A Date with Greg and the Dead

Trivia question: The casket pictured here is a replica of which famous person's casket?

A) Elvis Presley
B) John Wayne
C) Tilford Dudley
D) Abraham Lincoln

I would have guessed Elvis, but it's a replica of Lincoln's casket!! How snazzy is that? I wouldn't have pictured Lincoln as being buried in a snazzy casket--more of a stately casket. This replica casket is on display at the second-craziest museum I have ever visited: The Museum of Funeral Customs, located just outside of the cemetery where Abe himself is buried. The first most crazy museum I have ever visited was the Louisiana Country Music Hall of Fame and Tomb of the Unknown Confederate Soldier (yes, it was all combined into one place) that Angie and I visited this past summer :-) The museum today was really interesting though, and they had some craaaazy stuff on display there. They had information about early embalming methods in the U. S., as well as the funeral customs of different religions. They also had info. about different funeral traditions such as Presidential burials--and of course they had a big section dedicated to Lincoln's burial process. I picked up a brochure entitled "The Embalming of President Lincoln," which informs us that Lincoln's body was preserved using a mixture of zinc chloride and hydrochloric acid. The embalmer guy had to travel along with the body on Lincoln's funeral train journey back to Springfield, and he made frequent cosmetic touch-ups to the President, as the "grim nature of the murder" caused various facial discolorations. My favorite part of the museum was the gift shop. They had these funny t-shirts that said "I dig the Museum of Funeral Customs!" Ha ha ha. I've got to get one of those sometime.

Who better to visit the Museum of Funeral Customs with than a mortician? Greg Bowles, the very nice son of some people at church, who also happens to be a mortician, picked me up this morning and we took off for Springfield. It was a perfect fall day today--sunny, warm, and the leaves were beautiful. Our first stop was the museum, then we of course had to visit Lincoln's tomb. There were some hilarious people at the museum. They were an older group, and they said that they used to run a funeral home in Iowa. They wanted us to take pictures of them out in front of the museum because they had been wanting to come to this place for years--it was surely the happiest day of their lives. We ran into them again at the tomb, and they were so enthusiastic about everything that you had to smile. Greg and I decided that should there ever be a tornado, like there almost was the other night, Lincoln's tomb would be the place to go. That thing will surely survive any natural or nuclear disaster. And Lincoln's body, under two tons of concrete, will surely be protected forever.

Well, after Lincoln's tomb--that's when the true excitement began. :-) Greg works at a funeral home about 15 miles north of Springfield in a little town called Athens (pronounced Ay-thens--strange, like all town and river pronunciations in Illinois). The mortuary is located in this cool building that has been there since 1892. The funeral home even still has the same name as the original company that was based there! Greg showed me all around--including the hidden places where there are still old caskets from the 1800's stored. It was even better than the museum! They even have an old horse-drawn hearse there. Then, I was kind of curious about the embalming process, so it's my own fault that we entered the "prep" room, as they call it, but I was not prepared for all that I learned in the prep room. Basically he showed me all of the tools and chemicals that are used to drain a body of blood and get it ready for burial. I really was intrigued by it all, but when we got to a certain part of the process, which, for the sake of all who may read this, I will refrain from describing, my head started to feel a little fuzzy. I have had this sensation in hospitals before and realized that if I didn't act quickly, I was going to pass out on the floor of the embalming room--not a place I would want to pass out!

I said to Greg, "Um, this may have been a little too much anatomy for me today. I think I need to sit down for a second." Then I felt all the blood drain from my head (it was probably afraid it was going to get drained out of my body if it didn't move quickly), and I got super dizzy. So I hurried and sat down, and Greg got me some water. I recovered pretty quickly, and he said that I did much better than when he first took his brother on the tour. We decided that it must have been the smell in the room. It smelled very chemical-ish, and I decided that I never want to be a mortician. In fact, I never want to die--because I don't want my body taken to a "prep" room :-) Other than the fact that I almost passed out, I actually found the tour to be very informative.

After the tour, we drove back to Springfield and had a tasty dinner at T.G.I. Friday's, which was very good and helped restore my face to its normal color :-) Then we hit the road again and headed back to Charleston for a delicious ice cream treat before calling it an evening. I had a great time, and hopefully he and I can do something again sometime (although I'd prefer not to visit any more mortuary prep rooms).

I got home just in time to go bowling with all of the HA kids for Sarah's birthday. We went to Charleston Lanes, which is a really funny place. It was Saturday night "Cosmic bowling," and they had this deal that if they put a pink pin down with your other pins and you got a strike, then you won a free game. I got a strike with a pink pin, so I won a free game! I also won both games we played, so thankfully my near-fainting experience did not affect my ability to bowl. Well, I'm off to bed now. This is going to be a long week. We've got more Dudley presentations tomorrow, then I have to make a presentation in my Museum Admin. class on Wednesday about a guy I've never heard of, and then next Sunday I need to give my Dudley presentation. Maybe instead of talking about Tilford and the New Deal next week, I could just talk about how Tilford's body would have been embalmed at his death--I know more about that now than I do the New Deal!