Funeral Jewelry: Keeping a Loved One Close

Morbid, morose, gloomy, or even macabre, is how some would describe it. Several years ago a major news magazine carried an article about a new process turning cremation ashes into diamonds, pointing out such diamonds are considered to be real. A Google search brings up firms producing rings, crosses and other jewelry made using ashes. The idea is to keep one’s loved one close to one’s heart, however such thoughts also prompt some humor.  As one woman said, “He’s been telling me what to do for 50 years, so why would I want him in an earring?”

Before 1900, it was the deceased’s hair that went into the funeral jewelry and, for a time, it was quite fashionable. In addition to jewelry are shadow box-like deep picture frames containing flowers made from women’s long, thick hair. Often, the flowers surround a 4 x 6” funeral card with the woman’s name and a brief bible passage. As the custodian of Great-grandpa’s 8” watch fob, finding pictures of him wearing it was a surprise. Ii was funeral jewelry. As the story was handed down, it was his. It wasn’t possible. More hair was made into a ring for Grandma. Whose hair is it? It was not uncommon to save a lock of the deceased’s hair. Could it have belonged to Great-grandpa’s mother?

Great-grandpa was born in 1845 the small village of Allendorf in Schwarzburg, Rudolstadt, Thuringia. He was almost nine when he boarded the Helene at Bremen to sail to the U.S. with his parents and sisters, aged 9 and 11. An ocean voyage is always especially memorable, but there was more for that little boy. His mother died at sea. However, she wasn’t buried at sea. Being just a day or two out of New York, her body was towed in to be buried in the U.S. Where she was buried, nobody really knew years later. Maybe that was due to shock, turmoil and language in 1854.

Great-grandpa’s father married a widow within months of landing. She needed a man to provide for her and her children. He needed a woman to do for him and his children. They had four more children and then she died. Great-grandpa’s sisters were there to care for the new, younger family. Great-grandpa’s father married another widow, but things didn’t go well and she left him. By then, Great-grandpa had married and had his own family, which also included his father who was in ill health. He died in 1891.

And the funeral jewelry? It is probable, that in 1854, Great-grandpa’s father and sisters would have taken locks of hair from their dearly loved wife and mother. It is not unrealistic to believe that the hair in the watch fob was his mother’s. Pictures of Great-grandpa show him wearing the watch fob well before the death of his father. The ring? It was made for someone with a slim finger. Eventually Grandma wore it. In wearing the watch fob, Great-grandpa did indeed keep his mother close to his heart. Grandma never knew that grandmother, but she held her close of all the days of her life.