The Authors of Writes of Passage

The Authors of Writes of Passage

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

WARNING!! WARNING!!

I’m giving you one of those warnings like you see on television from time to time. This blog post may contain information that you find disturbing. At the very first sign of a queasy stomach, turn away and click to another website. This blog deals with a time in history when people observed different customs regarding death—customs most of us today find somewhat bizarre. In earlier times the practices were considered completely normal. And just so you don’t worry about me spending too much time seeking out customs on death, I can’t take credit for the information. Writer-friend Nancy Moser blogged on this topic a few days ago, and I was fascinated by some of the information, so I asked if I could “borrow” from her. She graciously agreed, andI’ve plagiarized a great deal of this from Nancy’s blog. So here we go:





I’m going to share one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever encountered in my research: family portraits that include a dead relative. At first this didn’t surprise me. In their sorrow, the families surely wanted an image of the lost loved one—case in point this poignant photo of a grieving couple and their dead child from the mid-1800’s.

But what did disturb me was finding out that often the photos were taken as if the dead were still alive. They would paint eyes on the eyelids, and even add pink to their cheeks on the print as in the photo of the little boy in the rocking chair.

Even more disturbing was the custom of propping the deceased up beside their living relatives. There was even a special stand created for this purpose.

The girl in the photo at left is deceased. Eyes have been painted on, but you can see the odd placement of the hands, and you can see the stand behind her feet. While I understand that having images of their relatives might have given the families comfort, propping them up seems to reveal a type of desperation. Still, grief confronts everyone in a different manner, and we have no way to know the sad stories behind the often untimely deaths of these loved ones.

If you have a desire to explore a little further at your own discretion, there is a website that offers even more of these pictures at, Victorian Post Mortem Photos.

For those of you who continued reading, I hope you found the information a fascinating piece of history.

May you find joy as you find peace and joy in all circumstances. ~Judy
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13 comments:

  1. Wow! Very creepy. The last one did it for me. There's enough life-likeness to say "really? she's dead?" but when you look closer, there's no doubt. It didn't turn my stomach, but my husband was quite creeped out. That on top of my crazy, psychotic, CSI-grafic dream last night...should make for an interesting day!!

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  2. Wow Judy! Though morbid, very interesting. As you said, we can not know the desperation of these living relatives after having such a loss. During that time the deaths of babies and the youth was so prevalent, I cannot imagine the grief of these parents and relatives.
    I have seen [magazine] of a recent situation like this though, where a family had their dead loved one posed in a scenario the person liked while they were living, i.e. the body was posed on a motor cycle, rather than the regular coffin. I'm sad to say it looked very scary to me...heard there have been other "cases' of this too. Hope it does not become a popular trend. I suppose people try to take comfort in any way they can...So glad we KNOW the Comforter and that our loved ones are with Christ.
    Any-who, thanks for the interesting post, have a great day my friend!

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  3. Wow Judy! I must say this is rather different from your usual posts, but nevertheless I was fascinated and did access the link. I was quite taken aback by the apparent reality of the pictures...by that I mean the pictures could "almost" have been taken while the people were still alive, giving an appearance of having a natural photo taken as one did in those days. Pictures of the Family in those days were a major part of family life weren't they? Not sure that I would like to be the recipient of such photos. It almost seems as though the ones left behind, are in denial that their loved ones have departed!

    At the risk of upsetting our animal lovers, we paid a visit to Healesville Wildlife Sanctury, Victoria (Aus) on Monday last, and part of our tour was to visit the Taxidermist.

    I always have a problem with this sort of thing, but it was there primarily for school children to see how the animals look in their natural habitat.

    Most of the animals were from roadkill, as opposed to death by natural causes, but what struck me the most, was a little newborn joey(a baby kangaroo) whose Mother had been hit by a truck and the joey was unable to survive.
    The taxidermist was extremely professional and the realistic appearance was unbelievable.There was no sign of any injury or trauma on the joey, so here, I draw a parallel to the photos that you talked about...Extremely "lifelike" in both instances.

    Thanks for the unusual aspect of your interesting history lesson today Judy. :)

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  4. Hi Catherine, I'm glad you didn't see the post before going to bed! Combined with your CSI dream adventure, you would have had quite a story to tell. :)

    Good morning, Veronica. I was fascinated at the extreme people went to for these pictures. I tried to keep in mind that taking a photo was not near as easy back then and most of them likely didn't have any other pictures of the person and wanted a "worldly" remembrance as their memory of the loved one faded. Yet knowing our loved ones are with Christ and we will one day join them is the greatest assurance of all.

    Hi Rosie! Yes, I think the ability to have a picture done or painting of a family was very important to earlier generations. Today we have our digitized world, but to get one picture of the family would be an extravagance for many and sometimes happen only once or twice and for some, never. Glad your travels are going well.

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  5. Can I just say, "Eeewwww?" This would have made a great Halloween post. I've seen the photos before with the parents and a deceased child and the ones where they took a photo of a deceased child. I can understand that. But the standing them up and painting eyes on pictures creep me out.

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  6. Hi Lori,
    Actually, Nancy did use it as a Halloween post. :)

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  7. Thanks for sharing this information today, Judy (confession: I'm grimacing as I'm typing this!). Although it's sad and morbid, it IS quite interesting to see customs from long ago. I think the one that disturbed me the most was that angelic-looking little boy sitting in the chair...he looked so sweet and it just made me sad.~ You were thoughtful to warn everyone ahead of time (and as you can see, many of us were curious enough to go ahead and read the post, LOL). ~ Hugs, Patti Jo (who is trying to spare everyone from my poor puns today....such as "we were all dying to read this" *wink*).

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  8. Patti Jo, I love your puns. You always make me smile. And I'll try to keep to a "lively" topic next week. :)

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  9. Patti Jo, I love your puns too...and Judy I thought your post was very interesting.

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  10. Ewww. I so did not need to see those before I went to bed!!

    I've been aware of these photos - and the site - for some time, and I will admit to poking through them once in a fit of horrified fascination. But I've got to say that of all the 'death' customs I've read about, this has got to be one of the most morbidly creepy ones I have ever encountered. (Yes, I have read about the odd 'tale' of someone preserving the corpse of the dead loved one in a glass coffin in the living room, which is nearly as creepy, but those are few and far between and hardly the custom - if they are even true)

    I think the only thing I've found that has creeped me out more than these is the images of the preserved dead little girl, who was preserved for something like 90 years. Its just. . .ew.*shudders*

    Then again, dead things of any type totally set my over-active imagination going, and creep me out. I thank God that He is a God of life and we don't have to worry about anything creepier (is there anything creepier??) than a shell. And finding morbid images on the internet while researching. . .lol

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  11. Hi Elentarien, You're right, there were some very odd and, to me, somewhat goulish customs as we go back in history and "dig around." I'd like to tell you I was brave enough to hit the link and check out the picture, but I didn't. At heart, I'm a real coward. LOL.

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  12. I can't imagine looking at photos of your dead daughter posed behind you would bring ANY comfort at all. It seems like it would just bring sadness, like too bad we didn't take the photo when she was alive. :(

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  13. lol Judith, if it makes you feel any better. . .I WISH I was a bit more cowardly. Instead I seem to have this overwhelming curiosity that I just *HAVE* to look. . .then wish I hadn't. Specially when that horrified fascination kicks in and I can't seem to STOP staring until I've burned every last gruesome detail into my smoking brain.

    Joy, I had the same thought. They'd KNOW it was too late, and every time they saw the picture it would carry with it that...horrible knowledge. I agree, seems it would be more torment than comfort. But...maybe they saw it differently. or figured that was better than no picture at all. (Although, I'd think if they could afford to do that, they could have afforded the photo when the person was alive)

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