Museum of Funeral History

hey all carpetbagger here coming to you live from the great state of Texas more specifically Houston Texas even more specifically than that today we are visiting the Museum of funeral history the history of burying dead bodies the history of disposing of corpses the history of remembering the dead and respecting the dead this is the largest facility of its type of funeral history it should be a pretty interesting journey inside so please follow me [Music] oh boy we have a selfie spot right here get a selfie with the hearse that was used for Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford okay this is just kind of insane the same black fabric covered cast get beer this the thing that goes underneath the casket you can see it right here but the casket on top of that but this particular beer was used in the funerals of Lady Bird Johnson Betty Ford Nancy Reagan Barbara Bush Gerald Ford and George HW Bush that is unbelievable how many people of note were on top of this platform or at least they're their dead bodies that some massive section on presidential funerals here the cannon rounds use for the 21 gun salute at Gerald Ford's funeral there we have a reef that was used at the same funeral this is not just any embalming machine this is the embalming machine used to embalm president harry s truman some items from Lincoln's funeral you can see the derringer there that's not the derringer it was used to kill Lincoln buddy one similar to that it's uh almost amazing that a gun that small could take down a man as mighty as Lincoln Serb replica Lincoln's death mask by an artist SJ stout and here we have a replica of a Lincoln laying in his casket you can see a very very lavish casket right there you can see the man laying in there here's a Union soldier standing guard his fealty face here's a miniature of the Abe Lincoln funeral procession of course his body went on tour after dying in travel across the United States so it had different funerals here we see the soldiers taking his casket and loading it into a waiting hearse Wow six black horses and this is the same brand of casket was used for Ronald Reagan's funeral this is the model and style used for JFK's funeral this is absolutely amazing that they have this here this is the original eternal flame this is the gas powered torch that would shut off flames after John Kennedy's grave I said this one was used from 1967 to 1998 apparently they switched out to a different mechanism at that time but that is the original oh my goodness it's an interesting artifact these cupcakes real cupcakes that were baked for the hundredth birthday of Ronald Reagan of course he was a deceased at the time worst garnished with jelly beans the van love jelly beans coming soon a exhibit on the funeral of George HW Bush I guess I whenever a president becomes deceased they they add an exhibit here's some items from casket manufacturers can see the different adornments that would go onto a casket there's the different materials that would you use the line the inside over here you see actually have little mock-ups that people could observe before purchasing the full-sized casket here is a mock-up of a casket factory our caskets will be handmade Azealia woodworking tools over here the beautiful finished product check out this gorgeous 1921 hearse right here course for Christmas funerals Jeff I don't want to go with this the hearse sled pulled by horses so they loaded the casket here in the back here's your 1929 Studebaker hearse international haul its 1922 Japanese hearse that's really amazing vehicle I like how the front is classic car design and then this just elaborate add-on in the back of course Mexican culture known for celebrating death with Day of the Dead not that they celebrate the loss of their loved ones but they're like to celebrate the life of those that passed away you can see alter they're covered in food I am fascinated by the Day of the Dead traditions I say this guy lurking outside the door just a little bit unsettling it's a very special day that's why one thing I am noticing a lot of here at the Museum of funeral history a lot of different varieties of hearses one interesting phenomenon is the practices in Ghana of having these elaborate caskets shaped like various objects these are all different caskets this person here buried in a giant onion got a boat motor probably someone who loved boating a big fish and you can see how they open up and you would place body inside I think that it's like I got a lobster or some sort of crustacean crab up there a chicken a leopard a ball that's a tiny little casket there that car and an airplane there we have a fishing canoe casket and a looks at the bald eagle this section here is all about the funerals of popes here is a papal throne the biggest throne that the Pope would sit on during church services here's different pope skullcaps [Music] this is an example of a papal gentleman they're basically the henchmen of the Pope that surround him at all times this is the said iary Pontifical they are their job is to carry the Pope both when he's alive carry him on his throne and once he dies they carry the dead body as well this is a really interesting part of a Pope's funeral he is the silver hammer and what they do is they break the Pope's ring they shatter his ring is to signify that he is no longer Pope and apparently they used to use the hammer to crack the Pope in the head to make sure he was dead man I bet if he was alive he'd be angry we see a tableau of a Pope's funeral you can see the Pope lying there his body being guarded this is a papal coffin this is the traditional coffin used to bury popes there's actually three coffins here for some reason they put it all together like a Russian nesting doll yeah you see the Pope goes in the middle and they go into continually larger caskets seeing this seeing the Pope has been placed inside his nesting doll casket here's a replica of Pope John Paul's crypt here we go old-school with the history of embalming they don't have an actual mummy in this exhibit but they do have this super spooky replica says that embalming actually began around Civil War open you see that big box there of embalming fluid then we got the embalming process here this guy's using that hose to either pump stuff in or out of that dead body here is an icebox casket before embalming they would just pack the body in ice you look at size boxes coffin you don't actually see it's metal like the inside of a refrigerator there's different tools used in the embalming process it's a makeup kit used to prepare the body make it all nice looking for the funeral it's a mock-up of an embalming room may not be pleasant work but somebody has to do it there's some hair reads it's actually where they would take the deceased hair and frame reads this isn't something we do anymore this is a Victorian house of mourning as a mourning quilt actually would take the ribbons it would be sent in with flowers and flower baskets and they were sew them all together and make a quilt now this casket is a replica of George Barris 'iz casket George Barris did a lot of the famous Hollywood movie Cars he invented the original Batmobile used in the Adam West Batman series and he had this custom casket made by a friend of his here the section thanks for the memories who pays homage to some famous people it's my favorite character The Wizard of Oz the Munchkin coroner which is fitting given this as the Museum of funeral history it says here that he was only on screen with 13 seconds but still managed to become an icon I didn't know this about him that he actually played the role the mascot for Oscar Meyer Weiner known as little Oscar the world's smallest chef there's a Wienermobile in his honor this here was the original cover to Marilyn Monroe's tomb it says that the constant touching and kissing people traditionally kiss Marilyn Monroe's tomb that wears away at at the marble and actually when you go and visit it is a different color than all the other crypt fronts and I admit I myself have kissed Marilyn Monroe's grave says these are the hiking boots worn by Robin Williams in his classic movie rv7 doors right there and this is a replica of Snow White's casket from the animated movie Snow White apparently accompanied with this for sale during the height of the movies popularity and believe this is the only one left we got this got this TV right here showing some of the famous movie animals that died over the years this is the 27 club the group of musicians that all died at the age of 27 it's Robert Johnson being the first member after inventing blues Kurt Cobain after inventing grunge I guess you don't want to invent music or you will die of course Janis Joplin Amy Winehouse one of our recent members and Jim Morrison Jimi Hendrix and Brian Jones these are canisters used to launch ashes into space some of the ashes have been launched into space James Doohan and Gene Roddenberry from Star Trek here you see different genome programs for famous people see Jim Henson guy that invented twister this here Robert hagas best numbers portrayal was high school student Juan Epstein on welcome back kotter I'm not sure why they have a pack of cigarettes for his funeral look at this exhibit on Paul Bearer famous professional wrestling manager famous mostly for managing the Undertaker as can be seen right there so very fitting with the theme of the museum however it goes even deeper Beck he was a real funeral director and actually worked in Texas in San Antonio this here is actually one of the urns that he would carry to the ring with him that's amazing one of the pallbearers real urns oh wow you can actually see from this issue of WWE magazine that urn is the same urn in the famous double turn where he hid the Undertaker in the head turning on him and joining with mankind this is a niche wall which would be a wall used to display the remains of past individuals and urns but here the museum will use this as a donation opportunity and different groups or people can have a urn advertising their their business or in remembrance of someone placed here on the niche wall you see a lot of these are actually donated by crematoriums this is the Fresh Pond Crematory this is a cremation Society of Illinois only $1500 we could have a carpetbagger earned place in here this is donated by love urns you can see I guess they designed special urn these are shaped like birds and then down here this one's shaped like butterflies American funeral Supply Company terrybear urns of Orioles this is a cruciform casket it's actually shaped like a cross this is an exhibit called icons in Ashe where it's actual portraits of people made using their cremated remains there is definitely something haunting and beautiful about these portraits some animal portraits got some dogs Kitty some horses there I even have an alligator chicken and a parrot this is the money casket it was invented by a casket creator to show off how you could place objects in to the actual casket design says that currently has six hundred and forty-three dollars apparently it was one time broken into and someone stole a thousand dollars off of this casket this casket here is an absolute unbelievable tale to it look inside it's massive this is a three-person casket see there's two big pillows one small pillow this couple that had this casket made their their small child died and they made a murder-suicide pact where the husband was going to murder the wife and then kill himself and that all three would be buried together of course the small child would have to be unburied so they ordered it from the funeral home hadn't claimed it and that 20 years went by they changed their mind decided not to kill themselves a husband died of natural causes and the woman called the funeral home the casket designer and said she wanted her money back said she changed her mind so thank you for joining me here at the Museum of funeral history in Houston Texas this place is amazing it is an absolute gem some of the just amazing artifacts they have in there amazing displays huge display on Pope's funeral obviously that was a passion of the owners curators of the museum some just amazing stuff I cannot recommend this enough if you're ever in the Houston area please stop and check out the Museum of funeral history if you like to see other places I've been please check the interactive map in the description of this video you can tell me where I need to go you can see where I have already been if you like to help support the channel consider buying a t-shirt consider donating to patreon a $3 more donation will get you a postcard once a month but for now this one's in the bag

Channel: The Carpetbagger

Views: 1,889,698

Rating: 4.8551702 out of 5

Keywords: the, carpetbagger, funeral, museum, history, historical, presidents, presidential, the pope, abraham lincoln, houston, tx, roadside attraction, roadside america, americana, marilyn monroe, wizard of oz, hollywood, paul bearerr, wrestling, wwf, wwe, texas

Id: tvl35RuGyqs

Length: 19min 54sec (1194 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 22 2020