A house funeral should always be very simple. Few flowers are used by people of good taste.
At a house funeral, a number of folding-chairs may be provided by the undertaker. The casket is placed on a draped stand at one end of the drawing-room, such flowers as are used being placed on and around it. The room may or may not be darkened according to the wishes of the family. Each guest should be greeted at the door by some representative of the family and shown to a seat in the drawing-room. A row of seats should be reserved near the casket for the immediate family, one being set aside for the clergyman who is to officiate. Though it is not obligatory it is very courteous to send a carriage or an automobile for him. A Protestant clergyman does not expect a fee but if he has come some distance or if the family wishes to express their thanks in that manner they may offer one which he is privileged to accept with perfect propriety.
It is not necessary to appoint pall-bearers for a home funeral. A quiet reserve and dignity should characterize the occasion, and it should be carried out with the greatest amount of expediency possible. If music is desired, the musicians or choristers should be in an adjacent room and the notes should be very low and soft.
Women do not remove their wraps during the ceremony, and men carry their hats in their hands. The women members of the bereaved family enter on the arms of masculine relatives, and if they intend going to the cemetery, they wear their hats and veils. The members of the family, however, do not enter the drawing-room until the clergyman arrives.
After the ceremony the guests quietly disperse, only those remaining who intend going to the cemetery. It is not expected that expressions of sympathy be offered on this occasion; cards are left for the family immediately after the announcement of the death, and a call of condolence is made, according to society's rules, within a week after the funeral. Thus it is superfluous to offer sympathy at the services, unless one is a very dear friend and wishes particularly to do so.
A POINT OF IMPORTANCE
Very often the women of the family, or perhaps just one woman, finds her grief uncontrollable. Even though the funeral is private, and only relatives and close friends are present it is the privilege of the bereaved to keep to her room and find solace in solitude. The world will not censure her for being absent; it is a time when petty conventions may safely be overlooked. When one is grieving, suffering, miserable; and prefers to find peace alone, without the sympathies of others, she has every right in the world to do so. And she is breaking no rules of good conduct, either, for people of good breeding will recognize the depth of her overpowering grief.
Surely it is better to remain away from the services than to go in a state of hysteria. When sorrow is so poignant, private home services are usually held, in which case the immediate members of the family may gather in a room adjoining that in which the guests are assembled. Even in the deepest grief it is possible to remember and observe the great law—"be calm, be silent and serene," and tears do not always mean sorrow, nor loud wailing, grief.
REMOVING SIGNS OF GRIEF
Upon their return from the funeral, the family should find the windows open with the warm sunlight streaming through them and all outward signs of sorrow removed. The ribbon and flowers on the door are generally taken down as soon as the procession leaves.