Much interest was manifested yesterday morning among the colored residents of Bruce street, near Saratoga, in the efforts of a colored undertaker to remove a coffin containing the body of Maria Epps, colored, from the parlor of her home at 329 North Bruce street. The old colored woman, who died on Wednesday, weighed more than 300 pounds, and it required a mammoth coffin to hold her.

 

The undertaker, after putting the body in the coffin in the parlor of the house, was puzzled how to get it out of the room on the day of the funeral. He came to the conclusion that if he took the coffin out the front door he would have to stand it up on one end, which might have caused some unpleasant developments. He decided finally to engage a number of men to lift it through the front window. The colored residents of the street watched the operation with bated breaths, fearful that the coffin would meet with an accident. It was, however, gotten out in safety.

 

Prior to the removal of the coffin from the house Rev. A. B. Callis, colored, pastor of Macedonia Church, conducted the funeral services. In the course of his remarks he alluded to the fact that the husband of the aged colored woman had died only a month ago. Burial was made in the cemetery of Sharp Street Colored Congregation.