The Stormy Funeral of Henrietta Lacks

Key Insight

Henrietta Lacks' body was transported in a plain pine box, the only option her husband Day could afford, via a long train journey from Baltimore to Clover. Upon arrival, a local undertaker transferred her coffin to a rusted truck, driving through Clover and Lacks Town Road, past familiar landmarks. Family members lined porches, mourning her passing. At the home-house, Gladys and Sadie prepared for the viewing, laying out a pink dress, makeup, curlers, fresh red nail polish, and two pennies to keep her eyes closed. Meanwhile, Cliff and Fred, drenched in rain, struggled to dig her grave in the rocky cemetery ground, repeatedly encountering unmarked coffins before finding an available spot near her mother's tombstone.

After her coffin was brought into the home-house hallway and opened, Sadie's grief intensified not at the sight of Henrietta's lifeless body, but upon noticing her chipped nail polish. She tearfully remarked that 'Hennie must a hurt somethin worse than death,' emphasizing Henrietta's known meticulousness. For several days, Henrietta's corpse remained in the hallway, with doors propped open to allow cool air to preserve the body, as family and neighbors visited to pay their respects amidst continuous rain. Henrietta's children — Deborah, Joe, Sonny, and Lawrence — attended, though her daughter Elsie, institutionalized in Crownsville, was unaware of her mother's passing.

The funeral service, which included some words and possibly a song or two, culminated in a dramatic and powerful storm. As Cliff and Fred lowered Henrietta's coffin into the grave and began covering it with dirt, the sky abruptly turned 'black as strap molasses,' and heavy rain began to fall. This was followed by rumbling thunder, cries from babies, and a powerful gust of wind that ripped the metal roof off a nearby barn, sending it flying over Henrietta's grave. The storm also ignited fires in tobacco fields, uprooted trees, caused widespread power outages for miles, and tragically, tore one Lacks cousin's wooden cabin from its foundation, throwing him from his living room into his garden where the cabin landed on him, killing him instantly. Years later, Henrietta's cousin Peter interpreted the storm as Henrietta's assertive way of 'tryin to tell us somethin,' reflecting her direct nature.