SHE WAS LATE FOR HER OWN FUNERAL

 In 1958 I was a 17 year old apprentice at the Aaron-Ruben Funeral Home in Indianapolis when Tillie Frisch died in Los Angeles.

Aaron-Ruben Funeral Home 1958

 Her body was to be shipped in from LA and the date and time for the funeral were set.  Two o'clock at the funeral home in two days.  Since she had left Indianapolis for a more congenial climate some years before
the general opinion was that it would be a small gathering.

Bodies were shipped  by rail in those days and the duty fell to me to get up in the middle of the night and trek to Union station to greet the train.  What I lacked in seniority I compensated in responsibility. 

Three o'clock in the morning found me deep inside the massive Romanesque Union Station.  the red brick walls were stained black
by the coal soot of three quarters of a century of steam engines.  The loading docks were supported by thick wooden beams chewed up by being bumped by countless carts and trucks over the decades.

 There I got the news that the train was late and would not be in for another three hours.  So, back to the funeral home where I settled in on my cot for a couple hours of sleep.  Up again and back to the station.  I found a dispatcher who told me the train had now derailed in Kansas and the shipping crate would be put on another train that was due in Indianapolis at---Two o'clock that afternoon.
The same time the funeral was scheduled.  This was getting serious.

To make a bad situation worse, no one knew if a Tahara had been performed.  A Tahara is the ceremonial washing and dressing in shrouds of the dead by a group called the Chevra Kadisha.  It is a very religious and sacred thing.  So the women of the Chevra Kadisha were brought in to stand by just in case.

Tillie Frisch was the first woman Certified Public Accountant 
in Indiana, if not the nation.  She was well known in many circles and had an illustrious and accomplished family.  At two o'clock our small and rather seedy chapel was packed with what appeared to be the entire Jewish community of Indianapolis.  The Rabbi.  The Cantor.  The electricity in the overheated room was overwhelming.

This time the manager went to the station along with a police escort.  Close to two thirty they arrived at the side entrance of the Funeral home, pulled out the shipping crate, pried off the lid and....
she was in street clothes.  The Tahara had not been performed.  Another delay while the Chevra Kadisha hastily went to work.

Finally as I pushed the casket through the doorway into the waiting throng the Cantor intoned his first note .  Tillie had finally arrived at her funeral.