Home interior but with a post mortem. Fig this is for you.

Hi,
Just ran across this really weird photo of the whole family with a little dead girl. I find it disturbing that they are smiling and the one woman holding a cat. Cat looks like my Ricky.
greg

 

Very disturbing. The one who looks most upset is the boy sitting on the floor.

Sweet, though, with the teddy and doll.

 

!!!!

 

Gregsglass, just curious but does it say anything on the back of the photo or on any papers with the photo that the child is dead?

I am having a hard time believing it is a post-mortem photo for the reasons you find it disturbing.

I can only say that this photo will not stay in my mind as a post-mortem. It will stay in my mind as a wild-eyed, over-active child who had "run-herd" over the entire group and then ran out of steam and was kindly placed on a blanket on the floor to sleep long enough to let the others get on with the party and the taking of the photograph.

My thinking may be reinforced by the fact that no one in the photo appears to be tenderly gazing at or in the direction of the child on the floor.

The woman on the sofa sitting near the child is close enough to kick the child's boot(s) and even she is not looking too upset in the setting of the photo if it were to be a post-mortem.

 

Hi Yourturntoloveit,
I was searching for interior shots of a famous Philadelphia Manson where I once lived and this photo turned up labeled "deathroom of family grieving their little girl." It is strange since the girl is resting on what looks like a bed pillow and the vase of flowers at her head. The fruit on the table and no back pillows on the divan the women is sitting on all is giving me strange feelings. When I first saw the photo without the label all I saw was the cat and thinking not much in way of decor and almost passed on as being boring until i saw the child on the floor. A girl that size would have been sent to bed and not allowed floor room, a smaller tot perhaps.
greg

 

Thanks for the response, Gregsglass. You're right about her being a "big girl" to be lying/sleeping on the floor. That, taken with the label on the photo . . . well, perhaps it indeed is a post-mortem photo, but "strange" to say the least in the setting as well as the demeanors of the people in attendance.

I find the photo twice or more as unsettling as post-mortem photos of a mother cradling her dead infant or small child as she gazes at her deceased child.

 

Thinking about some earlier impressions I had, I have a real problem with this being a post-mortem (description notwithstanding.)

How long would she have to be dead for rigor mortis to have passed enough for them to have dressed her completely and arrange her in that position?

If it's that long, why isn't she already in the casket?

Why does she have shoes on? People don't get buried in their shoes (do they?)

Is it possible that she fell asleep on the floor and they decided to stage the flowers and toys to take a "joke" photograph? Thus also explaining the general mirth on the faces?

I know you haven't the answers, greg, just my thoughts.

 

To me she doesn't have that "look" ,and those of us who have lost loved ones know what look I mean. If its a post mortem,its the weirdest one IVE ever seen !

 

I'm also having trouble believing it's a post-mortem photo. Considering how rarely people smiled in photos back then, and how many of the adults are smiling here, as well as the type of smiles, I think there's got to be some sort of inside joke going on.

 

If this were truly a dead child, do you really think they would have laid her out on the floor in front of the table with all the food? She would have been walked on as they went to the table.

There is too much mirth behind those smiles. I think it is staged for some reason or other.

 

Another thought... if the girl were dead, would the adult women be wearing black rather than the clothes in the photo?

 

I wouldn't want to be in a room with those humans.....they're decidedly CREEPY !!

 

I know I don't see as well as I used to, but I am not seeing any mirth on anyone's face. Who is smiling? Also, one might consider the possibility that the little girl on the floor is disabled, but nevertheless part of the family!

Or, as Susan said, that she merely fell asleep and the photographer had an odd sense of humor. As the mother of a child who was always asleep by 7:02, even in the midst of 50 people noisily partying...it's possible.

 

is it under glass ? certain irregularities 3/4 from bottom and at the left edge make me think of double exposure

 

Whoops, I saw this earlier and didn't notice that "Fig" was in the subject. I love the interiors... don't know about the PM idea. The cat is cute!

 

I'd say it's a PM, I think the Teddy & Doll were probably her favorite toys.

I'm usually very reluctant to say it. But people die on the regular back then. It's quite possible she died around a holiday. And the family was together for it.

Her face looks dead to me. But again, just my opinion.

 

But would they really lay their deceased child directly on the floor, with just a pillow under her head? Wouldn't that have been considered disrespectful?

 

I'm not sure, to some it may have been. But I guess it all depends. I think this is sorta tasteful. Including everyone who probably loved her (cat) & everything she loved (Her fav doll & Teddy). The flowers would be the real portion that says PM to me. No reason otherwise for them to be there.

 

I don't have much of an opinion, but I did do some searching for other PM photos, and I noticed that many of them showed a very different sensibility than we would expect today.
Sometimes shown with poses or decor we would not find appropriate now.
Many of them contained details similar to the ones in the current photo; details that seemed out-of-place or illogical.
But I'm thinking that those details might not have seemed out of place at the time.
So I do vote for it being a real PM photo. But that is just an opinion.

 

PS - a google search for the image shows that it appears on quite a few websites as a real PM photo...so whether real or not, it certainly is widely circulated....
link