Thursday, July 3, 2008

Tea with the Curator - Funerals of the Rich & Famous

Today I am going to start working on my program for the next Tea with the Curator on "Funerals of the Rich & Famous." The Tea will be on Monday August 11 at 10:00 AM. Pre-paid reservations are required, so call today to make your reservation!

This will be the second Tea with the Curator centered around the Keller Gallery exhibits Going Out in Style and Stories in Stone. There will be two Soup at Six programs this fall too, in addition to the remaining two cemetery walks (which are both full).

I am trying to figure out how many people to include in the program. I want to highlight well-known people with interesting funeral stories. I am starting my research with the book What a Way To Go by Adele Q. Brown. Chris got it for me for Christmas last year (as part of my on-going cemetery research project, you know!).

I am going to start with a look at the complexities of hosting a famous funeral with today's media. There was a fascinating article in a funeral industry trade magazine a little while ago addressing the funeral of Anna Nicole Smith. I thought a look at that case would nicely set the scene for the program.

John Herzig, a funeral director down in the Dover-New Philly area, stopped in to see me a few weeks ago. He has the largest collection of funeral memorabilia in the world, most of which is on display at the Dover location of the Toland-Herzig Funeral Home. He gave me an inventory list of his collection when he was here, and I plan to contact him to see if I can take a few photos of what he's got! His collection has even been featured by Ripley's Believe It or Not. How cool is that?

On a personal note, I am looking forward to the long weekend to rest, relax, and work on my novel! (Last weekend I changed the entire thing from first to third person, and now I am "unstuck" and writing again!)

The museum will be open for the Fourth of July, so if you'd like something to do, come on down!

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