County councillors and those in the gallery were a little queasy, not to mention fascinated, when Wellington Place administrator concluded the council meeting Oct. 27 with a display of artifacts in the county museum collection.
The first item Janice Hindley presented as her Halloween theme, was a wreathe made of human hair. Those were popular around the turn of the last century, and this one particularly so, because it had the photos displayed inside of those who had donated the hair.
The second and third displays were burial clothes. In those days, clothing was expensive, so corpses in caskets were covered in reusable burial clothes. For the men, it was a jacket and white shirt, with, as Hindley pointed out, no trousers. The bottom half of the casket was closed. For women, it was a burial dress – but with no back.
As those items were passed around, Warden Chris White, quipped, “I can’t wait until Christmas.”
