Tales from Kentucky Funeral Homes - Paperback

by William Lynwood Montell (Author)

In Tales from Kentucky Funeral Homes, William Lynwood Montell has collected stories and reminiscences from funeral home directors and embalmers across the state. These accounts provide a record of the business of death as it has been practiced in Kentucky over the past fifty years. The collection ranges from tales of old-time burial practices, to stories about funeral customs unique to the African American community, to tales of premonitions, mistakes, and even humorous occurrences. Other stories involve such unusual aspects of the business as snake-handling funerals, mistaken identities, and in-home embalming. Taken together, these firsthand narratives preserve an important aspect of Kentucky social life not likely to be collected elsewhere. Most of these funeral home stories involve the recent history of Kentucky funeral practices, but some descriptive accounts go back to the era when funeral directors used horse-drawn wagons to reach secluded areas. These accounts, including stories about fainting relatives, long-winded preachers, and pallbearers falling into graves, provide significant insights into the pivotal role morticians have played in local life and culture over the years.

Front Jacket

Tales from Kentucky Funeral HomesWilliam Lynwood Montell

In Tales from Kentucky Funeral Homes, William Lynwood Montell gives voice to funeral home directors and embalmers across Kentucky, collecting their stories, both humorous and touching, to reveal an insider perspective of the business of death over the past fifty years. The stories provide glimpses of the lives of funeral workers, family-run funeral homes, and old-time burial practices and funeral customs, including those unique to the African American community. The book also includes tales of mistakes, miscues, and other recollections that reveal the humorous side of a normally solemn experience.

Engagingly told by funeral directors across the state, the stories provide vivid portraits of funeral workers and the families they serve as well as moving descriptions of funeral services and grieving relatives. Other stories are humorous, including one memorable account in which a man's funeral is upstaged by a tug of war between two widows (one a long-estranged but still legal spouse, the other a common law wife) and the peace brokered by a man whom the storyteller calls "the Kissinger of the bunch."

The majority of the stories take place in recent history, but some take the reader back to a period when funeral directors used horse-drawn wagons to reach secluded areas and conducted in-home embalmings. From long-winded preachers and fainting relatives to snake-handling funerals and pallbearers falling into graves, the accounts collected in Tales from Kentucky Funeral Homes offer a surprising firsthand record of the history and culture of death in Kentucky.

William Lynwood Montell, professor emeritus of folk studies at Western Kentucky University, is the author of many books, including Tales from Kentucky Lawyers and Haunted Houses and Family Ghosts of Kentucky.

Author Biography

William Lynwood Montell, professor emeritus of folk studies at Western Kentucky University, is the author or editor of more than twenty books, including Tales of Kentucky Ghosts and Tales from Kentucky Doctors.