Portable Enbalming Kit
Date1920s
Credit LineGift of Evans Funeral Home and Logan Funeral Home, London, Ontario, 2013
Object number2013.003.001
Label TextLondon’s Evans Funeral Home, which opened in 1924 at 648 Hamilton Road, used this portable embalming kit. It includes an embalming machine, glass jars for formaldehyde or bodily fluids, medical tools needed for the embalming process, as well as curling irons. Does the last item surprise you? Curling irons were among the tools undertakers used to make the deceased look as life-like as possible for funerary services and visitations. Undertakers used portable embalming kits like this so they could provide in-home services and home funerals. As funeral homes became more popular in the early twentieth century, home funerals became less common, making portable embalming kits a thing of the past.
NameInstrument, Embalming
