Category Archives: Old age

Retirement, seniority, death, funerals, remembrances

Sitting Shiva

Nationality: Venezuelan
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Miami, FL
Performance Date: 04/21/15
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

The informant is a 20-year old Jewish student attending USC. She was born in Venezuela but has lived in Miami since she was eight years old. She is majoring in Engineering. The information she shared with me is about Jewish funeral custom.

 

Informant: “Everyone goes to the funeral home or the synagogue, or wherever the funeral is taking place. There is a service; the Rabbi says some prayers in Hebrew and in English and some kind words about the deceased. Then usually some family members will speak about the person who has passed.”

 

Interviewer: “What kind of stuff do they say?”

 

Informant: “Well it varies. Sometimes they will talk about the person’s accomplishments, sometimes they will tell funny stories about the person, or their fondest memories with them. I was at a funeral about a month ago where one of the deceased’s grandchildren read a portion of a school project she had written about her grandma when she was a kid. She had interviewed her grandma for the project. It was really cool.”

 

Interviewer: “That sounds really cool. What happens next?”

 

Informant: “Well, everyone goes outside where the burial takes place. I don’t know if it is Jewish tradition everywhere, but at least at the weddings I’ve been to, there are shovels around the burial site, and everyone who wants to can shovel some earth onto the grave. It’s really beautiful. Then there is a shiva.

 

Interviewer: “What’s the shiva?”

 

Informant: “The shiva is when everyone—the family and friends of the deceased’s family—goes to someone close to the person who has passed’s house. There is lots of food and drink (usually non-alcoholic though) and people eat and talk. It’s a big gathering as a sort of celebration of the person’s life and as a way to comfort the family.”

 

Thoughts:

Often rituals surrounding death double as celebrations of life and a reason for social gathering. Death is a rite of passage and like other rite of passage rituals, it is a rite of transition, mainly for the family and friends of the deceased. The shivas I’ve been to aren’t typically sad events. The funeral itself is generally a somber, teary-eyed event, but shivas I’ve attended often involve a lot of conversing and even a good-deal of joke-telling.

Day of the Dead in Mexico

Nationality: Italian
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: London, England
Performance Date: 04/27/15
Primary Language: Italian
Language: Spanish, English

Day of the Dead

 

The informant is a 19-year old student attending USC. She was born in Avellino, and has lived in central Mexico, London, and Italy in her life. She speaks Italian, Spanish, and English and is majoring in architecture. The following is what she shared with me about Day of the Dead from when she lived in Mexico for 6 years.

 

Informant: “In Mexico there was the Day of the Dead.”

Interviewer: “How do they celebrate it?”

Informant: “They made like alters with food, and they have it out for the dead. There are a certain amount of days it goes on.

Interviewer: “Did you have any friends who celebrated it?”

Informant: “Yes, but we did it at school too. We did the sugar skulls.”

Interviewer: “What’s a sugar skull?”

Informant: “It’s a skull made out of sugar. [Laughs]. You just bought them at the supermarket. You could decorate them yourself.

Interviewer: “What is Day of the Dead about?”

Informant: “To celebrate the Dead! The people that have passed on come back to life at night.”

Interviewer: “is it scary? Like are the dead perceived as bad?”

Informant: “No, it’s good. They are good spirits.”

 

Thoughts:

Day of the Dead is a pretty well known and considerably popularized holiday. It was interesting to hear how indifferently the informant was about Day of the Dead and the customs around it. Perhaps having lived in a culture where the dead aren’t perceived as “bad” or as haunting makes the whole notion of dead coming back to life something casual.

Talking to the informant about how Day of the Dead was celebrated in Mexico reminds me a lot of talking to Israeli soldiers when I was in Israel this summer about bar and bat mitzvahs in Israel. One might think that Jewish rituals would be more extreme or that people would be more devout in a Jewish state, but in fact, it seemed the opposite. All of us American-Jews were surprised to find out that for the Israeli soldiers we talked to, bar and bat mitzvahs (Jewish coming of age ritual) were just parties for the bar or bat mitzvah and his or her friends as opposed to the religiously-heightened ritual they are typically performed in the United States.

Waking in Ireland

Nationality: American
Age: 56
Occupation: Nurse
Residence: LaGrange, IL
Performance Date: February 6, 2015
Primary Language: English

Debbie, a family friend from a suburb of Chicago, told me about her mother-in-law’s wake in Ireland.  Debbie’s husband was born and grew up in Ireland.  Though he immigrated to the United States, the majority of his family remains in Galway, Ireland.  Debbie’s mother-in-law passed away in March 2014.  She told me about the Irish waking process this past February after my grandma’s wake.  Learning about Irish Catholic wakes was particularly interesting because I was able to compare it to an American Catholic wake and funeral–a process that was fresh in my mind.

Well they did take her then to a building, the other way.  But they had like 200 people, they did a mass in the house, and they did a wake.  And then we took her the next day to be waked in a regular funeral parlor.  

I mean when they brought her home, I was like, Oh my God! I mean you hear about this.  

They brought her home and she spent the night.  They made sure that there was always somebody with her.  And they brought her home around three o’clock in the afternoon.  We had mass that night and we took her out the following day at 3:00.  And brought her down to where she was going to be waked.  

All the sons carried her on their shoulders.  You know, they have the smaller caskets.  And, yeah, it was really…One girl in the family kept trying to turn the heat up and I’m like, “Please don’t turn the heat up in this room. Not for for 24 hours.”  Yeah but it was really interesting.  You know what, it was nice.  The grandkids and great grandkids were able to talk, were able to touch.  And the talk that we had around the casket was really interesting.  It’s the way it used to be.  I was taken aback, but it was a very nice experience especially for the family.  

Debbie’s initial shock at her husband’s family’s practices reveals how different these Irish Catholic practices are than American Catholic practices.  As Debbie expressed, the Irish waking practices are “interesting” and “nice” to Catholics in America who do not have the same waking practice.  Debbie’s story reveals that it is important for the family to talk about the family member who has passed away.  Their practices also reveal that it can be therapeutic to touch the person that died.  Sharing stories in the presence of the casket may be even more therapeutic than sharing stories after the wake as is common among American Catholics.  I believe that the fact that her mother-in-law was never left alone suggests that Irish Catholics believe you are not alone in death.  As Debbie said, it seems like a nice experience.

Held Hostage

Nationality: American
Age: 80
Occupation: Retired
Residence: Lyons, IL
Performance Date: February 6, 2015
Primary Language: English

My grandpa has been telling this story for years–the story of how he and my Grandma, Grace, were held hostage in 1966.  My grandpa told this rendition of the story at gathering at my house after my grandma’s funeral.  Close family and friends listened and contributed to the story.  Not only is this story somewhat of a legend in my family, the telling of this story also demonstrates some of the traditions surrounding wakes and funerals.

He claims this is the “condensed” version.

I was working in insurance.  And we’d all kind of meet up for lunch at a bowling alley. I was on my way to meet some of my friends.  I turned the corner and all the sudden a squad car cuts me off.  “Get out!” They had a gun.  

I thought they were policemen but they were Federal Bank Robbers.  They took my car and got me in the car too.  There were four of them. They had escaped from Cook Country Jail.  There were two young punks in the back seat and two other guys.  So they are driving around my car and don’t know what to do.  Two of the guys found another driver, jumped him, and dropped out.  So these two guys are with me and don’t know what to do.  And we somehow ended up at my house.  They were using it as a hideaway.  

Grace [his wife] was in the kitchen, feeding the kids lunch.  So I told her what happened to me. And I told her to not alarm the kids.  Just tell them these two guys are friends of mine.  

So they came in the house.  And the kids went back to school.  They were just killing time all day long.  The guys had a gun and Grace asked him to put the gun on top of the fridge.

They didn’t like like Grandma’s cooking.  They stayed all day and didn’t eat.  

When the kids got home from school, they couldn’t watch TV. “Which was really weird because when we got home from school we would always watch Dark Shadows,” my mom interrupted. They couldn’t watch because the escapists were all over the news.  

They were gonna take me with them so I tried to use my salesmen skills.  I was thinking there might be a shoot out and they’ll be killed.  So I said, Why don’t you just tie us up? So I sent all the kids over to my neighbor’s house.  And I asked to borrow her car. I told her mine broke down and I had some business to sort out. So she said, Oh sure.  They didn’t want to drive my car.  

So the plan was thy were going to tie Grace and I up.  They used curtains. “They were going to take the living room curtains but Grandma had just sewn new ones.  So you told them to use the basement ones” my sister supplied.

They tied us up real good.  On the bed.  I told one guy, This is the closest I’ve been to my wife in a month.  They wanted to gag us.  And I said, I’m gonna choke.  So I said, We’re on the corner–no one is going to hear us yell.  So they didn’t gag us.  

They wanted to take some new clothes so I talked them out of taking one of my new suits.  “What about the money?” my aunt asked.  At that time Prudential did a lot of collection in sales.  So I had about $500.00 in cash 20 bucks of my own.  One of the guys asked how much of the cash was min. And I said, Oh about $20.  So he put $20 on the table and took the rest.  

And then they took off.  

It took me about an hour to chew the rope.  Immediately I called the Lyons Police.

Then all hell broke loose.  There were policemen and reporters everywhere.   

So one guy had a girlfriend in New York. So they figured they were going to fly out of O’Hare.  But they ditched the car at O’Hare and then stole a cab.  For some reason they decided to double back and drive towards Indiana. And they were very nervous.  All of the sudden a county squad car passed them and noticed they were nervous looking.  So he pulled these guys over and got them.  

And one of the strange things about it–the cop who had pulled them over–about two or three weeks before that I had tried to sell him some insurance.  

About three days later I got a telephone call from New York.  It was one of the thief’s girlfriends.  She apologized for all the trouble that he had caused us.   

Screen Shot 2015-04-15 at 5.11.58 PM

Caption reads: Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Copp and their six children Tuesday in their home at 7944 W. 46th St., Lyons, where they were held as hostages for eight hours Monday by two fugitives from County Jail. “You read about things like this in the paper or see them in the movies, but it doesn’t seem real” said Mrs. Copp.  The children, from left: Cindy, 1; Karen, 8; John (on floor), 5; Jay, 7; Kathy, 6; and Carol, 3.

This story has been told so many times that it seems like a legend.  It is a a way to remember an actual crazy story of being held hostage but also practices of my mother and her siblings in their youths: going home for lunch, watching Dark Shadows every day, playing at the neighbors, etc.

 

Hindu Death Customs

Nationality: Indian-American
Age: 19
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: April 29, 2015
Primary Language: English

*Note: The informant is Indian-American and identifies with the Hindu religion. She is generally in touch with her Indian heritage, but she was born in the U.S.

INFORMANT: “Most of these don’t actually apply to me or my family, but I know some other families who take a couple of them more seriously. Basically, Hinduism comes with a lot of weird customs for, like, death and stuff. I mean, I guess any religion does. But, like, for instance, some Hindus believe that a dead body should be free from all bonds, so they take off any stitched clothes, jewelry, or even hospital wrappings. They bathe the body like that, and then they would wrap it in a new cloth and they would get cremated. There’s also this thing called Sutak where you’re supposed to follow all these specific rules for 12 days after someone dies. Like, you can’t eat candy or food with spices, and you can’t give gifts or anything. I’ve even heard that if you die from a snake bite they won’t cremate you, they’ll just, like, throw you in the water. I don’t even know why. I also heard – and this one’s really gross – that it used to be a thing that when young women died, they would seal off their vaginas before cremating them so that evil spirits couldn’t rape them in the afterlife. There are all kinds of crazy things like that.”

—

Death customs are some of the richest aspects of folklore – they explain so much about the way a certain group or culture or community acts when alive! Death customs are usually associated with religions, though there are also death customs specific to certain nations of other groups that have little to do with religion. The custom of Sutak brings to mind the Jewish tradition of sitting shiva for dead relatives – there is a general respect for the dead in most religions, and family members are expected to pay tribute to their fallen loved ones by abstaining from certain things. I’m interested to learn more about the snake bite custom – whether it’s true, whether it’s still done, and most importantly, why? It might have something to do with the fact that snakes are sacred because a snake is the garland of Lord Shiva, an important Hindu figure.