Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 96, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 August 1909 — Peculiar Funeral Customs. [ARTICLE]

Peculiar Funeral Customs.

Swiss funeral customs are most peculiar. At the de*th of a person the family inserts a black-edged announcement in the papers asking for sympathy, and stating that “the mourning urn” Will be exhibited within certain hours on a special day. In front of the house where f’e person died there is placed a little ulack table, covered with a black cloth, on which Btands a black jar. Into this the friends and acquaintances of the family drop small black-msrglned v'slting cards, sometimes with a few words of sympathy on them. The urn is put on the table on the day of f'he funeral. Only men go over to ths'churchyard, and they generally follow the hearse on foot.