Do people still cover the windows for deaths in the house/family?

Did it used to be white sheets for a death in the house,and black window coverings for family death?

I can remember people closing their curtains when someone had died.

Neighbours would often do the same as a sign of respect.

I guess it stems back to the time when the bodies of deceased loved ones were laid out in their parlours and front rooms.

I think it died out around the same time as Whitsuntide clothes for kids.

I think it died out around the same time as Whitsuntide clothes for kids.

A couple of years ago was stood alone one Saturday outside my local bar in Brooklyn, when a funeral cortege came by. I took off my cap and bowed my head. The next day the father of the deceased (a teenage boy tragically killed) sought me out to thank me as he hadn't witnessed such a mark of respect since leaving his native Sicily. Dumbstruck I was !

I think it died out around the same time as Whitsuntide clothes for kids.

Depends on family traditions, I suppose, I remember my mum coming into my room and closing my curtains after my Gran died in 1963, I was well done with Whitsuntide clothes then, although I was 18 anyway and beyond that stuff lol

They used to close the curtains until after the funeral due to a superstition that it kept evil spirits out of the house

My Gran died about 1948

I remember my mother waking me up (bless her) and seeing all the front windows with white sheets on them.

It was all very serene,I guess my Grn was suffering and her passing was a relief

When I started my nurse training in the 70's I was told to open the window nearest to someone who had died to 'let their spirit escape'

I would hazard a guess that the window being opened was for a far more practical reason (!) but being a very green 18 year old I believed everything Staff Nurse told me !

Did it used to be white sheets for a death in the house,and black window coverings for family death?

My mum died in 1977 and we kept the curtains closed till after her funeral. I was only 15 but the adults just closed the curtains and we had to keep them closed. Never really knew why but it may have also been to show to others that the house was in mourning. Also my auntie made us young daughters cover our hair with black headscarfs for the funeral. I guess these things are just family things. Of course now death and funerals still have their rituals but peope feel a lot freer to mourn in their own ways.

My mother always closed the curtains when the cortege came to a neighbours' house. I do this now but seem to be the only one who does it.

A piece of interesting info...

A 'wake' gets its name from when the deceased was laid out in a room of the house for a few days to see if the person awoke. Occasionally a person would be wrongly assumed dead, and buried alive. Exhumed coffins were sometimes observed to have scratch marks on the inside of the lid. During burial a piece of cord was attached to the inside of the coffin and to a bell on the ground by the grave. A person conducting 'graveyard shift' would stay awake at night and listen for any of the bells ringing. These were known as 'dead ringers'.

I

A piece of interesting info...

 

A 'wake' gets its name from when the deceased was laid out in a room of the house for a few days to see if the person awoke. Occasionally a person would be wrongly assumed dead, and buried alive. Exhumed coffins were sometimes observed to have scratch marks on the inside of the lid. During burial a piece of cord was attached to the inside of the coffin and to a bell on the ground by the grave. A person conducting 'graveyard shift' would stay awake at night and listen for any of the bells ringing. These were known as 'dead ringers'.

After Googling 'dead ringer' and 'wake'it would seem more myth than fact

Interesting fact about burials at sea.

In the days of sail a corpse would be sewn Into a piece of canvas with some shot for weigh so the shroud would sink.The last stitches was through the nostril of the corpse,the idea being he would wake up if he was not dead