c. 2007 Religion News Service
NEW ORLEANS _ During a visit to the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, La., in 2005, something caught the eye of evangelist Franklin Graham, son of world-famous preacher Billy Graham.
On display in the prison’s museum was a plywood coffin built by the prison’s inmates. It was, Franklin Graham decided, the type of coffin he would bury his parents in.
His mother, Ruth, was buried in one of the Angola coffins Sunday (June 17) at the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, N.C. Ruth Graham died at her Montreat, N.C., home on Thursday at age 87.
“He just freaked out,” Angola warden Burl Cain said of Franklin Graham’s reaction to the handmade coffins. “He said, `This is what my dad would want to be buried in.”’
The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, in a statement, said the younger Graham was “struck by the simplicity and beauty of the casket. The simple, very basic design is symbolic of the life of Ruth Graham.”
On the same visit, Cain said, Franklin Graham donated $200,000 for a 340-seat chapel at the prison. Now, he said, “we have the Graham Chapel over by death row.“
The Grahams’ coffins, into which are burned the names of the incarcerated carpenters who built them, were completed and sent to North Carolina in December.
Inmate Richard “Grasshopper” Liggett, who died of cancer in March, played a key role in getting the coffins built.
A native of Wichita, Kan., Liggett began serving a life sentence at Angola in 1971 for a murder in New Orleans. At the prison, he was the leader of a small team of inmates who build the coffins in the prison’s wood shop.
“He built his own coffin,” Cain said.
Today Liggett is buried in that coffin next to his mother in his hometown.
When he began his tenure at the prison, Cain said, inmates were buried in cheap, “almost cardboard” coffins. “I thought, `This is crazy. We have all these woodworkers. We’ll build our own coffins.”’
When Franklin Graham decided to have Angola inmates build his parents’ coffins, plus two more for their best friends, he said he wanted them built just as if they were for inmates, Cain said.
And except for a few modifications, such as a top that allows for viewing of the upper part of the body and handles that fold down, the Grahams’ caskets are identical to those provided for prisoners.
Cain said he offered different materials to Franklin Graham, but he said: “No, use the birch plywood. That makes me feel good.”
The coffins, which are lined with a mattress pad, cost about $200 each.
But they aren’t simply unfinished plywood boxes. The inmates stain the coffins by hand. Their tops, rather than being just flat sheets of wood, are crafted with a slight pitch.
“It’s a beautiful coffin,” Cain said. “We’re humbled they would use a coffin built by our inmates.“
(Daniel Monteverde writes for The Times-Picayune in New Orleans)
KRE/PH END MONTEVERDE500 words
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