Patsy Z. Johnson African American Funeral Program Collection Soon Will Be Digitized at EBPL Genealogy and Special Collections

Last month Johnson was reading a news article about the preservation of African American funeral programs in the Louisiana Florida Parishes. According to the article, Dr. Antoinette Harrell, a genealogist and local historian formed   a partnership   with Richardson Funeral Home, Inc. Amite, to preserved the the historical records. 

Last year Dr. Harrell  and Richardson Funeral Home, Inc. Amite,  established a collection at the Center for Louisiana Southeast Studies Department in Hammond, Louisiana.

Johnson contacted Harrell to talk with her about her collection. Harrell invited Johnson to her home office to look at the collection and to advise Johnson what to do to preserve the collection. After hearing what Harrell had to say, Johnson was committed to preserving tis collection for future generations in her family and family historian, genealogist and researchers.  

Funeral programs serve as a memorial for the dearly departed. In the programs, information about the deceased can be found. Such as their date of birth and the death date, the names of their parents and siblings, children, and other family members. If a woman was married, there is a strong possibility that you will find her maiden name in the program, Genealogist and historian find treasures in these programs and they value such documents.

Following the completion of Dr. Harrell's database for the Patsy Zander Johnson funeral program collection,  she confirmed that it contains one hundred and sixty programs.  Harrell's database comprised of the following: surname, given name, year of birth, date of birth, place of burial and location of burial.   

A number of the programs are from the funerals of the deceased who resided in St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, Washington Louisiana Florida Parishes. A few of the programs were from Tylertown, Progress, and Osyks, Mississippi. Some of Tyltertown, Mississippi is a part of this collection.  The collection consist of a large number of Brumfield's and Briggs families. 

Dr. Harrell the curators for Richardson Funeral Home, Inc. Amite Funeral Programs, is promoting community awareness of the importance of preserving these rich historical collections.  Among the noted burial grounds are: Union Chapel AME Church Cemetery, Kentwood, Louisiana.  Mt. Olive Baptist Church Cemetery, Mt. Hermon, Louisiana,  Shady Grove Cemetery, Progress, Mississippi,  Crystal Springs Cemetery, Rocky Hill, Tylertown, Mississippi, Butler AME Cemetery, Amite, Louisiana,  Big Zion Cemetery,  Roseland, Louisiana, and Rocky Hill Cemetery in St. Helena Parish. 

The collection has been organized and compiled and is ready to be submitted to the East Baton Rouge Public Library Genealogy and Special Collections for digitization. All funeral programs are accessible to the public on the EBPL  Genealogy and Special Collections website. 

Links

The Center for Southeast Louisiana Studies

http://www.southeastern.edu/acad_research/programs/csls/historical_collections/archival_collections/r_s/richardson_funeral_home/index.html

East Baton Rouge Public Library

https://ebrpl.libguides.com/c.php?g=44597&p=284123

East Baton Rouge Parish Library Digitizing Funeral Programs from Richardson Funeral Home, Inc. Amite.

Kay Hurst and Melissa Eastlin
EBPL-Photo
Credit: Dr. Antoinette Harrell

The African American funeral programs contains a wealth of information about the deceased that gives insights into their lives. The funeral programs contains their name, date of birth, date of death, parents names, maiden names of women who were married, occupation, education and civic duties and organization affiliation, names of their siblings, and children.  Valuable information  is provided in these programs that can be a great help to anyone researching their family history. 

In sharing some of the Watson funeral program with  award winning author, radio talk show host, and genealogist Bernice Bennett, she discovered information about her family history and learned about her ancestors on her grandfather side of the family. "These are my relatives on my grandfather side of the family. Bennett explained to me." Each of the people on the Watson funeral programs and funeral home books are in my family tree. 

Kay Hurst, Research Specialist at the Genealogy and Special Collections Department at the EBRPL, sent an email requesting me to meet with   them about the collection. They read the article published  in the Advocate newspaper "Segregation erased generation of  Black history. This Louisiana funeral home rediscovering it." During our meeting they told me that they would gladly digitized the collection and return the originals copies  back to me. Because Richardson Funeral, Inc. Amite has a collection at the Center for Southeast Louisiana Studies, I thought it would be best to consult with Dr. Samuel Hyde, the Center Executive Director before I make any decision concerning this collection. He informed me that was alright to get them digitized. I was hoping that he would agree with this process.

East Baton Rouge Parish Library collection is a collaborative effort between the East Baton Rouge Parish Library Special Collection  Department and numerous community contributors to collect preserve and make available this unique resource.

Any archivist's greatest concern during a natural disaster is the loss of historical materials, rare books, audio, video, and photographs.  The Georgia Public Library Service new collection features more than 100 years of digitized African American Funeral programs. The San Antonio Public Library, Texas has a digitized African-American Program Collection. The African American Funeral Programs Collection at the East Baton Rouge Parish. I'm glad to see that this digitized process is happening Louisiana,

Thomas Cook
EBPL: Photo Credit: Dr. Antoinette Harrell

Richardson Funeral Home, Inc., Amite, Nurturing Our Roots Media and Dr. Antoinette Harrell has become a contributors to the preservation for funeral programs at EBPL. Digitization of this collection provides access to the funeral programs of several of the Florida parishes and other parishes in Louisiana to anyone worldwide who are searching for genealogical and historical information through the use of digital technology. In collaboration with my brother Thomas, we gathered the funeral programs and took them to the East Baton Rough Parish Library Special Collection Department for digitization preservation. It will take Kassandra and Kay approximately one month to digitize the collection.

It took me two days to alphabetize 590 funeral programs. I also created a database of the funeral programs for Richardson Funeral Home, Inc., Amite,  The Center for Southeast Louisiana Studies, and the East Baton Rouge Parish Library. Creating this database facilitates a faster processing of the collection. I would definitely say it's my passion and a labor of love. 

Please see the link below for the African American Funeral Program EBRPL:

https://www.ebrpl.com

https://batonrougedigitalarchive.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16340coll17