Cress Funeral Home, Madison, Wisconsin

Morbid Anatomy reader Diane Fox recently tipped me off to the truly spectacular Cress Funeral Home in Madison, Wisconsin. I asked her to write a short review about Cress to accompany her wonderful photographs (see above! click on image to see larger version). Here is what she had to say:

Cress Funeral Home in Madison, Wisconsin is a place not to be missed. Downstairs you will find a plethora of taxidermied animals mounted on walls or arranged in anthropomorphized settings in aquariums. Sam Sanfillippo, the owner of the funeral home, became interested in albino squirrels and hired Vito Marchino to preserve a couple that had died on the golf range. When friends found out about his interest, they began dropping off or sending dead squirrels his way. You will find several taxidermied squirrels, including several albinos. Squirrels play poker with each other, ride horses, carry guns, drive cars and visit a fair. Fish cover the walls and the area is lit by a couple of deer hoof lamps. In the two rooms there is no place left empty of Sam Sanfillippo‘s macabre touch.

Thanks so much, Diane, for sending in this review and the lovely photographs! Just for a bit of 4D fun, I have supplemented these with the video you see above, entitled "Cress Funeral Home Squirrel Display," by "Decider + Madison" and found on YouTube.

To see more of Diane Fox's work, check out her website by clicking here. You can visit the Cress Funeral Service website by clicking here; more about the collection and the Cress Funeral Home collection and founder--with more photos!--can be found on the wonderful Roadside America website; click here to access that story.

Oh! And a brief side-note: if any there are any other readers out there who might be interested in to contributing reviews to Morbid Anatomy, please contact me at morbidanatomy@gmail.com.

Photos: Diane Fox. Top to Bottom: Cowboy, Cress Funeral Home, Madison, Wisconsin; Squirrels Dancing, Cress Funeral Home, Madison, Wisconsin; Squirrel Bar, Cress Funeral Home, Madison, Wisconsin

"A Funeral Museum at Death’s Door," New York Times

The Museum of Funeral Customs in Springfield, Illinois, is under threat of closure, as documented in an article that ran in yesterday's New York Times.

The museum, founded in 1999 and located just outside the cemetery that houses Abraham Lincoln's much-visited tomb, features (per Wikipedia) "a re-created 1920s embalming room; coffins and funeral paraphernalia from various cultures and times; examples of post-mortem photography; and a scale model of Lincoln's funeral train" in an attempt to document the evolution of the funeral industry in America from the mid 19th century to the present.

Sadly, as the article explains, the museum has never drawn the number of visitors required for the museums survival, despite its tourist-friendly location; the recession has only made things more dire. The Museum of Funeral Customs (which is the second largest funerary history museum in America--the National Museum of Funeral History in Houston is the largest) is now facing a very real possibility of closure; it has recently ceased regular hours and is open by appointment only. The director, Duane Marsh (above, seated on the horse-drawn hearse), is determined to find a way to keep the museum afloat, but it is unclear at this moment how the museum might be saved. I have not heard about any "save the museum" efforts happening; if anyone knows of any such efforts, please let Morbid Anatomy know.

You can read the original story on the New York Times website here and view the New York Times Slideshow (from which all but the bottom image are drawn) here. Another interesting article about the museum's troubles from can be found in a local newspaper here. You can find out more about the museum on Roadside America (here) or Wikipdedia (here). The museum's website seems to have expired and is no longer operational.

Thanks, John Troyer (Death and Dying Practices Associate, Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath) and G. Swett for bringing this story to my attention.

Images: Top photos from the New York Times "Funeral Museum Struggles to Stay Alive" Slideshow, photographed by Kristen Schmid Schurter for The New York Times. Bottom image: Wikipedia Commons

Mourning and Funerary Artifact Exhibition, Slifer House, Lewisburg PA

When visiting my sister in Lewisburg, PA a few weeks ago, we visited an exhibition entitled "Gone, But Not Forgotten: Death & Mourning in Victorian America"--an assemblage of mourning and funerary artifacts drawn from the collection of Galen Betzer, proprietor of Galen R. Betzer Funeral Services, being held at the Slifer Historic House Museum.

The exhibition seeks to explore the customs surrounding death and mourning in the 19th Century; the historical house is draped in black crepe, as if a cherished family member (in this case, family patriarch Eli Slifer) had just died, and each room in the 19th Century mansion features other evidence of mourning, each one painstakingly pointed out and explained by the tour guide.

The exhibit culminates in a small room packed full of mourning and funerary artifacts drawn from Galen's vast and broad collection. This room is filled with an entrancing breadth and magnitude of artifacts such as hair art, mourning stationary, "tear catchers," funeral souvenirs, memorial photographs, a variety of goreyesque hearse designs (see above), hair and other memorial jewelry, coffin plates, mourning clothing, and antique funerary trade literature and promotional materials. The Centerpiece is a small child's coffin, and an elaborate children's hearse dominates the front porch of the house.

All photos above from the exhibition; see the complete set of photographs here. You can find out more information about the exhibition and related events and lectures here. For more information on artworks related to mourning, check out Curious Expedition's recent post The Art of Mourning.