Why do people attend the funerals of people they don't know? Many are there to support the grieving family members that they do know, but there are people who regularly attend funerals of complete strangers for various reasons of their own. A 19th-century undertaker pointed out one of the ""amateur mourners" to a reporter.
“Well,” continued the undertaker, with an appreciative smile, “she’s as fine a regular attendant as any establishment in this city can produce. I send her an invitation to all my nice funerals, and I have sometimes sent a carriage for her when I knew mourners would be scarce. She is never really happy unless she is at a funeral. She won’t touch weddings, as most women will; her sole amusement, so to speak, is a first-class funeral;” and the undertaker looked over to the old lady with a tender professional interest.
“I have some other nice people on my list,” he went on. “One of my most graceful mourners live in Forty-eight street, and seldom gets down this way, but she hardly ever passes a day without a funeral, and I never saw her at one when she couldn’t’ shed tears with the best of them. She’s one of the heart-brokenest ladies I ever had for a ‘regular.’ Does she really feel badly? Well, I should say she did, most decidedly. She always has a word to say to the family, if she thinks they need comforting, and is very careful to learn all the particulars. Why, she can tell me all the details about some of my own funerals that I had forgotten years ago. She’s as good as a set of books.
This undertaker also knew of mourners who were obsessed with one particular part of the funerary rites or who wanted to get into the business, some who came for the food, and a few who were looking for a newly-available spouse. Read about amateur mourners at the Victorian Book of the Dead. -via Strange Company