Civic Association to educate on Victorian death customs
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The Juniata Civic Association will host an educational event about death customs in the Victorian age at 2 p.m. Oct. 30 at 206 West 12th Ave.
The event features the presentation "Til Death Do Us Part" with James and Gretchen Kennedy, including a recreation of a Civil War funeral. There will also be a display of post-mortem photos, a 40-item display of mourning jewelry, antique embalming equipment and more. The couple are members of the Juniata Civic Association and Civil War reenactors with the PA 110, Co. H.
The entrance fee of $5 per person will help the association meet expenses and go toward a new roof, organizers said.
"This isn't a haunted house," James Kennedy said, "It's a non-scary event for people who want to know more about where our mourning customs come from." Guests will learn why the color black is associated with mourning and about the father of embalming techniques and his local tie.
Attendees will also learn about James Shirley, infamously known as the first man hanged in Blair County in 1853. He murdered his pregnant wife in November 1852 with a claw hammer, Kennedy said, with the crime making national news reports of the day.
Also, the couple will portray the parents of Kennedy's great-great uncle David Kennedy of Royer, who served as a private in the Union's 148th Company H. He died 15 days after being injured during the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse in Virginia on May 15, 1864. His parents paid to have his body embalmed and returned to Blair County -- an unusual practice for an enlisted soldier at that time.