Beech Tree News Network

My Mam-maw Locke’s picture box was a treasure-trove.  She kept it under her bed.  On rainy or cold days when I visited and didn’t play outside, the pictures were a wonderous source of entertainment for a small-fry.
There was one picture that was most curious; it stood out from all the rest: the one of “Uncle Cook”.  I always looked for it first off.  It was very unusual-looking: a really old man, sitting in a huge chair, but something about his face didn’t ring –true…his eyes weren’t exactly open, or closed either.  He was dressed in his Sunday-suit…tie and all.
The first time I spotted the picture, I asked my grandmother who the funny-looking old guy was.
“That’s uncle Cook Wilkins”, she told me.  “He was your Granddaddy Locke’s uncle…his mother’s brother.
“But he looks…funny Mam-maw,” I told her…was there something bad wrong with him?”
“Honey, Uncle Cook was dead.  They set him up like that and made his picture after he died.”
My small brain pondered that a moment. “Why would they want to do that?”
“Well,” she said, lots of times they did that back then.  Folks didn’t dress-up a lot then, and I guess they wanted to dress him up one more time… for the last time, before they buried him.”
Most of his working life, my brother was in the life insurance business in Louisville.  One day a funeral home called him and informed him of the death of one of his patrons… a Mister Gazdecco.  My brother assumed the funeral home had already picked-up the body, so he immediately went to the Gazdecco home to begin arrangements regarding the death claim.
When he got there and went in, to his surprise, there sat Mister Gazdecco straight-up in a chair, dressed in his World War-One uniform---wrapped leggings, campaign hat and the whole nine yards…deader than a door nail.  His wife had already “outfitted” him for his trip to the funeral home, and his last march.
About that time Missis Gazdecco’s three sons came into the room where she had the old soldier sitting stiffly at attention.  She took one look at her sons and bawled loudly, “You boys take-off your hats right now, don’t you know you are IN THE PRESENCE OF A SOLDIER?!”
Many of you may recall the custom of “sitting –up-with-the dead”, either at home or at the funeral home…early on back mostly at home.
Mister Theron Dorris, a neighbor of some of my kin at Dunmor, told of sitting-up at two neighbors’ house where a body lay-in-state.  For some reason, this customary gesture of respect was attended to by men only.  I strongly suspect it was a time they enjoyed getting together and doing what old men liked to do, visit and talk…maybe tell a few hunting stories and such.
Anyway, all the windows were open, it was summer; there were no screens on the windows.  Along about two or so in the morning things began to cool down some; talk had died-down, most of the men were dozing.  Sometime during the night a cat crawled-up in the casket and under the veil and bedded-down.  Back then funeral homes placed a veil over the head of the open casket, because of flies and ect.
One old guy got to snoring like a locomotive at full throttle…finally he woke himself up.  When he did, he got choked and let-out a cough that nearly took the roof off.  It didn’t wake-up the dead, but it did the napping cat.  The cat, with a loud squall, shot right straight-up out of the casket, taking the veil with him.  As in the old song, that’s when “pandemonium-walked-upon-the-scene.  The dozing was very suddenly over.  Some of the men headed for the doors.  One ole guy who had been leaning back while sitting in the sill of a tall window, suddenly went-out backwards…tail-over-teakettle!  For the rest of the night, the wake really became a WAKE.  
So much for the passing parade.
Kindest regards…