Casket

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court arranged yesterday a special tribute to Justice Thurgood Marshall.His casket will be available for viewing in the court's cavernous Great Hall throughout the day tomorrow. The only other justice to be honored in this way was Chief Justice Earl Warren, a court spokesman said.Mr. Marshall, 84, the nation's first black justice and a celebrated civil rights lawyer earlier in his career, died Sunday afternoon.The public viewing of his casket will be followed by public funeral services at 11 a.m. Thursday at the National Cathedral.

Schaefer's interment at Dulaney Valley Light showers swept the lawns at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens as the William Donald Schaefer funeral cortege arrived about 2:20 p.m. The National Weather Service had issued a tornado watch for the Baltimore region. Schaefer's hearse was preceded up the drive by The Fire Brigade Pipes & Drums of Greater Baltimore, playing bagpipe music and a slow drum cadence. The hearse was escorted by four police officers on motorcycles, followed by a dark, rider-less horse, which symbolizes a fallen leader.

Willie Olan Simmons, a retired casket company owner and cemetery manager, died of heart failure Aug. 12 at Northwest Hospital Center. He was 84. Mr. Simmons was born in Lockwood Folly, N.C., and raised in Wilmington, N.C. After serving in the Army in the late 1940s, he moved to Baltimore and became a plasterer and cement finisher. He retired in 1972. He managed Mount Auburn Cemetery in the city's Westport neighborhood for nearly a decade before establishing A Line Casket Co. in the 1800 block of N. Longwood St. in the early 1980s.

From late morning to afternoon, images of a man with many hats and faces rolled by on the big TV monitor in the State House main hall: William Donald Schaefer in full white chef's garb, done up as George Washington crossing the Delaware, wearing a cowboy hat, gesturing with a pointed finger and the customary intensity. The people who gathered around had known him close up or from afar as a constant presence in Maryland politics. A few yards away, Schaefer lay in state in a casket draped with an American flag, guarded one more time by two Maryland state troopers, one stationed at the head and one at the foot of the casket.

Thomas B. Heyman, a casket salesman, died of a heart attack Saturday at Franklin Square Hospital Center. The Nottingham resident was 71. Born in Baltimore and raised in Little Italy, he was a 1951 graduate of Patterson Park High School and was captain of its varsity basketball team. He served in the Army and earned a degree from the University of Baltimore. In 1956, he began selling caskets for the old Baltimore-based National Casket Co. at Lombard and President streets. Since 1980, he had worked for Warfield Rohr Co. He was a member of Little Italy Lodge of the Order of Sons of Italy.

An upholsterer who worked for one of Baltimore's oldest casket companies for almost three decades has won a five-year legal battle to prove he was fired for age discrimination. On behalf of former casket company employee Frederick W. Kuehnl, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a civil suit against Warfield-Rohr Casket Co. Inc. of Baltimore. Late Friday night, a federal court jury awarded Kuehnl $397,948.75 in lost wages. Yesterday, his attorney, Regina M. Andrew, said she is planning to file paperwork seeking additional compensation based on the date the lawsuit was filed.

From a showroom in a squat, brick building in Havre de Grace, with red and white balloons bobbing outside, Bob Rynes sells merchandise no one wants to buy - or even look at. No one wanders into the store, next door to a beauty salon, just to browse. That's OK with "Baltimore Bob," as his supplier has dubbed Rynes, owner of Blue Moon Casket Co., the first casket retail store in Maryland. Rynes opened this month in a carpeted showroom just big enough for a tidy desk and a dozen gleaming caskets sitting side by side, figuring he'll win customers over by saving them money.

Perhaps nowhere is the issue of obesity in America more vividly illustrated than at Goliath Casket of Lynn, Ind., specialty manufacturers of oversize coffins. There, one can see a triple-wide coffin - 44 inches across, compared with 24 inches for a standard model. With extra bracing, reinforced hinges and handles, the triple-wide is designed to handle 700 pounds without losing what the euphemism-happy funeral industry calls its "integrity." When Keith and Julane Davis started Goliath Casket in the late 1980s, they sold one triple-wide, their largest model, each year.

ALSIP, Ill. - The earth above Emmett Till's grave was scraped away just after dawn yesterday, and steel cables hoisted his burial vault from the ground as family members prayed nearby. The barrel-topped concrete vault containing Till's metal casket was raised to a flatbed truck and covered in a blue tarp. Seven squad cars then escorted the remains on the 20-mile trip to Chicago, where forensics experts waited to see whether they would shed new light on a murder that helped ignite the civil rights movement.

From late morning to afternoon, images of a man with many hats and faces rolled by on the big TV monitor in the State House main hall: William Donald Schaefer in full white chef's garb, done up as George Washington crossing the Delaware, wearing a cowboy hat, gesturing with a pointed finger and the customary intensity. The people who gathered around had known him close up or from afar as a constant presence in Maryland politics. A few yards away, Schaefer lay in state in a casket draped with an American flag, guarded one more time by two Maryland state troopers, one stationed at the head and one at the foot of the casket.

William Donald Schaefer — the former mayor, governor and comptroller who left an indelible mark on Baltimore — is back in the city for one last tour Monday afternoon. His body was being driven by motorcade past old haunts and spots significant to his life, from his home to City Hall. City Hall A huge American flag was hoisted by two ladder trucks in front of City Hall as more than 150 people waited for Schaefer's motorcade to arrive. City workers stood in front of a row of gleaming trucks and other pieces of gleaming equipment parked along Holliday Street, which was closed to traffic.

Lt. Col. Juanita Warman had been at Fort Hood only 24 hours, preparing for deployment to Iraq, when she and 12 others were gunned down there earlier this month. She was the highest-ranking soldier killed in the attack. "I kept thinking, 'She can't be in the processing center.' She had just gotten there, she had more training to undergo. She was not due to leave until the end of November," her husband, Philip Warman, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "I knew she was going in harm's way in Iraq.

Lt. Col. Juanita Warman had been at Fort Hood only 24 hours, preparing for deployment to Iraq, when she and 12 others were gunned down there earlier this month. She was the highest-ranking soldier killed in the attack. "I kept thinking, 'She can't be in the processing center.' She had just gotten there, she had more training to undergo. She was not due to leave until the end of November," her husband, Philip Warman, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "I knew she was going in harm's way in Iraq.

TV coverage of Michael Jackson's death had it all Tuesday: helicopter freeway shots of the funeral procession, an army of breathless anchors to ratchet up anticipation and, last but not least, the singer's gold-plated, flower-draped casket on view for a worldwide audience. Yet through all the pomp, the actual memorial service remained moving and elegant. Talk about a day of TV worthy of the King of Pop spectaculars. Maybe the difference lies in all the new media that have arrived in the last 30 years, but Elvis Presley went out like a peasant in 1977 compared withthe 12-day build-up to Jackson's TV sendoff Tuesday.

You say you're a die-hard Orioles fan. You say you'd follow the team to your grave. Now you have a chance to do that - literally. How about heading off to that big ballpark in the sky in your very own Orioles funeral casket? Oh, this baby is a beauty, too: a cream-colored, 18-gauge steel model with Orioles logos up the wazoo. Think about it. Orange handles. Black tassels. Your head resting on a fluffy white pillow embossed with an image of the ornithologically correct Oriole bird. Your eyes staring up for all eternity at the same image on the underside of the casket lid. Best of all, you don't have to deal with all the doom and gloom that comes with being a fan. Because if the Orioles still stink, what do you care?

Those who knew Anna Tomalis best say the way she went about her life near the end truly captured her spirit. The 13-year-old Clarksville resident, who had been battling a rare form of liver cancer for three years, was struggling physically in recent days. But she resolved to press on with life, managing to go horseback riding and take in a movie. "Anna lived life to the fullest," said her father, Ron Tomalis. "She had every reason to not do something, but she always found ways to overcome her discomfort."

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. - They came in blue jeans and old cut-off shorts. They wore somber black suits and Korean War-era uniforms. They were from central California, Massachusetts and the suburbs of Maryland. Yesterday, busloads of mourners poured into the presidential library where the body of former President Ronald Reagan lay, beginning a week of mourning from coast to coast. "I thought it was a moving experience. We loved him as a president," said Ron Ahlquist, 61, of Tewksbury, Mass.

In the silence of the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, where a multitude gathered yesterday to mourn a fallen police officer, to view his body and to bid him farewell, an honor guard approached the open casket of Cpl. Courtney G. Brooks and prepared, with unhurried precision, to close it forever. Suddenly and with gathering strength, a wail arose from his survivors, a huddled group of relatives hunched over in grief, holding onto each other as emotion overcame them. "No, Spanky! No!" one woman cried, invoking the nickname they all used for Brooks, a 13-year veteran of the Maryland Transportation Authority Police who was struck by a hit-and-run driver on New Year's Eve. The keening grew as the top of the casket slowly came to rest, as though the family members were trying to prolong the last look they would have of a man they loved.