Honest Abe's coffin looks like it belongs to an Emo-Country-Western guitarist.
I finally had a Saturday off work, so my Dad and I hopped into Crunchberry and snuck down to Springfield for a few hours to visit the Museum of Funeral Customs (yes, dear reader, the Museum of Funeral Customs visited by Sarah Vowell in her lovely book Assasination Vacation.) We entered through the cemetary, following the various winding lanes (did you know you can get your protrait (or a picture of your classic car) printed on your headstone?!) until we ended up, not at the museum, but at Lincoln's Tomb. It was pretty much the same as I remembered it from my grade school field trip, but with far fewer bratty kids (seriously, visit museums and monuments first thing in the morning on cloudy November Saturdays. My Dad and I only saw five other visitors the whole time- no gum-snapping, sticky fingerprints or even talking.) The Lincoln Tomb doesn't really make me think of Lincoln, but seeing the marble wall panel with Mrs. Lincoln's name to the left of those for her sons (with the exception of one)and husband makes me think of her. How awful it must have been to watch three of the four men she lived for die (and then to be eventually institutionalised by the fourth). And then we went to a museum dominated by Lincoln-era funeral memorabelia.
While fascinating, the small, small museum pretty much focused on funeral customs from the mid 19th to the mid 20th century, with the occasional mention of ancient Egyptian embalming and one poster covering 8500 years of Native American burial practices. It makes sense, I guess, to focus on the civil war, since that's when American embalming appeared on the scene (1. The first embalming patent was isued a few years earlier and 2. how else are you going to get all those dead soldiers home?) and when President Lincoln was assisinated. There were some pretty interesting recreated rooms and lots of fascinating displays. They managed to cram alot of stuff into a building about the size of my house. Oh, and in the shoebox-sized gift shop we bought chocolate tombstones and coffins, postcards and a magnet reading, "Each departed friend is a magnet that attracts us to the next world."
While fascinating, the small, small museum pretty much focused on funeral customs from the mid 19th to the mid 20th century, with the occasional mention of ancient Egyptian embalming and one poster covering 8500 years of Native American burial practices. It makes sense, I guess, to focus on the civil war, since that's when American embalming appeared on the scene (1. The first embalming patent was isued a few years earlier and 2. how else are you going to get all those dead soldiers home?) and when President Lincoln was assisinated. There were some pretty interesting recreated rooms and lots of fascinating displays. They managed to cram alot of stuff into a building about the size of my house. Oh, and in the shoebox-sized gift shop we bought chocolate tombstones and coffins, postcards and a magnet reading, "Each departed friend is a magnet that attracts us to the next world."