(classic piano music)
- So the purpose of the National
Museum of Funeral History
is really to help people be
more educated about death,
it's the most enviable
even in all of our lives.
- Right, right, well,
death and taxes.
- Well, you can cheat taxes,
you can't cheat death.
- Ah, that's a good point.
This is museum president,
Genevieve Kenny.
You don't often think about it,
because I think most people just
don't want to think about it.
- And I think that's
a lot of reason
why we have a hard time
getting the average visitor,
but I want people to understand
that when they come here,
they're going to be enriched,
they're going to be enlightened,
they're going to hopefully
learn how to embrace death
in a different way.
- I love that, I love it.
From casket making to
cremation to mummification,
honoring the dead is a tradition
that goes back as far as
mankind itself, and
spans the globe.
And this museum has the most
incredible collection on earth
of deathly artifacts.
- This has to be the
most photographed vehicle
in our entire museum.
This is all hand
carved, wood paneled.
- It's amazing, and
from a distance,
it looks like drapery, right?
- Yes.
- You get up close and go what?
- Yes, and that's what
its supposed to be,
drapery, was,
curtain, if you will,
to provide privacy and a
little bit of elegance.
- Yeah, it's beautiful.
Some of the hearses
have participated in
very famous funerals.
This hearse carried
Princess Grace Kelly,
while this one carried both
Presidents Ronald Regan
and Gerald Ford.
But it's not just the car you
ride out in that needs style,
but also the casket
that carries you.
You want to go out wrapped in
mint money, a giant chicken
or a hot rod?
Well, you got to plan ahead.
You know, it used
to be really common
to put your dead loved
one in your living room
and hold a wake for
people to come and visit,
and so you had to stay in your
house while your loved one
stayed downstairs
by the fireplace.
Part of me is very glad
we don't do this anymore.
So this whole room
is mementos from
famous celebrity funerals.
So here's the
wristband and ticket to
Michael Jackson's
memorial service.
We got astronauts,
western film heroes,
this is incredible.
President George H. W.
Bush's funeral train
traveled from Spring
to College Station.
But no modern day
funeral is more elaborate
or wrapped in more tradition
than the passing of the pope.
- So here we are showcasing a
life, the rituals and customs,
the important people
that are involved,
and then of course,
the time when
all of the public is
able to come and have
that time of mourning,
that time of respect.
- Pope John Paul the
second's funeral in 2006
is believed to have
been the largest funeral
in the history of the
world, with an estimated
three million people
traveling to Rome,
and two billion watching
across the globe.
To a certain degree, a
lot of this stuff is like
stuff you don't
want to think about
but everybody at some
point will lose a loved one
and you got to walk through it.
In a way, it's kind of
getting these things
that may make you uncomfortable
kind of out in the light,
and then you get to
kind of learn about them
and appreciate them, and like
maybe it makes the things
that are kind of scary and
creepy a little less so.
Grief is an emotion
that unites us all,
and as strange as it may be,
maybe this museum is here
to make it just a
little bit easier.
