dialectal "from the home" /of the home

[Wilson Gray]

On Nov 21, 2004, at 1:54 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Beverly Flanigan <flanigan at OHIO.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: dialectal "from the home" /of the home
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>
> I should have said, like Wilson, that this was a phrase common in our
> grandparents' day; I'm not sure our parents' generation could have
> gotten
> away with home preparations (or could they?).  I'd add that city or
> county
> police (or sheriffs) always escort funeral processions "up home" in
> Minnesota, and I presume everywhere else.  A procession might travel 50
> miles or more in a rural area, and police must clear the way and
> maintain
> reasonable speed.

Yes. My grandfather was buried in Longview and not in Marshall.

>   But using the State Police is new to me

It could have been the fact that Marshall and Longview are in separate
counties that motivated the use of the state police as opposed to the
local law. Also, I'm not even sure that Marshall had any regular peace
officers. I remember only the "uptown" parking-control guy who rode
about on a Harley-Davidson three-wheeler. (Any bikers out there can
supply the actual name of this thing.) There was some way of getting
people behind bars, since my granddad's nephew, an alcoholic, spent a
lot of time there. But that's all that I know. Marshall was/is? one of
those places where the signs told you when nobody was home: "Railway
Express man, key is under doormat. Money is in envelope on kitchen
table."

-Wilson Gray

> ; I'll ask my
> cousin, a retired MN highway patrolman.
>
> Beverly
> (To clarify: Borned and raised in Minnesota (as Ralph Stanley would
> say),
> lived the past 25 years in SE Ohio, with St. Louis and So. Indiana in
> between.  So am I a Midwesterner, a North Centraler, or a
> Mideasterner?)
>
> At 06:52 AM 11/21/2004 -0500, you wrote:
>> On Sun, 21 Nov 2004, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>
>>>> I'm sure the first was meant.  In any case, it's also used here in
>>>> SE
>>>> Ohio,
>>>> in print obits too.  I won't swear by it, but I think the phrase
>>>> "from
>>>> home" used to be used (in my parents' day) to indicate a home
>>>> funeral,
>>>> without the use of a mortuary: "He was buried from home."  Do others
>>>> recognize this?
>>>
>>> When my maternal grandfather died in 1956 in NE Texas, he was "buried
>>> from home." The phrase, as you note, "indicates a home funeral,
>>> without
>>> the use of a mortuary." BTW, the funeral cortege of any dead Texan,
>>> irrespective of race, creed, color, or sexual orientation, is
>>> escorted
>>> to his/her final resting place by the Texas State Police (not to be
>>> confused with the Texas Rangers). [Of course, the unspoken assumption
>>> is that the interment will take place somewhere within the borders of
>>> the great state of Texas.]
>>
>> Now the phrase makes sense.
>>
>> I have assisted in the burial of a number of Texans, all dead, but
>> never
>> with the assistance of the Texas State Police. When did this
>> custom begin?
>>
>> Bethany
>