Bed of Straw

Both my grandmothers were always adamant :
Never go to a hospital, that's where people go to die. Maybe they were right, hmmmm.

I don't like hospitals,they give me the creeps...okay,people are born in them too,but it's always death that comes to mind when I visit one...

A coffin filled with straw is one thing, but if you run across a coffin filled with Earth, run away like hell!

reality smacking me in the head damn

Why straw??

Probably because it was a cheap liner. They didn't want to spend a lot of money on a funeral for someone who had no family or whose family didn't care enough to attend, so they cut corners while still being respectful. I imagine the occupants wouldn't know the difference anyway...

Max: That's only Bram Stoker's version. None of the other vampire mythos include the restrictions that he did (running water, no reflection, native soil). He only did that because he had written himself into a corner, and needed a way to kill his super creatures off...

Regarding my post on the previous image, my question stands answered.

very depressing thought of ppl getting left at places like this

i know its so sad.

I always loved the Austrian taffeta, but the straw? It makes me feel ambivulent.

how can i say, sad, very very sad

I just dont know what to say.

i shreaked at the first site of this picture. I thought the straw was someones hair...

Patients also slept on mattresses of straw with hessian covers. They had blankets that were more like canvas horse blankets as well. Pretty much buried as they lived really. All very inhumane by todays standards.

RIP Mr. Straw...

I'm 6ft 4in and over 300 lbs and yet, all I can imagine is me screaming like a little girl!!! LOL

Some caskets had straw bedding to aid in combustion, as in cremation. Cremation caskets were also very cheap, hence the appeal to the state runnung the hospital. Excellent pictures, they remind me of the funeral home basement, and some of the morgues in hospitals still operating.

It looks like it would make for a very soft (if itchy) final resting place
Beautiful pictures, as always!

this picture puts a really sad image in my head....i feel bad for the patients who had no family at all.....=[

"Straw" is commonly used in several low end caskets usually used for cremation. It is actually wood shavings. The height of the body in the casket can be adjusted by removing some "straw". The straw is covered by a peice of material.

Excelsior would be the technical name of the "straw". Years ago, everything that was shipped was packed in Excelsior. Remember the leg lamp from A Christmas Story? Inside that crate was a ton of Excelsior.

As a Soldier I have taken part in several burials as a member of the funeral detail or as the Army likes to call it; Ceremonial Detachment. And to think: that some of the dead soldiers that I have buried are lying down on straw like a cow in a barn is horrible.

When it is time for me to die I will go to the funeral parlors and cut open the lining of the coffin and see what is inside of it. I will now have to do research on coffins and see what other types of materials that are used to fill up a coffin.

Signed: An American Soldier in Germany.

I wonder if they were embalmed.

Looks comfy. Like a cozy bed with a down comforter. If it wasn't a coffin, I'd take a nap there.

State laws require embalming, except for certain religious groups which bury their dead within 48 hrs. Who knows if anyone bothered to embalm these unfortunates? When everything was done 'in house', the odds are that corners got cut and the dead just got plunked down on a layer of cheap, absorbent straw.

You're ignorant and far too busy looking for the bad in places to take the time to educate yourself on the subjects you're commenting on.

Even some high-class caskets still use straw as a bedding. And why not? I've never heard a dead person complain about it.

What happens to the grave sites when these buildings are torn down? Is there any site that you could research the history of the patients? I had a great aunt who was committed to an asylum over a hundred years ago while she was a child. Her condition was diagnosed then as melancholy, I guess today it is called depression. I found out she died at the hospital and was buried at it cemetery. When the building was torn down some forty or years ago they tore up the grave yard and made one mass grave for all the remains.
I sometimes wonder about this young girl who died at the age of twenty one. Being family and all. It's like finding a piece of a puzzle that you did not even know you were missing.

Embalming is only required by law when a body is going to be transported across state lines.

Everytime I go into a hospital, my stomach hurts, and makes me feel like i'm going to vomit. Hospitals are a place of dieing, and healing, but dieing seems to happen more often then not.

A horse has been eating my bed!!!!!

I agree with love- is dead a hospital is mostly a place that people die in

It seems odd that the facility would used satin lined coffins to bury their deceased patients...

the satin looked good but it was cheap/i dont think that thay went the extra mile and embalmed the poor souls to save on time and money only if the body was shiped out to keep the smell down for the family/ the box is made of pine it would last about 2 years in the ground thats why alot of the old grave are sunk in/ i came across a casket next to a grave i was diging years ago it was buried1880 the box was cherry and wallnut it looked like the day it was put in the ground it was unreal

to finish the storey above the casket was put in a sandy grave/thare was no water to cause the wood to rott and no air once the air hit the sides it was creepy the red wood and old brass handles slowly turned gray like something out of a creep show but if the casket was like the day it was put thare 110 years ago/ i wonder what did the tentent look like///// scary thought///boooohoo

Is there room for two in there ? ^_^
Would you have a good roll in the hay while waiting for the eternal rebirth of life ?

I creep myself out sometimes ,
how can you take such a classic picture ?

You can call me psychotic myself but, it seems a few people who have commented I this pic say how hospitals creep them out and a lot of people seem say the same thing for the same reasons, but I have always loved hospitals for the same reasons people are creeped out by them... I know thats weird but I guess if I acknowledge others points of view I see that I am strange, ha when I was 5 the House on Haunted Hill became my favorite movie, actually I am listening to the soundtrack right now, its really fun to listen to that music and look at these pictures...

Hey Alicia There's room for two...just break it in half. I'll use this as a bed if I'm gonna spend the night there.