Cape Breton's Magazine

starting a job on Friday or going some? where on Friday • they say this is a bad day • I never believed. A long time ago, on the morning of the fun? eral, they used to have a truck drawn by horses. A wagon, a low wagon, and there were some wagons with two seats • well, they used to take the seats off and they used to put the coffin in it. At first they used to make all the coffins. They used to line them with black and they used to put a lit? tle lace all around. And they used to make a little cross on the top of the cover, white, you know. After that, it was an ord? inary automobile. But now it's nice, a hearse, like in the city. Mr. Deveau: You know, when they first o- pened this funeral home it took a long time • everybody didn't want to go there. They didn't want to be dragged over there. They wanted to be kept at home. Mrs. Dev? eau: I'll tell you what put that in their head. It's because there were some people which the council used to take care of, they had no home • and the priest said, I think we'll fix up that room like for those people, a room in the church • and people kind of thought it was because we wanted charity or something if they were going to put us there. Like us, we took care of an old fellow. Then we .didn't put him there. I told him we'd wake him here. Today, there's a lot of old people that prefer going there. They understand how nice it is, for the people of the house. Me • first, my husband, my father-in-law, my mother-in-law, my daughter • if it had been in a funeral parlour I don't know how I would have felt to leave them from 10 o'clock at night till the next morning. Maybe I would have felt worse than J did here. There's not as much remembrance. In f the house, you remember everything. Every time I'd go in that room I could see ev? erything. And I was sad, I was crying. If a person dies in the hospital and you think of them as though they're still in the hos? pital • and you don't feel so sad at the wake. You see nothing in the house. The house is like it was before. But, then, for me it wasn't the same. I couldn't find my? self comfortable here after that. Today they got some people to dig all graves. Before it was the family or the neighbours who dug the grave. But now you don't have to worry. You go to the under? taker. He has everything done for you. It's so easy. IDEAUCE CREAM The Only Ice Cream Manufactured in Cape Breton Prince Street, Sydney 564-4549 BRIAND'S CAB Cape Breton TOURS Visit Fortress Louisbourg Graham Bell Museum Miners Museum Gaelic College see the beautiful CABOT TRAIL 564-6161 664-6162 TROPICANA Restaurant &Lounge; itJDMBy SHOVPINS MALI, iitl'ee Street, 9r4laer Restanraat Hoors 11 AM - 10 IN Lowge Boors 11 AM -> 1 AM TOP BANDS NIGHTiy