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Our modern world may call this creepy and weird.
But think of the times it happened in.. kids weren’t living very long due to disease and other issues. A big family of 10 could be taken down to much less due to some type of medical ailment. The photos, though taken so long ago, still reverberate with some bit of ‘strange’ quality.. but I find it to be just an example of how we, the living, deal with death. Maybe this does not happen now, but for it’s time, it was a touching tradition that was meant to honor the people taken too soon from life.
Perhaps these photos are not for the squeamish..
Alot of times this funeral photoraphy was taken and sent to family too far away to be in attendance… much of the time these were sent back to the Old Country. There was a huge box of these in my Grandma's basement. The majority of the family found them morbid. I thought they were beautiful, and an interesting part of our history.