Confederate January Man

From the August 1914 issue of Park and Cemetery and Landscape Gardening

Monument Humor

From the October 1914 issue of Park and Cemetery and Landscape Gardening.

Click on photo to enlarge

Buffalo Pitts Rollers

Wonder if any were actually used in a cemetery?

The Modern Cemetery
March 1914

Sears Monuments

The Hutchinson News Herald 5/30/1943

Furniture Maker...Undertaker



Hutchinson News 5/17/1877



Coffin or Casket

Which word do you use? Coffin or casket? Are they one in the same?

Coffin

1. the box or case in which the body of a dead person is placed for burial; casket.

coffin. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/coffin (accessed: May 25, 2010).

Word Origin & History
coffin - early 14c., from O.Fr. cofin "sarcophagus," earlier "basket, coffer," from L. cophinus "basket," from Gk. kophinos "a basket," of uncertain origin. Funeral sense in Eng. is 1520s; before that it was literal and had also a meaning of "pie crust." Coffin nail "cigarette" is slang from 1880.

coffin. Dictionary.com. Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/coffin (accessed: May 25, 2010).

Casket

1. a coffin.
2. a small chest or box, as for jewels.

casket. Dictionary.com. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/casket (accessed: May 25, 2010).

Word Origin & History
casket - 1461, "small box for jewels, etc.," possibly formed as a dim. of Eng. cask, or from Norm.-Fr. cassette, from M.Fr. casset (see cassette). Meaning of "coffin" is Amer.Eng., probably euphemistic, first attested 1849.

casket. Dictionary.com. Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/casket (accessed: May 25, 2010).

Hutchinson News
2/21/1900 Page 6

Queen City Marble and Granite Works

Hutchinson was called the Queen City in its early days.

Hutchinson Daily News

3/21/1889

Page 4

M. J. Ruddy - Undertaker and Embalmer!

This was an interesting find. M. J. Ruddy is one of the local undertakers and also the secretary of the Eastside Cemetery Association.

Eastside Cemetery is the oldest cemetery in the city of Hutchinson, KS. The original cemetery was located in the area of 17th and Monroe, which is a residential area today. Records are sketchy but some graves were moved to Eastside. I would guess many were left behind.
.
Hutchinson Daily News
12/27/1887
Page 5
.

Another Sears Headstone

It's highly likely this was purchased from Sears. This is a photo from the 1908 catalog.
.
Maudie Jackson was born in 1907 and died in 1909. She is buried at Geneseo Cemetery.

Shopping for a headstone

Can you imagine shopping for your headstone needs from Sears or Montgomery Ward, from their catalog? Well, at one time you could.

.

Grave guards and arches first appeared in the 1897 Sears Fall catalog. Beginning with the 1902 Spring catalog Sears issued a special tombstone catalog annually until 1949.

.

I have copies of several catalog pages and tried to find a headstone photo from my collection that closely resembled one from catalogue no. 117, 1908 issue, The Great Price Maker. It looks a lot like it.

.

The Laughlin surname stone is in the Haven Priest Cemetery. James died in 1906 and Hazel in 1926.