Gone to the Grave: Burial Customs of the Arkansas Ozarks, 1850–1950 by Abby Burnett (review)

Combining the insights and techniques of folklore, history, sociology, and anthropology, Abby Burnett has studied the customs and traditions associated with death and burial in twenty-two Ozark counties in northern Arkansas from 1850 to 1950, occasionally straying both geographically and chronologically. She focused on northern Arkansas because old customs tended to linger there longer; many sources, including the sixty-four individuals she interviewed, reveal customs that were abandoned much earlier elsewhere in the United States. Although she argues that “[b]y the end of World War II almost all Ozark burial customs had been abandoned,” with the exception of Decoration Day, isolation and poverty kept many behaviors in place well into the twentieth century (p. 256). In addition to oral histories, Burnett has consulted many written memoirs, newspapers, business records, grave markers, and other pertinent sources.

With the exception of the last chapter on the rise of undertaking in the first half of the twentieth century, Burnett assumes that the customs she covers changed little over time. Thus the chapters are organized topically, with only occasional attention to chronological variations. The book begins with a chapter on causes of death and medical means used to ward it off. Burnett then explains the customs of sitting up with the sick and dying, laying out the body once dead, and sitting with the body overnight. Chapter 5 addresses coffins and caskets, while chapter 6 shows how family and friends gathered for a proper farewell. Chapters 7 and 8 consider graveyards and their markers, while chapter 9 examines funerals and Decoration Day. The last three chapters take on related subjects, such as the dangers of childbirth and infant mortality, “disenfranchised” deaths (for example, executions or smallpox) that were harder to treat with normal rituals, and the rise of undertaking as a profession (p. 212).

The book is an enjoyable read, with many thoughtful anecdotes presented in an engaging style that shows Burnett’s journalistic roots. A greater attention to explaining the significance of the details and quantifying how often certain behaviors occurred would help. Burnett admits her sources are heavily weighted toward white Protestants, and while she occasionally mentions African American traditions, she considers neither Native American customs, nor those of Catholics and Jews, the latter two because there were so few in northern Arkansas. The bibliography demonstrates Burnett’s extensive research in and appropriate reliance on many local records, but her references to some of the standard works in the field of death customs are uneven. For example, she cites the first of Gary Laderman’s two excellent books on death customs, but his second volume is the one that overlaps with her work, and fits best with her emphasis on the transformative influence of undertakers. James J. Farrell’s Inventing the American Way of Death, 1830–1920 (Philadelphia, 1980) also seems relevant, as does the work of Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov on southern cemeteries.