To be absolutely truthful, decades ago most of the people believe in God, and came from a Christian home from the same community. A community would be a small number of familes, your large family and the neighbors large families, not like today's neghborhoods. When a person died it affected the entire community.
As soon as a person died things were done traditionally almost "ritually". Everything was done in those days was done" ritualistically" not as a dreaded process or a chore. The cooking, work in the fields, giving birth, healing the sick. People lived simply and cared about each other, and if something had to be done, it was done like it was all one family. Cooking, cleaning, giving birth and the work in the fields.
There were no doctors or hospitals, no funerals homes that would suck the spritualization, caring and compassion right out of people. Everyone one was somebody and they each had a loving, compassionate heart.
The burial had to take place soon, since in those days there was no embalming services, you took care of your own. When the families knew what happened they would come to the house and bring food and sit up all night, in case the mourning family needed anything. They would sit up all night and sing and set up the departed. Then after the burial, they stayed for two days after wards.
They helped to dress the departed before the "stiffness" set in and layed them on a board until the coffin could be made. The clothes would be the best clothes they owned, usually in black cloth of the day. They helped clean and prepare the house for the wake the next day, or until distant family could get there.
Families would put the death bed out, disinfect and boil and clean the clothing, bedding and belongings.
Coffins were made by family and friends, from poplar, chestnut, oak and pine, body-shaped, wide at the shoulders and narrow at the feet. They would smooth up a rock or use wood to make a tombstone.
There is a distortion of emphasis now, you go to a funeral home and pick out a casket. The funeral costs are thousands of dollars and the family worrries, if they are not wealthy, how they are going to pay for it. The "home" harasses the family for payment and threatens to do "things" to the departed for non-payment. It is all business.
Nowadays, there is a casket, that is open and surrounded by a bank of flowers, all dolled up to pretend that the person is still here. The flowers are beautiful but the flowers cost a fortune and they look like "funeral" flowers. The body rides in a hearse alone, and is at the funeral home alone and it is not taken care of by family.
In old time burial, the coffin is covered with a black cloth or painted black and kept closed. The family and friends walk along side the coffin being carried by a horse drawn buggy. And if flowers were in bloom they would pick some along the way and carry them in their hands.
Only the friends and family dug the grave and put the dirt on the departed.
Death today is like a man sitting under a tree reading a book, and a leaf falls on the page. He brushes it off and goes back to reading. Does he become upset? No more significance than that.
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