There’s something about the shift in the air during the month of October that opens our minds to discussions about mortality. With images of skeletons dancing in store windows and foam tombstones adorning the yards across town, the subject of death–at least in the context of fun and thrill–becomes a little more commonplace. But how do we react when the subject of death and dying comes up in conversation during other months of the year? And more importantly, how has that reaction evolved during the history of mankind? We’ve decided to embrace the spookiness in the air and talk about the evolution of the social perception of mortality and find out how Everett coped with the same difficult subject.

Many of the artifacts actually come into our museum collection as a result of a death. They are heritage or heirloom items from a family member or passed down from a family collection. Often times, after somebody dies, the families go through the estates and have to make the difficult decision about what to do with the important pieces of that person’s life. If the family lacks the resources to care for it, typically they find that a museum is the best choice – knowing it will be cared for, as long as the artifacts meet the mission of the organization.

Scroll down to take a look at some of the artifacts we pulled that reflect death and dying in Everett.

This photograph is example of Native American burial practices. As discussed in the podcast, the traditional practice of above ground burial was placing canoes in trees, but in this photograph, the canoe is up on stilts. According to nps.gov, certain tribes of the Pacific Northwest commonly practiced above-ground burials using trees, scaffolds, canoes, and boxes on stilts, which decayed over time. 

When Queen Victoria’s husband Prince Albert died in 1861, the queen mourned his death for the rest of her life, sparking a change in how society mourned, as well. Along with elaborate funerals, it also became popular to wear mourning clothing for an extended period of time. We have many pieces of mourning clothing in our collection. This piece is a black jacket or bodice with puff sleeves, ca. late 1800s. It is made from crepe overlaid with lace. This is the type of clothing that would be worn in the first and second stages of mourning, with pops of muted colors, like blues and grays, added in the final stage.

​Not only was mourning expressed in clothing, but Victorians also made jewelry and art from the hair of the recently deceased. We have multiple pieces in our collection that reflect this very practice including many pieces of jewelry. This piece, is made almost entirely of human hair, interwoven with beads and decorated with ribbon. This piece is encased an oval frame and the hair woven into decorative flowers. Interestingly, with proper care, hair remains quite stable, and the quality and detail of the work most likely looks just as good as when it was created.

The Port of Everett donated a large collection of casket making tools and templates from the Cascade Casket Company, all found at the Collins Building by Port workers, before the building was torn down. Among these artifacts are wooden drawers, crate tops, hand drawings, edging samples, paper and metal templates for wood details, woodworking tools, and one large iron eye hook. The templates and edging samples were used to create the different shapes and edging styles on the caskets themselves.

​Among the scale models in our collection is a model of the Collins Building itself. This is a 1/8th scale model build by modeler Robyn Boyd and donated by him & his wife Marilyn Boyd in early 2016. This model provides a great example of what the building looked like and you can envision it sitting along the port in downtown Everett.

We couldn’t do these types of projects with help from historians past. Please check out the list below to browse our list of sources for this project. We’d like to give a shoutout to Lisa Labovitch of the Northwest Room at the Everett Public Library for her time during our research. Lisa is incredibly knowledgeable and the Northwest Room is an invaluable resource for the community.

Additionally, the Solie Funeral Home holds a recurring event called Death Cafe, where citizens can come in and chat with staff there about everything death and dying. Their website states that the mission of this event is to “increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their finite lives.”  This is a great opportunity to have a candid discussion about mortality.

Lastly, we’d like to thank the UK-based band The Whiskey Rebellion for allowing us to use their music. The album featured in our podcast discusses the themes of mortality and is, in their words, “a jaunty, fun look at embracing the final veil, and making the most of what you have before it’s over.” We couldn’t agree more.
We hope you’ve enjoyed Canoes to Caskets and that you’ve learned a little something about this cool city. Don’t forget to check out our partners, and as always, feel free to reach out for anything and everything Everett.

Contributors:
Chase Dermott, Writer, Researcher, and Narrator
Heather Schaub, Producer
Elaine Carter, Researcher

Sources:
Everett’s Evergreen Cemetery: A Brief History by Patrick Hall
The Graveyard to Graveyard Tour Guide hosted by Tom & Cindy Smith and Bill & Karen Read, courtesy of the Northwest Room, Everett Public Library
History of Snohomish County Washington, Volume 1 by William Whitfield
Evergreen Cemetery, 2011 Draft by David Dilgard, courtesy of the Northwest Room, Everett Public Library
Port of Everett – Collins Casket Co./Cascade Casket Co./North Coast Casket Co.
Historic Everett – Challacombe & Fickel Funeral Home
Everett Public Library – Evergreen Cemetery
US Gen Web Archives, cemeteries of Snohomish County
Chirouse, Father Eugene Casimir (1821-1892), by Margaret Riddle
Collins Building (North Coast Casket Company), Everett, by Margaret Riddle
The History of Death and Burial Customs, by Kimberly Powell
Death and Mourning Practices in the Victorian Age, by Marilyn A. Mendoza, Ph.D.
Victorian Era Mourning Period Rituals, Clothes to Wear
Victorians Made Jewelry Out of Human Hair by Rose Eveleth, Smithsonian.com
Burial Customs and Cemeteries in American History, National Park Service

If there’s one thing that motivates me, it’s food. Needless to say, when we were invited to set up a booth at the Maker’s Market during Everett’s Food Truck Festival, we were pumped. Not only is this a great opportunity to reach out to people, but we get to be around food for hours this weekend. HOURS.
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You might be wondering what a museum could possibly do at a food truck festival. It’s a legitimate question. We wondered the same thing and took to the archives looking for inspiration. It didn’t take long before a glorious piece of Everett’s past presented itself.

A menu! Everett has food! And throughout its history, Everett has been home to hundreds of restaurants, cafes, bakeries, pubs, saloons, and diners! Inspired by the low menu prices and the clever items on the menu, we dug into the archives looking for more of Everett’s delicious past.

After pulling the rest of our artifacts and photographs for the exhibit, we decided to look into the Gaffney’s Cafe menu a little more to get a picture of the restaurant business in early Everett. Gaffney’s Cafe was owned by James C. Gaffney and was located at 1507 Hewitt Ave, where the Everpark Garage sits today. James Gaffney first appears in the Polk directories in 1911 as a cook. He continues in this line of work for the next 8 years or so, working at Weiser’s Cafe for part of that time. Around 1919, James becomes the owner and manager of Union Cafe, located at 1507 Hewitt Ave. Union Cafe eventually becomes Gaffney’s Cafe and runs until about 1932 when it disappears from the directory. 

Now, of course I couldn’t just stop there. What would be the fun of learning about the restaurant business without getting a little taste of it ourselves? And what better way to do that then to try it at home! I turn my attention to the breakfast menu to see if there’s anything I have a chance of recreating.

​Bingo. Poached eggs.

I have only made poached eggs before in one of those microwave things. You know what I’m talking about, right? Break the eggs into each little cup, close the lid, microwave until it starts to explode and hope for the best? I’m assuming this is not how James Gaffney made poached eggs and since I’ve never made them the traditional way, naturally I’ll be trying it for the first time in front of an audience. Perfect.

I needed some sides to go with my eggs so I decided to recreate the homemade sausage and sliced peaches on the menu. I also noticed an ad in the back of the menu that tells us that Gaffney’s only served Bargreen’s Coffee. This could not be any more perfect; we’re only a few blocks from Bargreen’s!

My next step was to find recipes for our menu items because I’m not a good cook. Luckily, we have many cookbooks in the archives that are full of recipes with vague directions and weird ingredients. This is the fun part.

Carefully looking through dozens of cookbooks is no easy feat, especially when many of them lack reference pages and none of them are digitized. Eventually I found poached eggs in The Home Queen Cook Book. This copy of the cookbook was published in 1901 and is a glorious treasure trove of recipes. There must be over a thousand recipes in this thing.

I found a recipe for sausage cakes in The Household Searchlight Recipe Book published in 1935.

The vague “any other desired seasonings” part of the instructions could have been disastrous here, but I did some searching online to find a nice spice combo and added the ingredients to my list.

Now that I had all my ingredients listed, it was time to shop. I dropped by Bargreen’s Coffee Co. for a pound of golden drip. Bargreen’s is an Everett institution. Established in 1898 by Sam Bargreen, this local coffee haven is still family owned and operated, and their service is as good as their coffee.
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I walked into Bargreen’s seeking something that would complement our breakfast and asked the helpful barista for a pound of whole beans that was closest to the “golden drip” advertised in our menu. She disappeared behind a curtain and reappeared with this gloriousness:

The polka dots, the font, gah! Inside this rad vintage bag was a fresh pound of Good Morning Blend which smelled as good as it sounds. Heck yes. Bargreen’s truly went above and beyond to make this breakfast special.
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I continued on to Sno-Isle Food Co-op where I picked up fresh peaches, a pound of locally made ground pork, and some spices from the bulk section. All in a day’s work.

I woke up Saturday morning knowing it was coffee and breakfast time. Naturally my first concern was the coffee.

I ground the beans to a good drip size and started the pot. Next I mixed the spices with the ground pork from Jack Mountain Meats to get our sausage going.

 I created eight small sausage cakes as the recipe suggested and heated the pan.The meat you can’t beat.

​I filled a second pan with water and a small bowl to start the poached eggs. At this point, I was thinking my eggs were going to stick to the tiny bowl, but the recipe doesn’t say to grease it, so I just had to hope it wouldn’t.

With the sausages simmering in the skillet, I monitored the water, waiting for it to be hot but not boiling. Do they mean simmering? Is it supposed to just be steaming? I had no idea, so I decided to wait for it to start steaming and dropped the egg into the saucer as soon as I started to see bubbles. I had no idea if this was right but I was already committed. I dropped an egg in the tiny bowl, expecting it to turn white right away like a normal fried egg. Nope.

I panicked a little, thinking I definitely put the egg in too early and this is going to be a disaster. I watched while the jiggly raw egg in a bowl rattled around in the pan, slowly turning white and eventually cooking all the way through.

While the egg was making its painfully slow transition from raw to cooked, I washed and sliced the peaches.

​This was by far the easiest part of the process and Sno-Isle Food Co-op has the best produce. I approached peach slicing much like avocado slicing. I made a single slice through the vertical midline, rotated the knife around the pit, twisted the two peach halves apart, and removed the pit. Easy peasy.

With the sausages nearly finished, I prepped our plate, poured the coffee (DELICIOUS) and toasted some bread. I’d originally planned to serve two poached eggs over easy, but poaching the egg in the water was torturous and I didn’t want to cook a second one. Also, it totally stuck to the bowl. I called it.

Order up! Overall, not a bad try! My family enjoyed their 1920s cafe breakfast and we hope James Gaffney would be proud.
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Now that breakfast is over, it’s time to pay up. Our bill total would have been $0.80 when Gaffney’s was up and running, though I’d probably have to offer a discount for refusing to cook a second egg.

If you’d like to see the Gaffney’s menu in all its glory, visit us on Saturday, August 24th in the Maker’s Market section of the Everett Food Truck Festival! We’ll be there from 12-6pm showing artifacts and photographs of Everett’s delicious food history.

And as always, tag Everett Museum of History on Facebook and @everettmuseum on Instagram and Twitter if you recreate this spread because we really want to see it. Seriously. And don’t forget to share this gem with your friends so more people can watch us embarrass ourselves for the sake of history.