Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The first funeral you remember?

For me, a great aunt.

Aunt Gladiolas, the top of my head was about as high as the casket stand.

They called her, and old maid school teacher.

Went to one for a fella who was married to one of the old gals in church when I was about 7. He died in his sleep, and it was a few days before he had a funeral. It was summer. Open casket, he was turning green. Good times.

And I would go to that one once a week for life if it meant I wouldn’t have to have gone to my friend’s last year.

My uncle. About 1959 or 60. He was severely burned while pouring gasoline into a running tractor.

kwg

My parents had me and my bother walk up to view a cousin of my dads' we'd had never met...I mean, why the hell would parents have a 6-7yr old view a dead body in the first place? Well, didn't and hasn't ever bothered me, but really?

My maternal Grandpa's, when I was 11. It was really hard on me. He was struck by a falling tree and died shortly after. He was a good guy and a bit of a spoiler to us grandkids. 5 or so months later I went to the funeral of my paternal Grandpa who was also a good guy and a bit of a smart aleck, which is probably where I get that trait.

had cousin and his step-son put up a CB antenna tower at their house and touch an electric wire - killed them both. I was maybe 7 or 8. Didn't know any of those people and it was hard to comprehend how tragic it was. I don't really remember the funeral, I just remember the horrible 70's hair styles and clothing everyone wore.

I can't remember the specific first one for me but I was probably that age. Your folks were probably trying to let you see a little reality.....without it being one of your grandparents or someone else close for your first funeral.

It beats being 30, 40, or 50 and having to pop Xanax at a funeral because you can't handle seeing the guest of honor without freaking out.

A great uncle.

My Daddy, I was 6.

6 yrs old we were riding our bikes down hwy 77 to Dick Kleberg Park in Kingsville tx, Darrel Mahand my friend same age was hit by a car and killed. First time I saw someone get killed and the first funeral I went to. 1969.

JFK. I was 3. It interrupted my Saturday morning cartoons.

Maternal Great Grandmother, i was 9.I only remember her as senile,she didn t really know who my sister and i were.She thought we were like the neighbors kids or something.We always had to visit her every holiday.I remeber when i knelt at the coffin to say a "Hail Mary", i dared myself to touch her.I did,scared myself but good.

Baby sister who died at birth. I was ten and the oldest child. It was hard to wrap my then young mind around missing and grieving for someone I didn’t know yet. I still wonder what she would have been like had she lived.

I don’t remember the first one, some of them get chronologically mixed up in my mind. Have probably been to nearly a hundred of them. Being a deacon, a pall bearer, an honorary pall bearer, and all around hell of nice guy and man-about-town, I go to a lot.

youre a baller if you do
Visitation
Ceremony
And graveside

The fried chicken and mini subs are a nice bobo too.

First one I remember was my paternal grandfather who passed in Late 1960. I was 10 and they had calling hours for a day or two and then a funeral procession to the cemetery. That day we were standing in the front lobby of the funeral home when the big Cadillac hearse pulled up. One of my uncles then said to my dad; " Well... Now we're gonna see him in a Cadillac; he was right". I learned later on that a few years before he retired he had gotten a big promotion and a big raise. Folks were saying he should get himself a Cadillac, ( He always drove a base model Ford or Chevy ), and he told them what an extravagant waste of money a status symbol Cadillac was. He said the day you see me in a Cadillac will be the day that they bury me. He always was a man of his word.

Grandfather, when I was 6 years old, 1957. He was laying in a coffin out in the country in his farm house. Church and cemetery that his father started was 200 yards from his house.

Paternal grandfather at age 5 in 1972

Grandmother when I was 14.

The first death I remember was my maternal grandad. I was 8, but I don’t remember his funeral. My first memory of a funeral was my dad’s. I was 10 yrs old.

3rd grade, 9 years old. My best friend was swimming with his twin brother and another friend in the Mississippi River, undertow got him. The funeral was full of 3rd graders.