ROGERS — An exhibit at the Rogers Historical Museum answers the perennial question: Why do funeral directors call their business a home? The answer can be found in the Hawkins House, a restored Victorian home that museum visitors can tour. This month, the Hawkins House has been outfitted for a Victorian era funeral and guides will explain that at one time funerals - like weddings - were held in the front room.

In the front room, a vintage coffin, borrowed from Callison-Lough Funeral Home, has the place of honor in front of the window. Unlike the usual funeral of the Victorian era, the casket is closed in the museum.

Callison-Lough Funeral Home has been in business locally since 1909, and over the years the staff has collected historical funeral paraphernalia, lead funeral director Jason Engler said. Callison-Lough is also providing a horse drawn hearse that will sit outside the museum if weather allows on Saturday, Oct. 31.

Funeral customs were elaborate for people who lived in the Victorian era, Gaye Bland, museum director said. The exhibit, Final Respects: Dealing With Death in the Victorian Era, in the main part of the museum, lets visitors explore a time when mourning etiquette included specific costume details for specific relatives.

If you saw a women wearing a black mourning dress with bits of white around her face, you knew not to ask her about her husband, Bland explained. A widow wore the bits of white, while a woman mourning another relative wore only black.

On display is a special apron worn during mourning and black-edged stationary. People knew when they got a letter with a black border that it contained bad news, she said.

Some customs were entwined with superstition, like covering the mirrors. The superstition said that seeing a reflection in the mirror meant another death was imminent.

The museum will be open late on both Friday, Oct. 30, and Saturday, Oct. 31, so the Hawkins House can be toured by candlelight, with the widow and a Victorian undertaker leading the tours.

On Saturday, even more customs will be explored with three local experts. Engler will talk about funerals at 1 p.m.

"There's a lot of neat history of what people used to do with their dead," he explained, "like the mechanism designed to prevent live burials and the history of cremation."

Like the museum staff, Engler will be in costume as a Victorian era undertaker.

"But not a top hat that just looks ridiculous on me," the 6-foot-2 Engler said.

Susan Young of the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History will present a tombstone art program, called "Gone But Not Forgotten" at 10:30 a.m.

Ann Webb's mourning jewelry program will provide a glimpse into grief from a long ago era at 2 p.m.

After World War I, the customs started disappearing, Bland said. Possibly because with so many deaths from the war and the influenza epidemic, it became demoralizing to see so many people wearing black, she speculated. But there were many changes in 1920s, so the funeral customs may have been part of a larger shift.

People still bring food to the family and many people still dress conservatively for a funeral, but that's all that's left of the Victorian traditions.

"Final Respects" will remain on view through Nov. 7 at the Rogers Historical Museum.

News, Pages 1, 6 on 10/07/2009

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