Life was certainly different in the 1850’s if taking a picture of the recently deceased was considered as a keepsake. Even by those standards it almost seems a ghoulish practice. But then of course back then things were a lot different and people seemed to need a reminder of the ones they’d lost. These days so many people are constant shutterbugs that pictures abound with family members and fill entire books with color photographs that can be used to remind the family and friends of the deceased of better times.
What’s really depressing about this is that so many of the pictures shown are of children. This is when I can honestly state that it seems in some way fitting to keep a picture, but one would hope that it would be pictures of the children while at play or in an actual living pose. Taking photos of them less than a day after they had passed seems just so wrong that it might almost be considered blasphemous. Plus, even worse than this was the fact that some people, living people, would actually take the photo with the deceased. Seeing a mother in a picture with her deceased child sent goosebumps down my back it was so creepy.
I don’t want to say that life wasn’t valued back in those days because I don’t believe that was the case. Instead there was a belief that having a picture of the deceased imitating life somehow gave closure to the grieving family and allowed them to move on with their lives. That sounds absolutely horrible considering that no one in their right mind would do such a thing in this day and age, but again, things were no doubt very different back then. If someone tried this today however people would be all over them with comments as to inherently wrong this was. Believe me, I’d be just one of those looking on with distaste but not ready to judge since to some people this obviously made sense.
The Memento Mori photograph was a reminder that all people must eventually pass on, but in many ways it was just a sad reminder of their loss. Another creepy fact is that the photographs absolutely had to be taken within a 24-hour period after death or the bodies would start to deteriorate. Keep in mind that the morgue was not the most popular option, in fact it was NOT an option in many areas for at least another decade or more when this practice was first put into place. Bodies would begin to rot and decay not long after death and if a person wanted a photo then they had to get it done quickly before nature took its course.
Plus think about this, not everyone could do this. Unless the deceased was in good condition, meaning they hadn’t died a violent death or suffered some horrendous, scarring illness, they could have done this, but the likelihood that people would have might have dropped significantly. It’s hard to make the deceased look peaceful if they’ve recently been through a disfiguring trauma.
Creepy with a capital ‘C’.
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