I didn't do a holiday light contest this year, and it's a good thing I didn't, because there is a real shortage of over-the-top displays this season. Boo hiss to this economy. Still, a few people in my South St Louis neighborhood are still bringing Clark Griswold to the party, and since I didn't have time to write a real post this week, I thought I'd share some pictures I took on a walk last night.
I should have taken Action Cam of this one, because they have outdoor speakers and Elvis was singing Blue Christmas:
and my favorite from last year:
I have a big surprise cooking for January! Just wait til you see! I hope everyone has a happy holiday!
On the way to St Joseph, we decided to see if we could get into Leila's Hair Museum. We arrived in Independence five minutes before they closed, but Nancy was kind enough to stay late to give us the tour. And oh what a tour! You don't expect much when you walk in, since the museum is inside a cosmetology school in a strip mall, but Leila has over 2000 pieces of art and jewelry made from human hair.
No photography is allowed inside the actual museum, but Keith was able to get some excellent photos of the hair wreaths in the lobby. Hair wreaths were like scrapbooking or family trees. They date back to the 1400s, but were particularly popular during Victorian times. They were made from hair from all family members and usually in the shape of a lucky horseshoe.
Each "flower" is made of hair wrapped around wire. It's mind boggling to contemplate the amount of skill and patience needed to create these hair wreaths. Leila's Hair Museum is the only one of it's kind in the world (although you will sometimes see private collections of hair art in some older funeral homes) and she teaches classes on how to make the wreaths. The Hair Museum is the headquarters of the Victorian Hairwork Society.
In addition to the wreaths, she has thousands of items of jewelry, including earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and watch fobs. This was another popular way to remember loved ones. A soldier going to war or a family emigrating to America couldn't always take the hair wreath with them, but they could take a watch fob or earrings. A common misconception, if you've even heard of Victorian hair art at all before now, is that it always represented someone who was deceased. While some of the jewelry items would have been funeral pieces, the vast majority were made from hair of people who were still living at the time.
In addition to hair wreaths and jewelry, Leila has hair from famous people (my favorite was Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr framed together) and FOUR relics entrusted to her care by Catholic churches around the world, papal documents and all. Two are from the True Cross, one is a saint I can't remember, and one is hair from the Virgin Mary. MARY'S HAIR, in the hair museum in Independence, Missouri! We could hardly believe it. Well, the two of us raised Catholic could hardly believe it. The other two couldn't figure out what we were on about, I'm sure.
I wish I had pictures from inside the museum. There is just so much stuff, and they know the history of so many of the individual pieces. Nancy is a fantastic guide and was so kind to let us hang out as long as we wanted to. If you find yourself in the area of Independence, MO (right outside Kansas City), Leila's Hair Museum is definitely worth a visit. You can read more about it, and see some pictures of the museum itself, at RoadsideAmerica.com. Admission is $3 and they are open Monday-Saturday, 9am-4:30pm.
I put it to a vote and Jesse James won for next stop on the Highway 70 Tour. As many of you already know, Jesse James and his brother Frank James, along with the Younger brothers and various others, formed the James-Younger Gang and were responsible for stagecoach, bank, and train robberies all over the Midwest and South in the late 1800s. Later, the band of outlaws rearranged the ranks somewhat and then it was just the James Gang. Numerous locations in Missouri (and probably other states as well), including Meramec Caverns and Mark Twain Cave, claim to have been hideouts for the James-Younger or James Gang at one time or another.
This house, though, is where Jesse James was killed in 1882. The house has actually been moved twice. It was originally located at 1318 Lafayette, and then in 1939 it was moved to a location on Belt Highway, which is a much busier street. In 1977 it was moved to it's current location at 12th and Mitchell, 2 blocks south of its original location.
Jesse lived here with his wife and two children. He had said that the only way he could be killed was by someone from Missouri, in whom he had placed his trust, and even then his back would have to be turned. He was shot from behind by Bob Ford, a member of the James Gang, in 1882, while Jesse was straightening a picture on the wall.
The museum advertises "Come see the bullet hole!" The bullet hole itself was originally much smaller, but souvenir hunters enlarged it over the years. That's why it is now protected behind glass.
Also pillaged was splinters of the bloodstained floor.
You may remember from my post about the Jesse James Wax Museum in Stanton, MO that there was some dispute as to whether or not it was ACTUALLY Jesse James who was shot that day. Some maintain that it was an elaborate hoax and that Jesse lived out his life as J. Frank Dalton in Texas.
This is one of the reasons that Jesse's grave in Kearny, MO was exhumed in 1997. The picture below contains some of the artifacts that were recovered, including the coffin handles, a pin he was wearing in the death photo, and a bullet recovered from his lung area (from an earlier shooting).
Of course, if there is any kind of diorama in motion, we have to have the action cam. This is a cast of Jesse's skull taken from the exhumation that shows the fatal bullet trajectory.
But wait! That skull has no exit wound! If the bullet didn't exit, what made the famous bullet hole in the wall? Well, now they think that Charley Ford, Bob's brother, also took a shot at Jesse, and that's where the bullet hole in the wall came from. That's one, theory, anyway. There are as many variations on the James Gang stories as there are rumored hideouts.
The Jesse James Home is located on the grounds of the Patee House Museum at 12th and Penn in St Joseph, MO. Admission is $3 for adults, $2 for seniors, and $1.50 for students.
