Photo Essay: A Southern Way of Dying

Cemetery in Post-Katrina Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.

3/19/09. Canon Powershot.

"Between grief and nothing, I'll take grief."

-William Faulkner, The Wild Palms

Funeral Service at Second Baptist Church in Oxford, Mississippi.

3/14/09. Canon Powershot. 

"There was a hell of big funeral. The city was jam-packed with people, all kinds of people, county-courthouse slickers and red-necks and wool-hat boys and people who had never been on pavement before. And they had their women with them." 

-Robert Penn Warren, All The King's Men

Cooking for the Community. Oxford, Mississippi.

3/29/09. Canon Powershot.

"Southerners can't stand to eat alone. If we're going to cook a mess of greens we want to eat them with a mess of people."

-Julia Reed

Sign and graves within the Cemetery at College Hill Presbyterian Church in Oxford, Mississippi.

2/11/09. Canon Powershot. 

"Folks in the South have a strong sense of community, and being dead is no impediment to belonging to it. Down South they don't forget you when you've up and died- in fact they visit you more often."

- Gayden Metcalfe and Charlotte Hays, Being Dead is No Excuse

"Fill the Freezer" effort at the Oxford University Methodist Church to fill the Bereavement and Neighborhood Care Freezer. 

3/12/09. Canon Powershot.

"It means, 'I love you. And I'm sorry for what you are going through and I will share as much of your burden as I can.' and maybe potato salad is a better way of saying it."

-Will D. Campbell

First Baptist Church in Oxford, Mississippi.

3/25/09. Canon Powershot. 

"Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor... neighbors give in return."

- Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

Cemetery in Post-Katrina Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. 

3/19/09. Canon Powershot.

"Cemeteries are not to be taken lightly in the South. The old ones, of course, are the best ones. But the spaces are getting taken up rapidly. As a result, getting into a good cemetery is about as difficult as getting into a good country club. "

-Maryln Schwartz, A Southern Belle Primer

A Southern Way of Dying

Death is more than just the stopping of a heartbeat. In the South, death means a time of mourning and celebrating the life of a loved one just as it means returning the body to earth. Southern funerals are something unique to the rest of the world and are mentioned in Faulkner, Twain, and Welty among others. It is also why I have chosen quotes from some of the South’s greatest authors to accompany the captions of each picture.

Community is a core part of Southern culture and it couldn’t be a more important part of the mourning process. The Preacher is called, flowers are sent, and, in true Southern fashion, friends and neighbors make the casseroles, cakes, finger sandwiches, and potato salads with care. The church community is usually the catalyst for gathering and directing the delivery of food to the families in mourning. Oxford-University Methodist Church has a program where members pick up a container and then return the frozen casserole to church “bereavement freezer” to be delivered when needed. “Bereavement Freezers” can be found in many Southern churches. This is not unusual in a culture where churches have long had the responsibility of attending to those in need within their community.

I remember my mother cooking all day, making delicious casseroles, salads, and desserts that would then be loaded in the car to take it to the home of the family. I was always disappointed that after watching her cook all day somehow I ended up with takeout. This, however, was the way I was raised: you bring food when someone dies, when there is a birth of a new baby, or when someone has been ill. Food is the way we say, “I’m sorry for the pain you are going through”. The labor that goes into to making the dish is just as important as the dish itself. A good family friend, Nan Davis, makes her Aunt Lella’s famous pimento cheese and her aunt always said that if you weren’t going to make the homemade mayonnaise then you might as well not even bother.

I grew up hearing stories from my grandmother about sitting with the dead where you would head to the home of the deceased to sit up all night eating, drinking, and telling stories. Although most people these days have their visitations at the funeral home or the church, there is still the element sociability while people spend hours waiting in line. Where a person is buried is also important. Marlyn Schwartz, in her book the Southern Belle Primer, and Gayden Metcalfe and Charlotte Hays, in their book Being Dead is No Excuse, both devote whole chapters to the ideal final resting place. Whiles both have light-hearted takes on the specifics of the funeral process, it is true that much thought goes into the burial plot.

The Southern way of dying links perfectly the elements of environment and culture. It is putting you’re loved one back into the earth and coming back to visit your family when they have passed on. It is also the outpouring of love and empathy from your community when the ladies from the church bring by their famous pimento cheese or deviled eggs. Environment is important when you see the cemetery in Bay St. Louis that survived when Katrina destroyed most things around it or the slave cemetery at College Hill Presbyterian that still has wooden crosses after so many years. Southerners react to death like they do so many other hardships: with laughter, tears, food, and probably some liquor on the back porch.