Choosing Their Own Caskets

1895

People Often Express Their Preferences In the Matter of Style.

"I never actually knew anybody who kept his coffin in his house," said an undertaker, "but I have read of such things, and I have no doubt they are true, just as I believe the stories of some women keeping in the bottom of bureau drawers their own grave clothes, which they made themselves. But men sometimes choose, if not the particular casket in which they want to be buried, the style of coffin that they prefer, and I know of one man who drew the plans for the casket in which he was buried.

"He had his own ideas of what was most suitable, and we made a casket in accordance with the drawings which he furnished and then boxed it up and stored it for him. He was a man advanced in years. It is interesting to note that the casket so planned had square ends and perfectly straight sides and ends. In fact, in shape it was precisely the same as the present most advanced style of modern burial casket, which was not introduced until some years afterward.

"It is not at all unusual for men to look at caskets, express admiration of some of them and say that they would like to be buried in such or such a style. These men might be simply friends who had come to see me, or they might be here on business, but not with regard to a funeral. Some of the modern burial caskets are very costly and beautiful and as unlike the old fashioned coffin as could be imagined. It is no wonder that men should admire them, but it doesn't follow at all that they expect soon to need one.

"A few months ago there came in a man and his wife, people of perhaps 50 years, and I should say well to do, who wanted to look at the caskets, or rather he did. They came to a very beautiful casket of mahogany, one of modern style, with square ends and straight sides and ends and carved a little, but not overelaborately. Evidently he had heard of such a casket before or had seen one, and so was familiar with it, and he admired it greatly.

" 'There,' he said to his wife, calling her by her name, 'that is the kind of casket that I would like to be buried in,' and it was clear that it seemed to him very beautiful, as it certainly was. But, bless us, he is like everybody else almost. I have no doubt he expects to live for a hundred years. I saw him at the theater the other night with his wife. They had dined comfortably, and they were in the fullest on enjoyment of life, and I fancy that it will be many years before either of them comes to the end of life, but I venture to say that if he dies first his wife will faithfully see that he is buried in a mahogany casket such as he admired. — New York Sun.