Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library

Independent Order of Odd Fellows Funeral
1911
W. E. Trivett
USA: Tennessee, Butler
Silver print photographs on card stock
sheet : 12"h x 14"w
Special Acquisitions Fund
97.046.1b

Black and white photograph of an Independent Order of Odd Fellows funeral; b: farm-yard scene with mourners; the reverse pen-inscribed "Sept. 9, 1911"; same photographer impression as "a."

Central to Odd Fellowship is the charge to “Bury the Dead.” A funeral of an Odd Fellow in Butler, Tennessee, is the subject of this photograph. Along with family and friends, brethren of the deceased, wearing Odd Fellows collars and badges of office, surround the coffin at the center of this image. By tradition the funeral ceremony of an Odd Fellow included a procession of members of his lodge and an address or prayer by the lodge’s Chaplain. Members of his lodge also cast sprigs of evergreen onto the coffin to mark their brother’s passing.