Abby Burnett, Kingston, Arkansas, is a former freelance newspaper reporter. She is the author of When the Presbyterians Came to Kingston: Kingston Community Church 1917-1951.
This painstakingly researched and thoroughly engaging book is as
much an anthropological and sociological study as it is a
historical and folklorist account of death, dying, and burial in
the Arkansas Ozarks, covering our part of the country as well as
James K. Crissman did Central Appalachia. Including references from
legendary Ozark folklorists Otto Rayburn, Vance Randolph, and Mary
Celestia Parler, there is virtually no source of information that
Burnett hasn't explored--epitaphs, business ledgers, funeral home
records, obituaries, WPA questionnaires, health department
regulations, oral history interviews, ministers' journals,
censuses, mortality schedules, doctors' notes, undertakers' record
books, historic photographs, museum collections, and newspaper
accounts. Importantly, the book also documents the more difficult
to find death-related customs practiced by African Americans in the
Ozarks. An enjoyable read and helpful reference, this is a book
sure to be quoted and referenced for years to come.--Allyn Lord,
director, Shiloh Museum of Ozark History, Springdale, Arkansas
The research that went into the work will make it a useful guide
for scholars and interesting to anyone who has ever wondered about
an odd-looking monument in an Ozarks cemetery.--Rebecca A. Howard,
Lone Star College "Arkansas Historical Quarterly"
This book is engaging, fascinating, and horrifying as Burnett
explores most every conceivable aspect of dying, death, burial, and
remembrance. . . . Few things offer more insight into a society
than how it responds to death. A landmark work.-- "Elder Mountain:
Journal of Ozarks Studies"
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