Questions about Funeral Customs

Reference code: FOL.QUES/11
Level of description: Series
Title: Questions about Funeral Customs
Scope and content: "Many customs are now disappearing or changing. Nowhere is the change more obvious than on the occasions of death in the household. Funerals used to be slower, more sombre, more richly ornamented than now. Would you try to furnish us with a picture of such an occasion, including all the small details observed from the death till after the burial? Our information is meagre on such details as mourning cards (“dead lines”, or “circulars”), shoulder scarves, hat trimmings, arm bands. The use of black or white cloth or ribbon seems to have been carefully understood. We are interested in such details as changes made within the house itself, marks of respect paid by neighbours, mourning details supplied by the family to mourners.
We are not, this time, asking specific questions: we would like you to write as fully as possible on these sad social occasions in your own words."