Help Identifying Funeral Items

NJ Dorsey

Registered User
Hi all, I went to Barrick Funeral Home's closing estate sale in Salem, OR last Saturday.





I got there an hour early and was still #40 in line, so I guess there's quite an interest in this sort of thing. They even did a news story on it:

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/sto...ick-funeral-home-closes-estate-sale/78850518/

I only got two items and didn't have much time to think on them, as everything funeral related was being sold in literally the first couple seconds after 9am. The first item I grabbed is what I'm fairly certain is a shipping crate for a child's casket?



This 2nd item I am less sure of. Is it out of a funeral coach or just some sort of casket transport table?







It has metal rollers and iron handles, any thoughts on what year this could be from or what it might have come out of?
 
Noah

That is a child casket crate.

Those handles were likely added after.


Looks like a portable removal table.


Both pieces are very cool !

Congrats,
Darren
 
Darren is right. The Child's Casket crate was used to ship an empty casket to the funeral home from the manufacturer. After that, the handles were added to the crate to ship a casket with a body in it to a final destination for funeral/burial. At that point it is known as a "Shipping crate".

The portable rollers are placed in a station wagon, ambulance, wagon or other transport for use to roll a casket or shipping container in and out of the vehicle.
 
Thanks, guys! Any guesses as to what decade the casket table might be from? Or who might've built it? I believe the funeral home had been in operation since 1897.
 
it would be the perfect thing for loading into a horse drawn wagon. but my guess it it's home made. turn of the century people made there own stuff or the neighbor did it for you.
 
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