Mourners Chilled at Cemetery

New York, 1911

Correspondent Suggests That a Church Be Heated on Funeral Days.

Highland Mills, Feb. 2, (Special) — Those attending the funeral of M. S. Lent, late of Cornwall, at the Cemetery of the Highlands, yesterday, suffered severely from colds and exposure. The day was blustery with a low temperature making it very trying for the drivers of the funeral coaches as well as for the mourners after they alighted at the cemetery. There was no church service and the church had not been opened or heated.

This state of affairs is liable to occur any day and has been occurring to the great discomfort of funeral parties. In short, on a very cold day those attending a funeral have no place to go to warm themselves, the little office of the superintendent being scarcely able to hold half a dozen at most. One who saw the conditions yesterday has suggested that a small annex could be added to the church, where a furnace could be set agoing on funeral days by one of the cemetery attendants.

—Orange County Times-Press, Middletown, NY, Feb. 3, 1911, p. 10.