The tradition of taking photographs of the dead as if they were alive appeared in the United States at the dawn of photography. Especially often dead children were filmed like that
Before being photographed, the young deceased were dressed up in the most beautiful dresses, decorated with flowers, seated in a chair or on a bed, placing them in natural positions. Often their favorite toys were put into their hands. The deceased looked like a living person. In many photographs, their living parents, brothers and sisters posed with the dead children.
In 1898, four-year-old Mary Rawls died of pneumonia in Clyndon, Arkansas. For her inconsolable parents, this misfortune coincided with another: in a neighboring town, the grandmother of the late girl, the elderly Mrs. Hegland, lay dying. She loved her granddaughter immensely and pampered her in every way; however, recently, being unable to see her because of her illness, she limited herself to sending her gifts, mainly dolls.
Knowing that the tragic message would shorten Mrs. Hegland's already short days, the baby's parents decided to cheat. The dead girl was dressed up in a beautiful dress; dolls sent by her grandmother were placed around her. Mary, who was sitting with her head bent to one side, looked as if in thought at her toy girlfriends. The photograph was sent to Mrs. Hegland, along with a letter stating that the girl was in full health and was sending her regards to her beloved grandmother. Deciding that the picture would comfort the dying, grief-stricken parents set about preparing the funeral of their daughter. But the story did not end there.
On the eve of the burial, late in the evening, a carriage stopped by the Rawls porch, from which Mrs. Hegland got out, supported by a maid. The Rawls knew that she hadn't gotten out of bed for a long time, and therefore her unexpected appearance was a terrible surprise for them. Mrs. Hegland, against the advice of doctors, decided on this journey with the sole purpose of seeing her daughter, son-in-law, and most importantly, her beloved granddaughter before her death. Entering the house. grandmother demanded that Mary be brought to her. “I may not live until morning,” she repeated in a weak voice.
Confused parents that Mary is spending the night with a friend today. The old woman was put to bed, but she, apparently, felt that something was wrong. In the middle of the night Mrs. Hegland got out of bed, lit a candle and left the room. In a dim room, lit by the moon, she saw a closed coffin. She came up and slid the lid with an effort. And when the reflection of the candle fell on the deathly pale face of the young deceased, the old woman screamed and fainted. The flame of a falling candle spread to the crepe and the coffin upholstery, to Mary's dress, and in a matter of minutes the fire engulfed in this.
This is how the American historian Patricia Wyatt, who has been studying old posthumous photographs for many years, reports this long-standing case.
Exploring the yellowed pictures. P. Wyatt and her assistants interviewed the relatives of those depicted in the photo, searched the archives for documents, analyzed files of old newspapers. As a result, scientists have collected information about family dramas associated with the heroes of many of these photographs. These stories are sometimes as horrified as the pictures themselves.
Here, for example, is a photo of two very girls, one of whom seemed to doze off a little with half-closed eyes. This is a picture of the Brown sisters from Boston taken in 1890. Katherine - the one on the left - was dead at the time of the shooting. The second sister, Susan, will die a few months later from the same disease (probably hereditary). As if anticipating her death, the girl insisted on being photographed next to her beloved sister, and subsequently, shortly before her death, asked to be buried in the same grave. which was done.
A photograph of six-year-old Clive Davis, who died in 1912, made such a strong impression on his younger brother Steve that he went crazy. Parents once showed him this photo and explained that the brother depicted in the picture as alive, with open eyes, in fact, was photographed already dead. This had such an effect on the impressionable child that he began to see "dead but alive" Clive outside the windows, in the dark corners of the house, behind the trees in the garden. When the late brother got into the habit of bending over Steve's bed at night, the boy was admitted to the hospital, where he died.
Something similar happened in the Greenwood family, who were photographed with their deceased child. After the funeral, this baby, in the form as it is depicted in the picture, began to dream of the mother, and then to see her in reality. The couple sold the house and moved to another city, but even there the woman could not get rid of the visions. In the end, she had to undergo a long course of treatment until the little dead man left her alone.
18-year-old Anne Davidson in her posthumous photograph appears before us with beautifully styled hair, in a white dress, surrounded by white roses. As if the bride is being photographed on her wedding day. In fact, the girl was hit by a train, and only the upper part of her body, which we see in the picture, remained unharmed. The hands of the deceased are laid as if she was picking flowers.
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Almost mystical stories happened to such photographs. P. Wyatt in his book tells how in 1919 the couple Sarah and Charles Lewis, who had recently buried their child, came to a fortuneteller to find out if they would have more children. They will, she answered, but for this it is necessary to destroy the photograph in which they were taken with the deceased boy. Returning home, the Lewis rushed to look for a picture, but it was nowhere to be found. He's gone somewhere!
Sarah and Charles were upset, but life still went on, and subsequently they had four children - two of their own and two adopted. The couple already thought that the photograph was destroyed for them by higher powers, but after many years it was found among the old papers.
Now the old tradition of taking posthumous pictures of children, in which they are depicted as living, may cause surprise, even seem repulsive, but in those days nothing strange was seen in this. The child died so early that they did not have time to capture him during his lifetime, and the parents, while the baby was not yet affected by decay, were in a hurry to preserve his "living" image. It was not considered reprehensible to put makeup on the face of the deceased, making the appearance more natural, but to draw on the drooping eyelids eyes supposedly looking into the camera lens.
This custom spread from America to Europe, including Russia, and faded away by the middle of the 20th century. It is curious that in the USSR such photographs were taken back in the 1960s - mainly in rural areas, for cemetery monuments. The need for this disappeared with the wider distribution of photography: now in every family there were also ordinary, lifetime photographs that could well be placed on a cross or a tombstone (by the way, now, it seems, this tradition is also leaving, now they are limited only by the surname and dates of birth and of death).
The posthumous photograph, where the deceased “poses as a living person, gave way to photographs in which he is depicted in a more natural position for himself, that is, lying in a coffin. And this, you see, is no longer the same as a photo where the deceased "pretends" to be alive. It is creepy to look at such photographs, especially those of children. But we must not forget that for the inconsolable relatives, these were dear memorials about their beloved creatures, who had gone to another world to the offensive early.
Secrets of the XX century № 37 2011