The Grieving Widow: Death And Mourning At The Corwith House

America’s fascination with tragic British royals did not start with the death of Princess Diana. It started much earlier, and much more morbidly so.

The year was 1861. Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, died prematurely, and his wife entered deep mourning until her death 40 years later.

Her immense popularity in the United States pushed grieving American women to follow her cult of mourning, marked by the traditions, strict rituals and the color black, which survived her death by decades and will be the subject of a new exhibit—“In Memory Of ... ”—opening on Friday, October 28, at the Bridgehampton Historical Society’s Corwith House Museum.

The West Parlor will be transformed into a Victorian wake for a Corwith relative who died between the 1880s and 1905, after embalming was common practice, explained co-curators Julie Greene and Nora Cammann during a private tour at the museum last week.

The clocks there have been stopped at the time of death. Black draping hangs from the windows and portraits of family ancestors, and the mirrors are completely covered.

“You don’t want to get your spirit caught in the mirror where a deceased

person is,” Ms. Greene said. “It’s bad luck. You’d be the next to die.”

Ms. Greene continued into the next room and adjusted one of the black window dressings.

“Thank God this stopped,” she said with a sigh. “It was really done to keep up appearances. I mean, I was draping all of this this morning and I was laughing. Like, can I imagine me, grieving a child no less, trying to decorate my home? All in accordance to really strive for the Victorian.”

To her right sat a jewelry case with mostly black pieces. But there were several exceptions that weren’t black, such as bracelets and a memorial wreath. That’s because those were made from the deceased’s hair, Ms. Greene said.

“You know when a baby’s born and you cut off a lock and keep it in an envelope? It’s the same idea,” she said. “When you do it from a child who was just born, there’s nothing morbid about it. But this hair would be braided, and this became an industry in and of itself, this hair work. It was all this amazing technique.”

Symbolism in the Victorian era can be seen in portraiture work, like in that hanging on the wall to Ms. Greene’s left. The painting is of a child. There is a weeping willow tree in the background. Her right hand points downward, her left holds a wilting rose, its petals at her feet. And the clasp of her necklace is facing forward. The child in the painting is dead.

The museum’s main room will feature symbolism from six local cemeteries and will showcase two children’s coffins, which are currently upstairs in the “dearly departed’s” bedroom. These particular coffins are called “toe pincher,” because they are narrower by the feet. The pair is on loan from the Suffolk Historical Society, Ms. Greene explained.

“I was hoping to get an adult coffin, and I’m still hoping, because I don’t want to have a wake for children downstairs,” she said while touring an upstairs bedroom. “I have three little kids, so that’s way too over the line for me.”

Other than the room’s cooling table—a device that the dead body would be placed on to lower its temperature with buckets of ice underneath (this one is owned by a Sagaponack resident)—and the two coffins, all of the exhibit’s pieces are part of the Historical Society’s collection, Ms. Greene said.

And although the exhibit isn’t Halloween-related, Ms. Greene said it’s the perfect time to put this particular slice of history on display.

“People will be in that mood, I think,” she says. “I don’t want to scare people, I don’t want it to be a morbid exhibit. It’s just to show the custom and ritual. There’s no ghoul here, it’s all custom.”

Perhaps no other room shows off the ritual of death more than the second upstairs bedroom, which is themed “Getting Ready For Mourning,” Ms. Greene said. Here, visitors will see classic mourning garb, which for women was all-black clothing, a full veil covering the face and no jewelry, unless it was a memento of the deceased, for the first year and a day.

“They really went for it,” Ms. Cammann said.

Hats, parasols, gloves, and even buttons, pins and buckles, were changed to black.

For men in mourning, their cuff links were black and they wore a band around their arm while in mourning. Their rituals weren’t nearly as strict, as they could dictate how long they’d grieve, Ms. Greene said. Typically, they’d find a new wife in six months and move on, she added.

“I can’t say this was chauvinistic because Queen Victoria was really the one who was gung-ho, who really made this a cult of mourning,” she said.

During the second year, the veil could be removed and some jewelry was allowed, but black was still the color of choice. Coming out of mourning, women could wear grey, mauve, lavender and, eventually, white, Ms. Greene said.

“It was all just so people would know where you were coming from without having to speak to them,” she said. “In a way, you didn’t have to explain yourself. People wouldn’t say things to you inappropriately.”

There were different degrees of mourning as well, but the largest emphasis was on the widow, Ms. Greene explained. Over time, and especially during the Civil War, it became a massive financial burden to keep up with the traditions, and often put families in arrears, she reported.

Following Queen Victoria’s death in 1901, the United States launched into World War I, and the queen’s mourning traditions died with her generation, Ms. Greene said.

Times have changed, and so have the rituals of mourning, according to Ms. Greene.

“Now, it’s all about getting over the loss of someone,” she said. “But in that era, they really held onto it, and there may be something to that.”

The exhibition “In Memory Of ...,” which explores the customs surrounding death and mourning in the mid- to late 19th century, will open with a reception on Friday, October 28, from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Bridgehampton Historical Society’s Corwith House Museum. The exhibit will remain on view through February 2012. Hours are Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. through November 19. For more information, call 537-1088.