During the research for “When He Was Gone,” I stumbled across lots of interesting factoids, some a bit macabre. I learned that death was so much a part of life in the 1800s, wakes and funerals were typically held in the parlor of the home.
Very old homes often have two front doors, one door directly into the parlor for visitation and body removal. It was referred to as a death door. So, if someone is near death’s door…
Eventually in the early 1900s, funeral parlors or funeral homes took over the process. In 1910, the “Ladies Home Journal “suggested that since few people were using parlors as a death rooms anymore and they had become a place for lively entertaining, they should be called Living Rooms.