"I was 16 years old when Ida Gertrude died and I could never forget what happened the day she was buried. She died at Uncle Carl's home (the brick home just west of Bronnenberg Cemetery). At that time very few people if any were embalmed, they were just "laid out" in their casket for a short period of one or two days before burial. The services were held at the house and then the casket was placed in a white Hearse to which was hitched two white horses, that being the custom for young people when they died, for other people the horses and Hearse were black. When the driver was ready for the horses to go they wouldn't move, he and other men tried and tried but they would not move, they whipped the horses until blood showed on their white hair but to no avail. Finally they gave up and some of the men carried the casket to the grave, which was not far. The casket was lowered into the grave and as soon as the people began leaving the attendants started to fill the grave with dirt, before they were finished they heard the girl in the grave scream, they were frantic and threw out the dirt as fast as they could, when they got the casket out where they could open it, the girl had turned over on her face and both hands were clutched into her hair. She was then really dead because of lack of oxygen. For some strange reason she had evidently been in a coma and had actually been buried alive"
(This is a story that was told of Ida Gertrude Bronnenberg's burial as told to Orville Leroy Bronnenberg by his father William Francis Bronnenberg, these are his words.)
(This is a story that was told of Ida Gertrude Bronnenberg's burial as told to Orville Leroy Bronnenberg by his father William Francis Bronnenberg, these are his words.)
"I was 16 years old when Ida Gertrude died and I could never forget what happened the day she was buried. She died at Uncle Carl's home (the brick home just west of Bronnenberg Cemetery). At that time very few people if any were embalmed, they were just "laid out" in their casket for a short period of one or two days before burial. The services were held at the house and then the casket was placed in a white Hearse to which was hitched two white horses, that being the custom for young people when they died, for other people the horses and Hearse were black. When the driver was ready for the horses to go they wouldn't move, he and other men tried and tried but they would not move, they whipped the horses until blood showed on their white hair but to no avail. Finally they gave up and some of the men carried the casket to the grave, which was not far. The casket was lowered into the grave and as soon as the people began leaving the attendants started to fill the grave with dirt, before they were finished they heard the girl in the grave scream, they were frantic and threw out the dirt as fast as they could, when they got the casket out where they could open it, the girl had turned over on her face and both hands were clutched into her hair. She was then really dead because of lack of oxygen. For some strange reason she had evidently been in a coma and had actually been buried alive"
(This is a story that was told of Ida Gertrude Bronnenberg's burial as told to Orville Leroy Bronnenberg by his father William Francis Bronnenberg, these are his words.)
(This is a story that was told of Ida Gertrude Bronnenberg's burial as told to Orville Leroy Bronnenberg by his father William Francis Bronnenberg, these are his words.)
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