By Charly SHELTON

In keeping with the Halloween season and its festivities, The Doctor’s House in Glendale held an event hosted by the Glendale Historical Society that is perfect for this time of year. Victorian era mourning rituals were the subject of a specialty self-guided tour for one night only on Sunday evening.

When guests arrived, they are met by two grave diggers (pictured at right). They discussed the way bodies were cared for after death. Then, entering the house, guests were given white carnations as patrons of a funeral in progress in the living room (pictured below). In each room, a different deadly aspect was presented – post-mortem photography, remembrances and jewelry made from hair of the dead, and sometimes the living, wives and mothers in mourning (who would be confined to the home for a year and a day, then only allowed to leave the house for church for the next one to three years).

Passing through the drawing room, a Victorian seance was being held before the tour ended in the kitchen where guests sampled butternut squash soup and shortbread cookies at the “reception.”

The Doctor’s House was a perfect setting to introduce guests to traditions of the past.

  Charly Shelton