Bride-To-Be Alive in Coffin, Funeral Becomes Wedding

Virginia, 1892

A BIG SURPRISE

A Man Married His Wife on the Day of Her Expected Funeral

"I married my wife on the day I expected to attend her funeral," said Abram Poindexter to the Idle Hour club that was holding a séance. "That was twenty-five years ago, in Richmond, Va. We were to have been married on the 1st of January, but on Christmas day the young lady was taken ill, and on the last day of the old year she died; apparently.

"The funeral was to occur at an early hour next morning, and she was placed in a coffin that evening. About midnight I went to the room where she lay and the watchers withdrew to the hall. I sat down and bowed my head upon the coffin, overwhelmed by my loss. I had sat there perhaps ten minutes when I heard a scratching inside the coffin, then a stilled sob. My nerves, already stained to their utmost tension, seemed to snap, and I stood up and screamed like a hysterical woman. The watchers thought I had become insane, and tried to take me away. I was powerless to speak, and could only point to the coffin. They did not understand me, and persisted in taking me away. I broke from them and strove to tear off the coffin lid with my fingers. They trailed for help, but all the men in Richmond could not have held me back. I ripped that coffin lid to splinters, dragged the young lady from it and rushed into the open air with her. The people were too much horrified to follow me instantly. They called in the police to confine me, but when they found me the young lady had her arms around my neck and we were both laughing and crying like a couple of children. The minister came to preach the funeral sermon, but performed the marriage ceremony instead."

—The Davenport Tribune, Davenport, Iowa, Nov. 19, 1892.