When you dress yourself, you almost certainly put on your garment top and dress over your head, raising your arms high to put them through the sleeves. You can’t do that when dressing someone else; arms and shoulders are just not that flexible then. So you put them on feet first, as if the person were stepping into her clothes. When you get the clothing pulled up as far as the person’s hands (her arms will be lying straight at her sides), you work her hands into the sleeves, then continue pulling the clothes up her arms until they’re in the right position over the shoulders.

That works just fine for soft, wide-necked articles like garment tops or loosely-fitted dresses that hang from the shoulders. But if the dress is more tailored, with a fitted bodice or a waist band, or if you’re putting on a skirt and a top with a narrow neck and without buttons, there’s no way to get it on feet-first — it won’t fit over the hips. You couldn’t put it on yourself that way in life, and you won’t be able to put it on anyone else. But if it’s open at the back, you can easily slip it on, as if it were a hospital gown, with the back opening completely invisible in the casket.

Even so, there isn’t any bottom-in-the-breeze indignity, even in imagination. You’ve put on garments or other underclothing, maybe including a slip, and in the case of temple clothes, the robe is also there in back.

thank you.

a little too close to home, but still thank you.

I think you did an admirable job at putting things in a loving and informational way. Thanks, Ardis.

Yes

Julia
poetrysansonions.blogspot.com

Sister P. was a late-middle-aged sister who had died of cancer. Her very elderly mother, Sister W., was not up to the heavy physical work of dressing her daughter. She sat on a chair in the corner, clearly wanting to help but too frail for the lifting and rocking necessary. Near the end, Mom had one of those flashes of inspiration that shine in my memories of her. Holding Sister P.’s slippers, Mom turned to Sister W. and said, “You put on her first shoes – would you put on her last?” Sister W. did so, reverently grateful for this last act of service to her child.

Tears.

Thank you. On a very physically painful day, I needed this.

Julia
poetrysansonions.blogspot.com

As far as I can tell, burial in temple clothes began immediately after the Nauvoo Temple’s utility. It is clearly documented in Winter Quarters.

Thank you, friends, for your comments. It’s a tender topic, and it has been an honor to hear from so many people over the past few years who found this when they needed it, and to have been of help to them.