Pictures of Dead People

by Lorene Hoover  

My grandmother had a thing about smiling for pictures. "If that person dies," she'd say, "you'd have to look at his smiling face. And who wants to look at a smiling dead person?"

    Strangely, Grandma didn't seem to mind looking at pictures of dead people. In the front room of their sprawling farm house where Grandpa listened to the radio or read the newspaper while Grandma did her mending or studied her Bible, a picture of Grandma's mother in her casket was prominently displayed behind the curved glass door of the china cabinet.

    The cabinet was kept locked at all times. Grandma showed me the key, saying. "If the house ever gets on fire, get that picture out."

    Grandma, a tall woman who was as disciplined as her crimped, gray hair, did everything well with little help from anyone else. I'm sure that on July 3, 1939, she had everything under control for our big family day on the Fourth. The house was dusted and polished, the guest bedroom ready for my aunt and uncle who would arrive that evening. New potatoes had been dug and washed, peas picked and shelled, pies baked, chickens killed and dressed, and the linen-covered table in the dining room was set with her best china.

       That night Grandma must have heard the storm approaching. Always afraid of lightning, she got up and disconnected the radio and telephone. Later, she said she heard something like a giant's footsteps on the roof. The newspaper reported that lightning must have struck the house about 1:30 a.m., but the family did not notice the flames until nearly 30 minutes later.

    By that time, flames were overtaking the house. In the confusion, neither my aunt and uncle nor my grandparents, rushing in and out of the doors, saved little. My grandmother could not find the key to open the china cupboard so she scooted and half-carried the whole cupboard out of the burning house.

    Months later, after a new, smaller house was built, my great grandmother's burial picture was again displayed behind the china cupboard's glass door.