Historical Funeral Practices at Riverside

Funerals usually had many persons in attendance. The funeral visitations were held in the home. Then the pallbearers carried the casket to the nearest streetcar stop. Next the pallbearers, casket and mourners boarded the funeral car and rode to the cemetery. Some walked to the cemetery, some came on horseback, some in carriages and some rode on a special funeral car. The city transit system had two funeral cars that could be hired for $10-$15 to deliver a bodied casket and mourners to the gates of the cemetery. These special funeral streetcars were used until 1915.

In those days, before the arrival of the motor car until after World War I, the cemetery had its own team of horses and a carriage which were used to move the body from the streetcar into the cemetery. Riverside Cemetery usually used a black carriage and a white horse. The trolley conductor would give three blasts of the whistle when he got within a certain distance of the cemetery to allow enough time for a cemetery person to get the horse and carriage to the front gate to meet the funeral car. This car stopped at the front cemetery gate where the mourners exited the car. The casket was removed from the funeral car and placed on the cemetery's horse drawn carriage. This carriage then led the procession of the mourners to the gravesite. Musicians played Brass horns from the outside of the office building tower from the time the family arrived until they left the cemetery.