Emilee Hackney: To this day, I’ve never been to an Appalachian funeral where there wasn’t a preacher and a sermon. ...

Emilee Hackney: To this day, I’ve never been to an Appalachian funeral where there wasn’t a preacher and a sermon. It’s the same around here. I keep hearing that cremation is now the majority practice but I can count on one hand the number of services or memorials I’ve attended that involved a cremated body. Here, the body is almost always in an open casket and the funeral service always has a preacher, who preaches a sermon well more than half the time. Elsewhere funerals may have changed a lot over the years but my experience of them is essential unchanged since childhood.