Slifer House

Slifer House to Host Lecture on Tombstone Symbolism

June 10 , 2008

Ann Diseroad will present the lecture “Urn & Willow: The Language of Cemetery Art” at 2 p.m. on Saturday, June 14 at the Slifer House Museum in Lewisburg (80 Magnolia Drive). This lecture compliments the Museum’s exhibit theme “Gone, But Not Forgotten: Death & Mourning in Victorian America” Tickets are $6 per person. Season tickets ($27) are still available, allowing the ticketholder a reserved space for each of the remaining lectures.

Ann Diseroad has been interested in cemeteries since childhood. “My family would go to church suppers and visit small country churches. As the adults continued to talk, I would wander out into the cemeteries…” This childhood past-time has led her to join the Association for Gravestone Studies and lecture widely on the preservation of cemeteries and accomplishing tombstone rubbings.

Ann possesses a Master’s in Library Science from Drexel University, Philadelphia, and has only recently retired as the Interlibrary Loan Coordinator at Bloomsburg University. On October 21, she will present a lecture, Civil War Quilts & Care Packages: Support for Soldiers from the Women at Home, at the Columbia County Historical and Genealogical Society. This talk will explore the work of the Ladies’ Aid Society and the Sanitary Commission, offering examples of items typically produced by the ladies at home.

Ann’s lecture at Slifer House Museum is the third in a series of events associated with the Museum’s examination of “Gone, But Not Forgotten: Death & Mourning in Victorian America.” The exhibit was curated by Galen Betzer and is drawn from his extensive collection of funeral artifacts.

Victorians were strict in their rules concerning funerals and the grieving process. During the early 19th century, funerals were often by invitation only. The body would lie ‘in state’ in the drawing room (or parlor). Symbolic of the person’s ‘light being dimmed,’ the windows, chandeliers, and mirrors would be draped in black crepe. The Victorians were extremely superstitious and felt that if one looked into a mirror while a body lay dead in the home, that person might be the next one to die. A widow was expected to dress in black, including her undergarments and petticoats, for the period of one year, one day. A black veil would have covered her face and would drape to the floor. After that period of time, she could begin wearing a subdued palette of color, with some embellishment (such as lace). This second year of mourning would last for one year, one day.

Lectures remaining in the series include:

Saturday, July 19, Maxine Getty, “A Lady in Mourning: 19th Century Impression of Life in the Midst of Death”;
Saturday, August 16, John Deeben, “Documenting Death During the Civil War: Records from the National Archives”;
Saturday, September 20, Museum Director Gary Parks will speak on the rural cemetery movement; and
Saturday, October 11, Mark Nesbit will lecture on the ghostly apparitions seen at Gettysburg.

The exhibit and lecture series are supported by a grant in the amount of $6,143 from the Union County Commissioners’ Tourism Fund, which is administered through the Susquehanna River Valley Visitors’ Bureau. The fund is distributed to not-for-profit organizations which encourage visitation from beyond a fifty-mile radius. For overnight accommodations, please call 1-800-525-7320 or visit www.visitcentralpa.org.

To learn more about the Slifer House, contact us by e-mail or call (570) 524-2245.