Cooling Board Posting (Revisited)

I have a sitemeter added to my blogs which enables me to not only see the number of visitors to my blog, but also how they access the site, whether through a Google search, or by a direct link. I can also see what specific postings they are reading. One of the popular postings is the one on the Cooling Board which I posted on April 26, 2008.

Although there have been many visitors to this blog posting, I received two important comments. One is from a blog reader (Cookie) who has a cooling board as one of her family heirlooms. Imagine receiving such an heirloom! Another blogger (thelwaiting) heard about the cooling board through her family’s oral history.

Cookie said...

I was fortunate enough to inherit a "cooling board" that was used in Gulrock NC...my grandmother had been given it and when she died i received it (April 28, 2009)...ours is not as fancy...no legs, no wheels, no case..just a plank of Carolina pine that was placed between two ladder back chairs...the first time to allow the body to leak out the fluids upon death....then it was cleaned up and the person was dressed and placed back on the board for the showing before burial. I know for sure that it is from the 1900's or earlier and it has 9 marks on it...so we know at least nine member of the community used that board...one is dated 1919 as my grandmothers youngest sister Delores Mason who died in infancy, they say of lockjaw, was buried on it....my grandma and I were one of a kind we thought the history of the board was fascinating....
June 29, 2009 2:48 AM

the1waiting said...

What a magnificent piece! Even though I hate attending funerals, I felt it was important to see this film. I am a genealogist who hear my African American elders speak of many things such as the "cooling board". Seeing this film is a highlight in my life. Thank you for the experience. I love it.
August 28, 2008 12:33 PM

Traditional Funeral Attire

For older generations such as my great grandmother Bell Bullock Johnson (1890-1982), it was customary to wear all black to a funeral. The black apparel also included a black hat. This custom has not been necessarily continued as a whole with younger generations. Below are photos from a family funeral in Richmond, VA that occurred possibly in the 1970s.

(Front) Aunt Bessie Bullock Carroll (1901-1991), a sister of my great grandmother Bell. Grandma Bell is the lady in the back.

(Left to right) Aunt Bessie; Emma, a daughter of Bell and Bessie’s sister Channie; and Grandma Bell. Here we see more of the outfits of the older ladies wearing black dresses, hats, and purses, and their niece wearing a flora print dress. Even though we can’t tell from the photos, I assume that the older ladies were also wearing black shoes.

Verlena, daughter of Bessie and Bell’s sister Mima; Aunt Bessie; and Emma, daughter of Bessie and Bell’s sister Channie. I do not know the name of the little girl, but she is a granddaughter of Emma. In this photo, we see more of a contrast between the clothing of the older lady and the younger ones.

A Cooling Board

Cooling Board

When I was young, I would hear the old people in church mention the “cooling board.” My church was of the Pentecostal Holiness denomination and it was customary to have a testimony service. A testimony service was when church members, called “Saints,” would stand up and share with the congregation things that God had done for them. They would also express their thankfulness and praise to God.

The testimony might start out as follows:

“Giving honor to God, to the Pastor, Deacons, Saints and Friends.
I thank God for __________(They might mention a specific situation where they felt that God blessed them.)

And then somewhere during the testimony of one of the old Saints, they might say “I thank God for waking me up this morning and that I’m not on a cooling board.”

I had learned as a child that if you were on a cooling board, you were dead, but I never knew exactly how the board looked until a few years ago when I watched a video about a cooling board. In this video, Roy Olpin shares his family’s history in the funeral business and how his father used one the tools of the trade called the “cooling board.” The cooling board was used by his father as an embalming table during the days when this task was done in the home of the deceased.