Historical Cosmo Girls

[L Verge]

On that same site is a song with Ray Stevens doing "Sitting Up With the Dead." I had to laugh because we had spent some time at the office this week putting the last touches on a new exhibit that will run through the month of June -- Death Comes a Knocking: Mourning Rituals of the Civil War. One of the topics we have been debating putting in the accompanying booklet was a section on superstitions about death and dying. During the days when the dead were laid out in the family parlor, it was believed that someone had to sit with the body at all times -- even the dead of night (pardon the pun). I remember my mother saying that they did that for her father, and she had to spend several hours in the dark with him. This was back in the 30s, and she was not a happy camper.