The Cook County herald. [volume] (Grand Marais, Minn.) 1893-1909, 1907-02-09
SORROW TOLD IN BEADS.
Bavarians Do Not Use Flowers at
Funerals-Gaudy Dec
oratious.


Funerals-Gaudy Dec
orations.
In Bavaria you do not send cut
And there is apparently no variety of
mourning for youth or old age, for
mother, husband or father, that the
maker of these tokens will not under
take to express
Symbols of past, present or future
emotions, in every color of the rain
bow, are offered you at the mourning
bead shop at most modest prices.
Here in America a funeral wreath of
flowers is often a token of debt as
well as of sorrow, but in Bavaria
| bright cemetery ornaments that will
last generation are sold for a few
marks, spray of flowers for 25 cents,
small wreath for IS cents.
Where in small town in America
you will find two or three fourishing
| florists, in Bavaria there are instead
| cemetery bead shops. Even in the
cities, in Munich where life fancies
itself cosmopolitan. there are few cut
| flowers to be had and these are for
mirthful occasions only; but every.
where there are snowy displays of
glass flowers and gorgeous expressions
of Teutonic sorrow that will last a
lifetime.
To the American mind these gaudy
decorations are often at first distinct
ly shocking. A cemetery hung with
gay emblems of sorrow somehow
seems grotesque to the practical mind.
Picture some digniied man of your
acquaintance solemnly following
procession and proudly carrying aloft
a huge anchor of glittering beads,
with an inscription expressing his
grief in purple beads large enough for
a necklace.
Yet frequently you see such a sight
over there. The Bavarian mourner
would no more hesitate to carry this
snowy symbol than he would to weep
in public or talk dramatically in a
cemetery or seek the Hofbrau imme-
diately after, not to drown his sorrow,
but to find the best earthly consola-
ton.
It is worth while getting a first i'm
preston of such bead decorated GEM
etery out in some remote Bavarian
village, where the touch of civilization
has not robbed German grief of it's
fullest emotional expression; where a
lover who would remain true through
| 1,io - =
haired sweetheart will try to express
his sorrow by large wreath of raw
blue bead flowers. sprinkled with huge
jet tears. And it is not merely the
peasant boy who can find satisfactory
vent for sorrow in such offerings
The poet, the musician, the man of
culture-all alike turn to the colored
beads in their sorrow.
One of the most characteristic of
these Bavarian cemeteries is out at
Dettwang. tiny, messy, gray-green
, village which creeps down to the edge
of the yellow Tauber, the smallest old
: river with the biggest old bridge in
Bavaria.
The church is a fifteenth century
Gothic edifice, about the size of fam.
lily altar in Rhine cathedral It has
no history and no especial grace, ex.
cept an altar carved in wood; but one
, finds a curious contrast between the
crumbling old building and the gaudi
1y adorned cemetery, where every
monument of stone or wood. old OF
new, expensive or cheap, carries its
glittering burden of anchor, crown or
, bouquet in colored beads, jet OF
enamel.
AS one turns the corner of the mar.
= row street and first comes into view
Of the cheerful little graveyard the
impression is of an unusually large
and snowy outdoor millinery opening
little garden to display hats. real
German hats. for the wreaths have
streamers of ribbon and crane and the
crowns have pompom of flowers and
! the stars of hope might easily be
summer garden party hats especially
| when appearing in pompadour pink
and blue glass with crystal tears on
the flower petals.
And the thick. cultural Bavarian
pride in these symbols is a source OF
+! establishment to the sophisticated
: American. They viii tell you how
the. rain, cannot fnjure but really
, cleans the emblems, and how beauti
fully they CLEAN and dazzle IN the
sun. -.
>. Possibly outside of custom and ira.
dition the great appeal made: BY the
glass token to the ,. thrifty German
mind is: its durability. a. wreath ones
) given is: there, fer a. generation fol-
: church-going friends: to admire.
~ 'fFF : ~ =.
Mauna Lea's: Distinction.
Manua sI0a IN the Sandwich 1el,nA.