mourn if you're a Christian."
Yes, these comments have been said to her over the last few years, believe it or not.

A couple weeks after my mother-in-law's death, we had a memorial service that included our very close friend who just happens to be a pastor and presided over the ceremony. During the service, my eldest son played the guitar and sang a very heart-wrenching version of "Wayfaring Stranger." Nearly all were brought to tears. In this gathering we had many friends and family, some who traveled quite a distance, giving their happy remembrances of my mother-in-law. A beautiful eulogy read by my wife also brought nearly every visitor to tears. And to complete the service there was a nice setting of food.
But, even though this memorial was supposed to bring closure, I could see that it didn't, at least not for my wife. You see, mother and daughter were very close and spoke to each other daily on the phone (we live in the Detroit area and my mother-in-law lived 2 1/2 hours away in Battle Creek, so visits were not as frequent as all would have liked). And the time of day the phone calls had been made (late afternoon) is particularly hard on my wife.
She still cries herself to sleep many nights and she still has bouts with depression, but she still can't mourn outside of our home it seems. Society does not allow open mourning without sending the mourner to a psychiatrist, who will invariably put them on some anti-depressant.
I do my best to comfort her, but I can only give the moral support she needs.

On the day her mother died - November 1st - we were in the midst of having a period dress gathering at our home with our Civil War friends, so we rushed to the hospital without changing (which garnered some looks from everyone around!). I say this because the day after Christmas we had a few friends over to help celebrate the holiday. And, just as we have done the previous two years with these friends, it was a period dress Christmas get-together once again. As our friends have repeatedly told us, "This is our Christmas!"
But, this year I noticed that, instead of wearing her nice flower-print brown day dress, she instead wore her lavender day dress with a mourning brooch I bought for her earlier this year while we portrayed mourning practices during re-enactments.
http://passionforthepast.blogspot.com/2008/07/mourning.html
Although she was not 19th century accurate, she was showing our visitors that she was in mourning - that she still had grief. And, afterwards she told me how good it felt to wear the badge of mourning for all to see and to give her the respect that folks should give one in such a state.
And that lead me to finally fully understand the mourning practices of the 19th century: it gave one - including men, albeit a much shorter length and less rules - the opportunity to mourn, and to let others know. It gave the mourner the right to cry whenever and have others understand. It gave the mourner the right to be angry whenever and have others understand. It gave her the right to be moody and have others understand.
It gave her the right to grieve whenever she needed to.
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And, that's what my wife cannot do in this modern day and age. She needs to mourn and to know it's OK to mourn without anyone saying "It's been a couple months, she should get over it by now!" and having some doctor wanting to shove pills down her throat. Not necessarily mourning to the extent of our 19th century ancestors, but, in her heart she needs to mourn - - not for three days; not for a week or a month. But for however long she needs to.
Our ancestors were much smarter than today's society gives them credit for.
They knew...

(The image shown here in this blog, by the way, was taken with an 1860's tintype camera and shows Michigan Soldiers Aid Society members (including yours truly) during another mourning scenario that we did in Hastings, Michigan at historic Charlton Park. Many styles of mourning clothing are shown.)
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Mourning

(For an update of this posting, please click here)

Recently, I had the distinct pleasure of taking part in what I'm sure would be considered a very unusual scenario: 19th century mourning. Specifically, Civil War era mourning. This living history event took place at Waterloo Farms in Waterloo, Michigan on June 28th and 29th.

Please allow me to explain a bit about mourning in the 1860's. First off, death happened quite frequently during the Civil War, and not only due to battle deaths (although over 600,000 men died either in battle or of disease during the four years of the war). Infant mortality rate was extremely high, in some cases nearly 50%; death during childbirth was the number one cause of a woman's death; and then there were the "everyday" causes: consumption (TB), influenza, cancer, pneumonia, etc.

As you can see, death during the 1860's was so very much a part of life - seemingly much more than in our modern society.

So, how did folks deal with death during the mid-Victorian period in American history? Here is a (very) basic mourning overview:

(from "Rachel Weeping: Mourning in 19th Century America" by Karen Rae Mehaffey) 'Americans responded to death as a constant companion, and even embraced it with resignation and ritual. Americans...were intimately acquainted with death. Victorians embraced mourning as a sub-culture. It impacted how people dressed, how they behaved in society, and even how they decorated their homes.'

'Women were responsible for mourning in the family, and carried the responsibility of preparing mourning garments and making sure everyone was dressed properly.'

Thusly, women went through several stages of mourning:

Deep Mourning - This was the first stage of mourning, and it immediately followed the death of a husband, wife, or child. A woman (let's say she's a widow) in deep mourning would wear all black, including, while out in public, gloves and a black veil over her face. She would not speak with anyone but her family or closest friends. She would not attend parties or get-togethers and would basically seclude herself from the public in general. She would stay in this deep mourning for at least a year and a day. Sometimes women would never come out of deep mourning.

Once the widow left deep mourning, she would then enter second mourning. At this stage she could stop wearing the veil in public and could begin to trim her bonnet with a little bit of white fabric. She could also wear decorative mourning buttons and jewelry.

The next mourning stage was called half mourning. This stage allowed the widow to reintroduce some color (purple, gray, lilac, etc.) back into their clothing. Dresses with bold prints were also acceptable fashion.

After a little over two years, the widow would store her mourning clothing and begin wearing her normal everyday wear.

For a man, mourning was quite different. Men were needed to take care of the family, therefore he was needed to return to his occupation as soon as the deceased was buried.

A male's mourning garb was his best (dark) suit with a weeper (made of crape) wrapped around the hatband of his hat. Although there are some differences of opinions, most agree that men also wore a black armband. A man might wear a black cockade on his lapel as well.

Once a widower's wife was buried, chances are pretty good that he might look for a new wife soon after - especially if he had young children at home. Here's the kicker: if he re-married shortly after his deceased wife was buried, his new wife would then mourn for the first wife, wearing all of the mourning clothing and going through the stages as descibed above!

I do not completely understand my interest in the mourning procedures of the 19th century, but I'm not alone in this infatuation. I have found many folks - especially in the reenacting hobby - who also have a strong interest in this as well.

During our mourning presentation in Waterloo, we not only showed what mourning was like in the home, but we also held a funeral, with a pall bearers, a procession to a graveyard, and a preacher reciting the 23rd Psalm - pretty much everything was accurate except a real body in the coffin (that's coming up in Hastings, Michigan July 19th and 20th!), and a burial.

As we proceeded with our scenario in Waterloo, I had more than one patron comment on how the respect that, at one time, was shown to the dead is long gone, that people would rather "party" instead of mourn, and the deceased is soon forgotten.

In many ways they are right. Oh, yes, we have the three day funeral and all that, but it is quite different today. I mean, I do believe that a party for the dearly departed is not such a bad thing. But, there should be more time and more ritual for the mourning process.

It's scenarios like this that help to bring history to life (so to speak!), hence the title "Living History." This is also why I reenact - this is my passion. And this is why I belong to more than one reenacting unit.

I must give thanks to Tonya Hunter (our "deep mourner") for putting together the scenario at Waterloo Farms where she is a member of the board of directors. You did an awesome job Tonya!

And many thanks to Sandy Melcher (our "half stage mourner" - see picture at left of both Sandy and Tonya) for all of her knowledge about not only the mourning practices of the 1860's, but her knowledge of the total social history of the Civil War era itself. As I told my wife (and, yes, to Sandy herself), I want to be the "male Sandy Melcher," and become this wealth of mid-19th century knowledge and information as Mrs. Melcher truly is. I have a lo-o-ong way to go to even be within the same league as Mrs. Melcher, but it gives me something to strive for!

Oh, and I cannot forget the mourning knowledge of my very good friend, Kim Parr, of the Crocker House Museum in Mt. Clemens. Another wealth of mourning knowledge!