Those with family burial places on their homesteads waited until all relatives and friends arrived, than prayers were said and the interment took place. At times night burials, illuminated by lighted-knot torches, also occurred when decomposition made it necessary to get the body in the ground. The men who dug the grave considered it an honor to do so. In town, church bells tolled for the number of years a person had lived, and a preacher led the prayers. But finding a horse and wagon to transport the coffin from the church to the cemetery sometimes posed a problem because few were available.
Early residents remember the relief it was when trucks and hearses became popular.
All too often the horse and wagon bogged down in the deep sand-rut roads, especially in rain weather, thus adding further misery to the sad occasion. Along the Gulf Coast, boats were used as conveyances to graveyards located on sequestered bayous around the bay. At times just one boat transported the deceased, while family and friends walked along the shoreline. On other occasions several boats formed the funeral procession. When the boat approached the shoreline, the pallbearers rolled up their trousers and stepped into the waste.