Chris Finkbeiner poses, with funeral garb and glass hearse, outside his furniture-cum-undertaking establishement on Main Street in Bowling Green, sometime after July of 1895 (Center for Archival Collections, Bowling Green State University).
During the period of the 1880s and 1890s, Bowling Green’s industrial booms created a comparatively large local population. Along with the other signs of an active town - a downtown business district, railroad access, schools and shops - the local mechanisms for dealing with deaths also grew and adapted themselves to the needs of the region. This essay will explore the logistics of death in Bowling Green: its causes, its handling, and the local industries that catered to it, as well as looking at some of the local attitudes surrounding the care of the dead.
James Kaser has noted that early Bowling Green had a particularly high death rate, due to the town’s unhealthful situation in the former Great Black Swamp. But even after the drainage of the swamp and the region’s increased "civilization" resulting from the industrial boom, Wood County's official death records show that many people died from diseases associated with noxious air and other swamp-conditions: malaria, typhoid fever, lung fever, bronchitis, pneumonia, asthma and "consumption" (now called tuberculosis). Other common killers included the still-familiar cancer, heart disease and diabetes, as well as ailments that later became treatable: epilepsy, gangrene, rheumatism, diphtheria, nephritis and meningitis. The death rolls also list illnesses no longer known by the same names: La Grippe, catarrh, apoplexy, paralysis, dropsy and nervous prostration. Notwithstanding the poor health conditions, many people still managed to die of simple old age - but many children are listed as well, and their chief killers were croup, whooping cough, pneumonia, dysentery and measles. This litany of ailments is culled from one year alone, 1895, in which 413 people died in Wood County.
Not all deaths were acts of nature. Coroner’s inquests show that the Grim Reaper rode the rails into Wood County, for during 1888-1902 the most frequent violent deaths occurred when people were hit by trains. Chillingly, and puzzlingly, the second most frequent killer was suicide. In local newspapers of the period, barely a season elapsed without a notice that a local man or woman had attempted to commit suicide; although most of these sad cases were saved, "successful" people killed themselves by shooting, hanging, or cutting themselves with razors. The Coroner’s Inquests also list several drownings and poisonings "by party or parties unknown," and some of these cases may have been suicides as well. A close third in frequency as the cause of death was, ironically, the same element that made Bowling Green thrive at the time: the natural gas and oil booms. "Boom" is a grimly descriptive term, since most of the twenty-two deaths linked to these industries were caused by explosions of gas, dynamite or nitroglycerine. Others suffocated, and some were burned in oil fires; the Coroner’s Inquests tell us evocatively that two such men were "enveloped in burning crude oil." Again, as with the suicides, more cases ended in injury than in death. During the 1890s, hardly a month passed without notice in the local papers that someone had been wounded while working with the unstable materials of the gas and oil industries. Rounding out the county’s statistics for sudden deaths were 15 heart attacks, 8 drownings, six shootings or stabbings, six falling accidents, four cases of fatal alcoholism, and one man whose official Coroner’s file says only that he "dropped dead."
How were the bodies of these unfortunates cared for? In their book The History of American Funeral Directing, Robert W. Habenstein and William M. Lamers recount the steady development of undertaking from a collection of cottage-industries in colonial times to a more professionalized and centralized business in the mid- to late 19th century. By about the 1850s, individuals specifically designated as undertakers were consolidating the range of tasks that had previously been divided among many - from laying out the body (formerly done at home by female members of the family) to selling ready-made caskets (formerly custom-built by local cabinet makers), and even transporting the body to the burial site. While professional undertakers gradually became more common, several businesses - often dealers in furniture - continued to provide an array of undertaking services as a sideline. Undertakers in and around Bowling Green provide evidence of both trends, the full-time business and the sideline.
An establishment in New Baltimore ran an ad in the
Bowling Green Democrat the day after Christmas in 1878:
"Hurrah! for cheap bargains in furniture at Richcreek &
Harman’s… Also a good supply of undertaking and first-class
hearse.
Wood
County Sentinel. In the April 4, 1895 issue his ad stated "I
carry a full line of fine caskets and robes, and have the finest
funeral car in the county." Despite his fine services, Munshower
seems to have gone out of business in the summer of 1895. A notice in
the July 11 issue of the Sentinel informed readers that "Chris
Finkbeiner has just received bedroom suites, parlor suites
[etc.] that are beautiful. Call and see them." Subsequent ads
for Finkbeiner’s establishment focus on furniture, but also
mention his undertaking business. The undated photograph here shows
him posing proudly with his hearse and undertaking garb, before his
storefront proclaiming "Successor to G. W. Munshower." In the 1897
city directory, Finkbeiner’s establishment was listed at 26 N.
Main Street in Bowling Green.
Even as late as 1907, undertaking continued in some cases to be just one of many businesses conducted under a single roof. The 1907 directory lists three undertakers, two of whom advertise sidelines: A. G. Walter proclaimed himself "Funeral Director. Also dealer in picture moulding and sundries." D. W. Young, in addition to his undertaking, advertised a "first-class ambulance service. All kinds of picture framing neatly done." One wonders whether he used the same vehicle as both ambulance and hearse, and if so, whether this had any ill effect on the morale of the injured.
The stand-alone undertaking business, however, was also well-established locally. A large ad in the Wood County Democrat for February 10, 1888, announced the services of John A. Kenower, a full-time undertaker on South Main Street in Bowling Green. His ad is interesting for its detail in the types of services he offered:
John A. Kenower, Undertaker and Embalmer. Having purchased the establishment of Peter Egley, and added largely [sic] thereto, I have now the Largest and Most Complete Stock of undertaking supplies in Wood county. Have two hearses, one of which is the finest in Northwestern Ohio. Finest carriage in Bowling Green. Fine show room, where can be found wood, cloth covered and metalic [sic] caskets. Coffins of all grades and prices. I make a specialty of burial robes for all ages and sexes. I use none but patent cooling boards with canopy. Special pains taken in preserving bodies by the new process of embalming. Having had experience since boyhood, I take full charge from house to cemetery thus relieving friends of all responsibility. Calls promptly attended to, night and day. Carriages furnished.
Kenower’s ad attests to the sophistication the undertaking industry had achieved by this point, especially considering that developments in Wood County were somewhat behind the trends set in the larger Eastern cities. His array of goods demonstrates not only the difference between coffins and caskets (one simpler and less expensive, the other more elaborate and costly), but also the appreciation of different grades and qualities in the materials used: wood, cloth-covered and metallic. Also noteworthy is his reference to "the new process of embalming." In fact, as Habenstein and Lamers discuss, embalming techniques had been studied for many years and reached a high level of sophistication during the Civil War, when the transportation of dead soldiers to remote hometowns required reliable methods of preservation. Some controversy surrounded embalming, however; many felt that it was immoral, even ungodly, to artificially preserve the dead by injecting them with chemicals. The lack of unqualified acceptance of embalming prevented it from becoming uniformly widespread; thus, more than twenty years after the war was over, small town Midwestern undertakers like Kenower could still call it a "new" process.
Those who did not desire embalming for their loved ones needed only more short-term methods of preservation, which included the "cooling boards" Kenower refers to, as well as ice-preservation. Bowling Green undertakers were sensitive to the varying needs of their customers; as late as 1894, G. W. Munshower advertised "Embalming done when wanted at lowest prices for good work" (my italics). The popularity of ice-cooling remained strong into the late 1890s, as evidenced by undertaker A. V. Powell’s ad in the 1897 Bowling Green City Directory: "Embalming a specialty. Using methods new and reliable. No ice used in hottest weather." Powell also refers to himself explicitly as a "funeral director," a title which suggests a wider range of services than those of Chris Finkbeiner, the only other undertaker listed in that directory. A funeral director, typically, might provide such extras as mourning gear, wreaths and flowers, as well as arranging the funeral service itself, although Powell’s ad does not enumerate his goods and services in great detail. His address is listed thus: "Office and salesroom 10 W. Wooster (rear of Yonkers’ Drug Store)," a location that suggests some humorous possibilities.
The gradual rise of embalming as a method of preservation was accompanied by another major development, the invention of the sealed vault, a large container protecting both casket and corpse. Like embalming techniques, the use and efficiency of vaults got a boost during the Civil War, although their raison d’etre was not limited to preserving the bodies of fallen soldiers. Habenstein and Lamers describe the development of the Boyd Grave Vault, invented in 1879 by an Ohio machinist who was concerned about "burglars" and "the resurrection of human bodies" - in other words, grave robbers. Use of the airtight Boyd Grave Vault became widespread throughout the United States, and was advertised in the April 4, 1895 issue of the Wood County Sentinel with the following purple prose:
40,000 human bodies mutilated every year on dissecting tables in medical colleges in the United States. Protect the dead! Thousands of graves robbed annually. No grave, regardless of location, is safe from the ravages of the human ghoul. The Boyd Grave Vault affords absolute and positive security against the Grave Robber and protects both casket and body from dampness, mould and decay, and from burrowing animals and vermin… Made wholly of Bessemer steel and malleable iron…Sold by G.W. Munshower (p. 4).
Just why grave-robbing was such a popular pastime (if the ad’s numbers are to be believed) is something of a mystery, for surely the young doctors of America were not responsible for each instance of "resurrection." More likely to happen was the decomposition referred to in the ad. It is interesting to note that the increasing use of embalming and grave-vaults seems to correlate with other Victorian trends of preservation: death-masks, portraits of the dead, and glass coffins and hearses (like the one shown here). For all the emphasis in a Christian society on the superiority of the spirit, Victorian-era Americans seem almost as concerned with preserving the deceased’s flesh and likeness as they were with treasuring his memory.
After the body had been laid out and placed in a coffin or casket, it remained to find him an appropriate piece of real estate in which to spend the safe eternity embalming fluids and the sealed vault afforded the deceased. For the first several decades of Bowling Green’s existence, its dead had been buried in a little graveyard on Ridge Street, on land donated by Robert Barr. By the early 1870s, however, the little lot had become crowded and unkempt, and town fathers began advocating a new cemetery. As James Kaser notes, the scheme had as much to do with promoting Bowling Green as it did with the poor conditions of the old cemetery. Spurred by the recent rise of the "rural cemetery movement," supporters of the plan felt that the addition of a grand, park-like "rural cemetery" - like that of Mount Auburn in Cambridge, Mass. - would make Bowling Green appear finer and more civilized than its neighbors, and give the town the extra polish it needed to retain its status as seat of Wood County.
Alf Witzler's undertaking and embalming business in neighboring Perrysburg, 116 Louisiana Street, 19?? (Center for Archival Collections, Bowling Green State University).
Accordingly, the Wood County Sentinel for May 16, 1872 ran an editorial arguing that "It is pretty generally understood now, that the village Cemetery will, before long, have to be removed to some more remote, convenient and a larger tract of ground. No one who attends a burial or who has visited the Cemetery, can question but what such a course will be a necessity in a short time" (p. 3). In October of that year a committee formed to locate a new piece of ground. Within a few months a site had been chosen and paid for - a lot parallel to the old one, further east on Ridge Street - and plans for the new Oak Grove Cemetery moved forward. The trustees of the cemetery were local businessmen. One of them also designed the ground plan for the site - John Shannon, who would soon become Bowling Green’s mayor. The involvement of local business and politics attest to the role played by civic boosterism in the plan’s fruition.
In August of 1873 plots in the new elegant cemetery were put up for sale. The following editorial in the Wood County Sentinel for July 31 demonstrates the degree of local pride that attended the event:
We hope all the citizens of Bowling Green and vicinity will remember the sale of new lots in the Cemetery one week from next Saturday. . . Such a Cemetery is a credit to Bowling Green. The grounds are beautiful, and when the plans are fully completed; the main avenues and circular carriage drives made hard and smooth, and suitably ornamented along the sides with evergreens and weeping willows, it will speak well for the regard the people have for the "loved dead." . . .Immediate steps are to be taken towards the erection of a Soldier’s Monument, upon the exact center of the grounds. One that shall be an honor to the brave boy’s [sic] who fell in their country’s service, and it is hoped its shaft shall bear upon its marble face the name, company and regiment of every martyr hero whose muster role read, "From the County of Wood." (p. 3)
The proposed soldier’s monument never appeared, but Oak Grove Cemetery succeeded in becoming the sole location for new burials after 1873. Some townspeople even moved the bodies of loved ones from their old resting place to the new. But many old graves remained at the Ridge Street location until plans for the future development of the site required that all the graves be vacated. In 1897 the City Council mandated that all bodies be re-interred in Oak Grove Cemetery. In the subsequent scurry to comply, locals made an interesting discovery: the Ridge Street graveyard contained the remains of an early Bowling Green couple named Howells - grandparents, it turned out, of the famous novelist William Dean Howells. This anecdote caused some considerable local interest. In an article titled "The Burial Spot," the Wood County Sentinel for May 13, 1897, told the story in detail and concluded with these remarks: "The lovers of the great novelist, William Dean Howells, will read the above with considerable interest, and will undoubtedly attach to Bowling Green some extra renown for being the the last resting place of the grandparents of so distinguished an American. It is hoped that the new burial spot will be advantageously situated" (p. 4).
Despite the best efforts of the citizenry to install their "loved dead" in the new, more capacious quarters, some bodies were not loved enough, apparently, to be remembered. An elementary school was eventually built on the site of the old cemetery, and according to the records of a local historical society, "Numerous skeletons have been discovered near the school." The identities of those skeletons, if ever learned, is not indicated in these records - but the discovery of one such skeleton has been recorded in detail. In 1952 Vivian Craun, a teacher at the Ridge Street School, was startled one day when two pupils barged into class carrying large bones in their hands. They had found the bones while rooting around in the school yard, they said, and a lively digging project ensued. Remembering the history of this plot of land, Ms. Craun watched her students’ efforts with an odd combination of teacherly pride and nervousness about what - or whom - they were exhuming. Her fears were eventually "allayed by the findings of bones that were much too large for anything human," and the class finally pieced together what was obviously the skeleton of a horse. Just why a horse had once been buried alongside the townspeople of Bowling Green is not explained, although we can assume that the "loved dead" were not limited to humans.
One can learn a good deal about a region’s values and circumstances by studying its treatment of death. Bowling Green’s history of death highlights our knowledge of the town as a small community, somewhat "behind the curve" of the large Eastern cities, yet still prominent in its vicinity as the county seat. In the town’s expectations and attitudes about styles of undertaking, preservation of bodies, and suitable interment, we can see evidence of Bowling Green’s dual status as a locally prominent, yet still small, rural community, as well as its participation in the general trends of late 19th Century.
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