Download or read book Tales from the Funeral Parlor written by Drac Von Stoller and published by Drac Von Stoller. This book was released on 2012-01-29 with total page 3 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There stood atop a desolated hilltop, a funeral parlor by the name of Sunny Hills Funeral Parlor, with some terrifying tales from the dead. Jeremiah Hill, the owner of Sunny Hills Funeral Parlor, would invite some of his closest friends in town to come and hear how people who were brought to his funeral parlor died. Sunny Hills Funeral Parlor was built in 1816 by the Hills family. Soon after construction was complete on the funeral parlor bad things started happening. One of the Hill brothers got into a fight with the other brother over a girl, and in a jealous rage, Jim Hill fell out of the two-story window in the funeral parlor to his death. Since there were no witnesses, Jim's death was declared an accident. Just weeks after Jim's death, his brother Daryl was found dead in one of the coffins in the funeral parlor. Daryl's father Jeremiah told the lawmen that from the look on his son's face he was frightened to death. Just as if he saw something so terrible he thought hiding in the coffin would keep him safe. After Jeramiah's bizarre death in 1825, the funeral parlor was sold to the Jasperson family which prospered until 1860. One by one the Jaspersons either died of unexplained circumstances or by natural causes. During the Civil War between the years 1861 and 1865, Sunny Hills Funeral Parlor housed wounded Confederate soldiers. After the Civil War was over, the abandoned funeral parlor sat unoccupied for the next thirty-five years, until a wealthy doctor by the name of Richard Thorton III decided to restore the abandoned funeral parlor. During restoration, there were sightings of Confederate soldiers walking through the halls of the funeral parlor and other ghostly apparitions.
Download or read book The Face in the Bessledorf Funeral Parlor written by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor and published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 1993 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Did undertakers Joe and Moe murder the crooked vice president, who absconded with his company's retirement money, so that they could finance their new drive-in viewing window? Or is the VP hiding next door? Once again, Bernie Magruder proves that a first-class bumbler can also be a first-class detective.
Download or read book Tales from Kentucky Funeral Homes written by William Lynwood Montell and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2009-10-02 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Tales from Kentucky Funeral Homes, William Lynwood Montell has collected stories and reminiscences from funeral home directors and embalmers across the state. These accounts provide a record of the business of death as it has been practiced in Kentucky over the past fifty years. The collection ranges from tales of old-time burial practices, to stories about funeral customs unique to the African American community, to tales of premonitions, mistakes, and even humorous occurrences. Other stories involve such unusual aspects of the business as snake-handling funerals, mistaken identities, and in-home embalming. Taken together, these firsthand narratives preserve an important aspect of Kentucky social life not likely to be collected elsewhere. Most of these funeral home stories involve the recent history of Kentucky funeral practices, but some descriptive accounts go back to the era when funeral directors used horse-drawn wagons to reach secluded areas. These accounts, including stories about fainting relatives, long-winded preachers, and pallbearers falling into graves, provide significant insights into the pivotal role morticians have played in local life and culture over the years.
Download or read book Mortuary Confidential written by Kenneth McKenzie and published by Kensington Books. This book was released on 2010 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From rookie mistakes and runaway corpses to screaming dead men and unusual requests, a collection of stories by funeral directors.
Download or read book Confessions of a Funeral Director written by Caleb Wilde and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-09-26 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The blogger behind Confessions of a Funeral Director—what Time magazine called a "must read"—reflects on mortality and the powerful lessons death holds for every one of us in this compassionate and thoughtful spiritual memoir that combines the humor and insight of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes with the poignancy and brevity of When Breath Becomes Air. We are a people who deeply fear death. While humans are biologically wired to evade death for as long as possible, we have become too adept at hiding from it, vilifying it, and—when it can be avoided no longer—letting the professionals take over. Sixth-generation funeral director Caleb Wilde understands this reticence and fear. He had planned to get as far away from the family business as possible. He wanted to make a difference in the world, and how could he do that if all the people he worked with were . . . dead? Slowly, he discovered that caring for the deceased and their loved ones was making a difference—in other people’s lives to be sure, but it also seemed to be saving his own. A spirituality of death began to emerge as he observed: The family who lovingly dressed their deceased father for his burial The act of embalming a little girl that offered a gift back to her grieving family The nursing home that honored a woman’s life by standing in procession as her body was taken away The funeral that united a conflicted community Through stories like these, told with equal parts humor and poignancy, Wilde offers an intimate look into the business and a new perspective on living and dying
Download or read book Hugh Hefner s First Funeral and Other True Tales of Love and Death in Chicago written by Pat Colander and published by . This book was released on 2015-11-03 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pat Colander was a writer for The Reader and The Chicago Tribune in the 1970s and 1980s, and covered some of the most offbeat stories during that time. Seven of those tales of love and death in Chicago are featured in this incredible book.Featuring a beautiful cover photograph from Barry Butler and memorable illustrations from artist Dave Mosele, Hugh Hefner's First Funeral and other True Tales of Love and Death in Chicago is a gritty trip into Chicago's past. Before the last page is devoured, the reader will track the Tylenol killer(s), get inside the mind of a tortured artist, meet the woman behind the women at Playboy Magazine, follow along with a shocking murder trial, spend time with a legendary Chicago attorney, and tour the old Cook County morgue.Hugh Hefner's First Funeral and other True Tales of Love and Death in Chicago is shocking, gruesome, and gritty, and will remain in your heart and mind long after you finish reading the final page.
Download or read book Restless in Peace written by Mariah de la Croix and published by Llewellyn Worldwide. This book was released on 2012-09-08 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A deceased undertaker still carries out his life’s work. The spirit of a nun comforts mourners. Red carnations materialize from nowhere . . . Spooky Stories from the Dismal Trade Alternately hair-raising, creepy, and touching, Mariah de la Croix’s encounters with the supernatural during her tenure as a mortician are both chilling and unforgettable. Restless in Peace recounts her true experiences working in funeral homes—and the resident spirits’ frightening, bizarre, and sometimes amusing behaviors. From the angry spirit who follows her home after work to the deceased man who likes to communicate through a microphone, this book offers a rare glimpse of living and working among the spirited dead.
Download or read book The Undertaker s Daughter written by Kate Mayfield and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-08-28 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'On the last day of 1959 my father, the Beau Brummel of morticians, piled us into his green and white Desoto in which we looked like a moving pack of Salem cigarettes. He drove away from Lanesboro, the city in which we all were born, and into a small town on the Kentucky and Tennessee border. It was only a ninety-minute drive, but it might as well have been to Alaska. When our big boat of a car glided into Jubilee we circled the town square and headed towards the residential section of Main Street. My father pulled the car over and our five dark heads turned to face a huge, slightly run down house. My parents were total strangers to this tiny enclave, but it didn't matter because my father had finally realised his dream in this old house, which was to own his own funeral home.'
Download or read book Nine Years Under written by Sheri Booker and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-07-01 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dazzling and darkly comic memoir about coming of age in a black funeral home in Baltimore Sheri Booker was only fifteen when she started working at Wylie Funeral Home in West Baltimore. She had no idea her summer job would become nine years of immersion into a hidden world. Reeling from the death of her beloved great aunt, Sheri found comfort in the funeral home and soon had the run of the place. With AIDS and gang violence threatening to wipe out a generation of black men, Wylie was never short on business. As families came together to bury one of their own, Booker was privy to their most intimate moments of grief and despair. But along with the sadness, Booker encountered moments of dark humor: brawls between mistresses and widows, and car crashes at McDonald’s with dead bodies in tow. While she never got over her terror of the embalming room, Booker learned to expect the unexpected and to never, ever cry. Nine Years Under offers readers an unbelievable glimpse into an industry in the backdrop of all our lives.
Download or read book Smoke Gets in Your Eyes And Other Lessons from the Crematory written by Caitlin Doughty and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2014-09-15 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Morbid and illuminating" (Entertainment Weekly)—a young mortician goes behind the scenes of her curious profession. Armed with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre, Caitlin Doughty took a job at a crematory and turned morbid curiosity into her life’s work. She cared for bodies of every color, shape, and affliction, and became an intrepid explorer in the world of the dead. In this best-selling memoir, brimming with gallows humor and vivid characters, she marvels at the gruesome history of undertaking and relates her unique coming-of-age story with bold curiosity and mordant wit. By turns hilarious, dark, and uplifting, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes reveals how the fear of dying warps our society and "will make you reconsider how our culture treats the dead" (San Francisco Chronicle).
Download or read book 31 Horrifying Tales from the Dead Volume 2 written by Drac Von Stoller and published by Drac Von Stoller. This book was released on 2012-08-23 with total page 131 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 31 Horrifying Tales from the Dead Volume II is a continuation of short stories authored by Horror fiction writer Drac Von Stoller. More scary tales about ghosts, witches, supernatural, occult, demons, zombies, aliens and urban legends.
Download or read book Does This Mean You ll See Me Naked written by Robert Webster and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2011-05-01 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why would someone want to hang out with dead bodies? With curious anecdotes and unbelievable truth, funeral director Robert Webster reveals that answer and more, offering readers entertaining and quirky stories gleaned from a life lived around death. Webster tackles those embarrassing questions we all have about what really goes on bhind the scenes when you've left this world: Strange things people put in caskets The biggest rip-offs in the business The crazy things that happen to a body after death Lime, waz, and other ways to hide the truth The most important thing an undertaker does How to avoid the high-pressure funeral parlor What that's not a coffin the body is resting in
Download or read book The Genius of Frank E Campbell written by Todd Van Beck and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-02-25 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Talk about branding! Frank E. Campbell. The name says it all, well at least with New Yorkers and funeral professionals around the world. Walk down any street in the boroughs of New York City and ask anybody you meet this questions, "Name a funeral home in Manhattan?" Chances are very good that the response will be, "Frank E. Campbell." This author was dining in the Oak Room at the Plaza Hotel in New York City several years ago and I asked the bartender "Do you know a funeral director in the "city"? He responded immediately without hesitation, "Sure, Frank E. Campbell." Now ask any funeral director, "Who is the most famous funeral director ever?" The response will most often be: Frank E. Campbell. Added to all this is that the policy of the New York Times, when they run obituaries of the rich and famous is to NOT mention specific funeral home names, unless the funeral is being conducted by Frank E. Campbell. The clientele of Frank E. Campbell reads like a veritable who's who of the rich and famous. Here is a very small idea of celebrity and social luminaries who have been cared for by Frank E. Campbell, The Funeral Chapel: Elizabeth Arden, Yul Brenner, James Cagney, Jacqueline Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, John Lennon, Judy Garland, J.C. Penny, Mae West, and of course Rudolph Valentino. Today the Frank E. Campbell building at 81st and Madison Avenue in Manhattan is very discrete and draws little attention to itself. The founder however, Frank E. Campbell was not discrete at times, and certainly was an expert at drawing attention to himself and his firm. Frank E. Campbell is still the reigning funeral home in Manhattan, but the man himself has been dead for over 80 years. It is time that his story be told, and what a story it is. We begin by asking some interesting questions. Who was Frank E. Campbell? How did he become a funeral director, and how did this one funeral director attract such a lustrous clientele? What was Frank E. Campbell like as a real live human being, and why was Mr. Campbell's remains not permanently buried until almost seventy five years after his death? This work attempts to answer these and a myriad of other questions about the life and career of Frank E. Campbell. In the annals of funeral service history it is generally conceded and accepted by students of the subject that one man Frank E. Campbell, Mortician (he himself preferred mortician to funeral director) produced one of the most profound and lasting impacts on American funeral service practices in the late 19th, and the early 20th century. This is a fascinating story about a famous funeral director!
Download or read book Over Our Dead Bodies written by Kenneth McKenzie and published by Citadel. This book was released on 2014-06-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover a more lighthearted side of the funeral industry in this collection of real-life stories from the authors of Mortuary Confidential. Not knowing what to do, I sat on the church steps and waited. As the gravity of my failure began to well up in me, I began to cry . . . I Had Lost The Hearse! Funerals and the all the things that accompany them are traditionally somber, contemplative events in which the bereaved look to their undertaker to guide them through that most difficult of times. Of course, sometimes tradition gets thrown under the bus. From a dysfunctional family who turn their mother’s wake into a full-blown riot, to funeral crashers looking for free meals, to a horse-drawn hearse taking the dearly departed for the ride of their afterlife, these accounts from actual undertakers will have you laughing, thinking, and gasping in disbelief. A literal graveyard of wild coincidences, slapstick humor, and touching moments, Over Our Dead Bodies explores the lighter side of the dead, the living, and the lone undertaker who must make it all go as planned—even if it doesn’t. Praise for Mortuary Confidential “Outrageous funeral stories, dipped in beauty and morbid humor.” —Caleb Wilde, author of Confessions of a Funeral Director “Curious, wildly honest stories that need to be told, but just not at the dinner table.” —Dana Kollmann, author of Never Suck a Dead Man’s Hand “As unpredictable and lively as a bunch of drunks at a New Orleans funeral.” —Joe R. Lansdale, author of Moon Lake “Sick, funny, and brilliant! I love this book.” —Jonathan Maberry, Bram Stoker Award–winning author of They Bite! And Rot & Ruin “These true mortuary tales are poignant—and suddenly, gaspi
Download or read book Mortician Diaries written by June Knights Nadle and published by New World Library. This book was released on 2010-10-04 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After 50 years in the funeral business, 80-year-old grandmother-undertaker June Knights Nadle has seen it all — at least all of what goes on before, during, and after life’s ultimate challenge. In Mortician Diaries, she combines equal doses of charm, humanity, humor, and reality to tell it like it is on this taboo subject. A kind of Prairie Home Companion set in a mortuary, the book features memorable stories of regret — “I wish I had kissed him on the morning he had the accident” — and renewal, as the lesson of facing life’s last great event is learned, or not. Some of the accounts here are funny, some sad. Some are haunting in their strangeness as they reveal the many ways in which people cope. Along the way, the reader is drawn into Nadle’s own life story as an unconventional woman who devoted herself to the dead and to those they left behind.
Download or read book The Undertaking Life Studies from the Dismal Trade written by Thomas Lynch and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2010-03-01 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A National Book Award Finalist "One of the most life-affirming books I have read in a long time…brims with humanity, irreverence, and invigorating candor." —Tom Vanderbilt "Every year I bury a couple hundred of my townspeople." So opens this singular and wise testimony. Like all poets, inspired by death, Thomas Lynch is, unlike others, also hired to bury the dead or to cremate them and to tend to their families in a small Michigan town where he serves as the funeral director. In the conduct of these duties he has kept his eyes open, his ear tuned to the indispensable vernaculars of love and grief. In these twelve pieces his is the voice of both witness and functionary. Here, Lynch, poet to the dying, names the hurts and whispers the condolences and shapes the questions posed by this familiar mystery. So here is homage to parents who have died and to children who shouldn't have. Here are golfers tripping over grave markers, gourmands and hypochondriacs, lovers and suicides. These are the lessons for life our mortality teaches us.
Download or read book My Father s Wake written by Kevin Toolis and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 2018-02-27 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An intimate, lyrical look at the ancient rite of the Irish wake--and the Irish way of overcoming our fear of death Death is a whisper for most of us. Instinctively we feel we should dim the lights, pull the curtains, and speak softly. But on a remote island off the coast of Ireland's County Mayo, death has a louder voice. Each day, along with reports of incoming Atlantic storms, the local radio runs a daily roll call of the recently departed. The islanders go in great numbers, young and old alike, to be with their dead. They keep vigil with the corpse and the bereaved company through the long hours of the night. They dig the grave with their own hands and carry the coffin on their own shoulders. The islanders cherish the dead--and amid the sorrow, they celebrate life, too. In My Father's Wake, acclaimed author and award-winning filmmaker Kevin Toolis unforgettably describes his own father's wake and explores the wider history and significance of this ancient and eternal Irish ritual. Perhaps we, too, can all find a better way to deal with our mortality -- by living and loving as the Irish do.
