Undertakers, carpenters, and farmers Mark Bigler IV and his son Frank Earnest Bigler of Botetourt County, Virginia, kept this volume of financial records. The primary accounting documents coffin-making and burials from 1891 to 1909, with names of the deceased, names of the parent(s) of the deceased in cases of infant's and children's deaths, in two cases race (African American men), costs, and payment statuses. Other accounts pertain to mending, clerking, sawmill labor, wagon making, house and barn work, repair work on fences, plank, lumber, agricultural labor or purchases (related to hay, corn, potato, wheat, flour, etc.), harvesting, rail splitting, and other work.
The accounts with L. W. Painter include castor oil, whiskey, medicine, pills, "morphia," and needles. The Biglers also had accounts with the Mt. Union Church. The volume contains a recipe for varnish. Laid into the back of the volume are miscellaneous Bigler family genealogical notes.
Mark Bigler IV was born on May 18, 1841, to Mary and Mark Bigler at Haymakertown, Botetourt County, Virginia. Mark Bigler IV and Ann Eliza Smith married on June 25, 1874. Bigler worked as a farmer, undertaker (specifically coffin-making and burial work), and carpenter. He died on April 6, 1905, and is buried in the Mount Union cemetery in Botetourt County.
Frank Earnest Bigler was born on October 28, 1878, to Mark and Ann Bigler in Botetourt County, Virginia. He worked with his father and then took over the undertaking/coffin-making/burial business after his father's death in 1905, and continued working as a farmer. Frank Bigler settled in Troutville, never married, and died on July 28, 1938, from prostate cancer. The undertakers who handled Bigler's funeral were formerly clients, the Rader Funeral Home. He is buried at the Mount Union cemetery.
