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Katherine Anne Porter's Coffin:
The Last Word?
By Paul Porter
Editor's Note: After reading Dr. Clark Dobson's reminiscences of Miss Porter in the last issue of the newsletter, her nephew Paul Porter sent the editor his own recollections related to the famous wooden coffin. Curiously enough, the editor has recently exchanged correspondence with Willy von Bracht of Kalispell, Montana, who operates the Sweet Earth Casket & Cradle Shop, the successor of the firm from which Miss Porter purchased the coffin in 1974.
Aunt Katherine was captivated by the idea of having a wooden coffin after seeing a news photograph taken of the funeral of one of her long-ago friends in Mexico, Adolfo Best-Maugard I believe it was, although I am not positive. I got nowhere trying to find the coffin she wanted in New York City, just some very amused reactions from the funeral homes I contacted; but KAP serendipitously came across an advertisement by a maker of wooden coffins in Montana, and she immediately sent off for one. When it arrived it was almost comically too large for her, and the detailing was not at all what she had in mind; but perfect or not, she had a coffin.
Easily, freely, with no sense of morbidity whatever, we discussed her funeral arrangements on several occasions. She charged me with making sure that those arrangements were carried out, but this was not to be a simple task, since she changed her mind more than once. First she wished to be buried in the coffin with her body wrapped in a winding sheet, although in her case it wasn't a winding sheet, it was a large Belgian linen bed sheet, which she kept folded in the coffin at its foot along with a pair of little embroidered white silk slippers. Later, she decided that she wanted to be cremated and her ashes scattered on running water. I don't recall that any particular running water was specified, but it didn't matter because she changed her mind again. She decided that she wanted to be cremated and buried next to her mother in the Indian Creek Cemetery. She said nothing about wanting her ashes buried in the coffin, which, once she fixed her mind on cremation, seemed little more than a prop to amuse friends and intrigue journalists. One day, in an attempt to determine conclusively her final wishes, I brought up the subject as tactfully as I could while she was talking about her death, as she did more and more often. It was a mistake. She flew into show-stopping hysterics and accused me of being cruel and heartless and wanting her to die. . . .
As for burying the two or three handfuls of her ashes in an absurdly outsized wooden coffin that would soon molder into dust and probably crater the soil that covered it, the idea never occurred to me and would have struck me as preposterous if it had. I agree with Clark Dobson that it was not terribly important whether she was buried in the coffin or not. I can't help thinking that Aunt Katherine, if she were somehow able to express an opinion, would say that it delights her to have the coffin just where it is today, in the Katherine Anne Porter Room, getting all this attention!
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