The Creepy Parlour 14-Oddities, Antiques and the Museum of Mortality

Join Genevieve and her guest, Melinda Mitchell, as they discuss Melinda's shop-Madam Cora's Emporium and her Museum of Mortality plans.

Episode Transcript

(00:59):
Welcome to the Creepy Parlor, wherewe delve into the dark side with an
undercurrent of lighthearted fun. Our discussionswill explore gothic mecca or creepy topics.
The first Tuesday of every month,we will host a Haunted Happy Hour where
you can join us for a groupconversation that focus on ghosts, weird events,

(01:21):
urban legends, and more. Hereat the Creepy Parlor, our subject
matter baby spooky, but our spiritsare high. You can catch The Creepy
Parlor every Tuesday at seven pm Easternonly on wlf DV Radio. Hello everybody,

(01:52):
and welcome to the Creepy Parlor.I'm Genevieve and I am absolutely delighted
that you're sharing this next hour withme. Tonight, we have Melinda Mitchell.
Melinda is one of those people thatI talked to for about five minutes
in and realized, oh, we'regoing to be friends. Melinda is the
owner of Madame Cora's Emporium and she'salso the founder of the Museum of Mortality.

(02:15):
So, without any further delay,I'm going to bring her up on
the screen so she can tell youa little bit more about herself. Because
she's absolutely fascinating. Hello Melinda,Hello Genevieve. How are you. I'm
doing very well. Thank you somuch for being here. I'm so excited
and creepy to be here. You'recreepy to be here. Excellent. That's

(02:36):
what we go for. So let'sget a little let's get right into it,
because I'm just so happy. SoMadame Cora's Emporium is basically how I
found you. You were nominated tobe what was it, the shop of
the Month, Spooky Babe's Shop ofthe Week, Spooky Babe Shop of the
Week, and I saw that popup and I said, huh, I

(02:59):
wonder if she'd be on the parlor, and the rest is history. An
hour plus long conversation on the phone, a couple of back and forth that
yeah, I'm here. Excellent.Well, welcome creeps, I think,
um, so tell us about Madamecoras well. Madame Corez Emporium. Coora

(03:23):
stands for curiosities, oddities, relics, antiques and supplies a little bit of
everything for everybody. So it's notjust for creepy home to core, but
we also have like gemstones and allsorts of jewelry for elegance on up starting
to bring in some more of theantiques. Right now, I do have
everything from Carnival Glass on up,but primarily Madame Cores Emporium is just kind

(03:47):
of a way for me to expressmyself through a ton of different crafts because
I can't seem to stick to justone. But also on top of that,
I have the space available. Soonce things die down with the pandemic
and we can start doing more inperson events, I'm going to start doing
a pop up vendor like every otherweekend. So I would like to start

(04:11):
being giving people the ability to showcasetheir talents and their artwork things like that,
especially for people who are just startingout that might want to get into
doing you know, shows but don'tnecessarily know how I said, that's my
tarot readers said, And so itgives them the ability to test the waters

(04:32):
without doing a major investment and saythey forgot like receipt pads or extension chords
or anything like that. I can, you know, take them under my
wing and show them how you know, things should be set up, you
know, give them a chance tostart. I've been a vendor most of
my life. My mom started doingshows and things when I was like four
years old, and I'm also Iwas a vendor coordinator for Pirate Fest Las

(04:57):
Vegas. I handled over one hundredvendors and I was responsible for the entire
layout. And then I started myown convention, which ended last year was
Geneva Steam Convention. So I ranthat for like five six years. So
I know all three aspects of thevending side. So it gives me,
you know, the ability to helppeople and showcase their stuff as well.

(05:17):
So it's exciting. Yeah, Ithink that that's one of the reasons why
I like doing this, because Ilike bringing people on and letting them talk
about their their creative endeavors and thingslike that and just give people, give
people a little more support. Itdoes, it does, and it's it's
um. You know, we've hadI've had a lot of really cool experiences.
I want to give something back topeople and giving them a few minutes

(05:42):
in the spotlight, can you know, make it or break it for somebody?
Oh? Absolutely. On that note, I just want to drew everybody's
attention to the banner going on downto the bottom. We have Madame Cora's
Emporium. That's the website and tonightand for the next month. M Melinda
has been kind enough to put upa code for uh It's Parlor with an

(06:04):
O U R because we got toget fancy UM and it's fifteen percent off,
so if you're gonna shop, Iwould shop now and take a take.
And also available on our Etsy two. Oh cool, that's awesome,
thank you. If you if yougo on to Facebook, it's Madame Cora's
Emporium on Facebook, and you've gotboth the link for uh Facebook and for

(06:27):
the both the Etsy site and theregular website. So very cool. That's
my sister. She'd like to bebest friend. I always say, like
when I have people as guests onthe Creepy Parlor, it's like, nope,
you're not just a guest now,you're part of the friends circle.
So you're stuck with us. Yam, I mean Dan, So what's your
favorite what's your favorite UM items thatyou've sold? Like, what do you

(06:50):
have any like preferred types of things? You like the antiques? Do you
like the curiosities? Whereas your well, Madame Cora's is healthy. Me get
an income going to support myself andas well as support the Museum of Mortality,
which we'll get into later but oneof the cool parts about it is
the fact that, say, mymom and I buy a lot of something

(07:13):
that we really only want, likeone key piece to go into the museum,
I can sell the rest off throughMadame Corras. So coming up soon,
I'll have things like antique embombing tables. Oh We'll have to discuss that
later, and all sorts of otherfun things coming in. So right right
now, there's a lot of funlittle nifty decor that I've got I do.

(07:38):
I have my own coffin pillows.Like one of the first people to
do a coffin in shape. Throwthrow a pillow eighteen inches by like six
inches. There's there's often in squishing, and they make great lumbar supports.
So those are always fun. Canyou make them? I make them.
I do a lot of this.A lot of this, the stuff that
you'll see in the store, Imake. So I've got button poof billows

(08:01):
to jewelry. Some of my otherfun things are you know, like I
started doing bringing in the coffin rings. So this was and this one stainless
steel. Nice. There's a reasonfor that. Yeah, yeah, well,
you know, you have to bedone. Sometimes we have a printal
advisor in here, so you cando that. But we have, you
know, we have a little bitof everything, you know, as some

(08:24):
of my favorite pieces are actually mypincushions. So I've got like the baby
dollhead pincushions, but I actually foundbrain pattern print fabric, so I turned
that into the squishy part of theskulls. Those ones people usually get every
time because they're like, what theOh my god, I have to have

(08:45):
it. It's just adorable and Idon't even like it, but yeah,
uh, for for Christmas, Ihave my naughty balls. There are Christmas
ornaments that have all sorts of rudephrases on it. My favorite one was
the flying Fox, you know,and just anything with fucking it because I
was telling people, you know,pick one of those up, go to
your friend's house. You hang itin the tree and see how long it
takes them to find their fuck.Sometimes I'm a little naughty. Sometimes I'm

(09:11):
just creative. I mean, eitherway, it's creative. What's the U
for you? What's the draws to? Like that darker esthetic you've got.
We'll get into the museum and moretalulator, and I feel like we're going
to need more than half an hourto get into that, but probably probably
we'll just have to have you back. Well, oh darn on that too,

(09:33):
Uee. Halloween has always been myfavorite Halloween. It's it's more of
a lifestyle. It's definitely not justa billion my appearance. Starting before I
was born, used to set upa graveyard and we lived into Splains,
Illinois, and then we moved toVegas, and so ever since I was
born, we had a graveyard thatwas set up for Halloween. And then

(09:54):
when I was seventeen, my dadgot into the haunted how this industry permanently,
and he purchased the Haunted House,and so I basically ran the Haunted
House that year. So dream Itold him, I said, now I
want a hearse, you know,for my first vehicle. I want a
hearse. And he was like,no, no, no, it's too
much, you know, too muchvehicle for you, And I'm like,

(10:16):
dude, I learned how to driveon a Chevy twenty full sized conversion van
in a Dodger in fifteen hundred.A hearse isn't that much bigger and it's
the world's safest car. Who thehell's going to hit a hearse exactly.
Nope, nope, nope. Um, but then I ended up he ended
up buying a hearse like two yearsafter I moved out when I was eighteen,
and it's now sitting in my mom'sdriveway. I ended up getting my

(10:37):
hearse trailer and transported all the wayout here from Las Vegas. My wonderful
boyfriend and his mom went out toCalifornia, picked up an RV, he
they drove to Vegas. He spenteight days building a customed to dolly to

(10:58):
trailer, a twenty four foot hearsebehind an RV all the way across country.
That was that was my hearse.When I was out in Vegas.
That was my transportation. And Iloved it. So I had, you
know, a bunch of clothes madeup that said corner across the back.
It made it easy, but Iyou know, I kept telling my dad

(11:20):
that's my hearse, that's my hearse. And it ended up last year about
about May. It made the traveltwo thousand miles and you can actually follow
it, you know, I'll postit up on the Facebook pages. The
I'm hoping to start doing some ofthe restoration work soon now that one actually
does actually turn pretty well it's notquite on a dime, but it definitely
had balls. I could pick upand go in that thing. So it's

(11:43):
a combination hearse ambulance. So I'mexcited, actually, so it Halloween's just
always been kind of my thing eversince I was little and popping out behind
tombstones at a year and a halfyear, you know, at a year
and a half almost two years old. So it just it gave me.
You know, this business was like, this was like the first thing that
was really truly me that fit everythingabout my aesthetic. That's perfect, excellent,

(12:09):
and you're sort of just born intothat right pretty much. So well,
some people rebel against that, SoI think it must fit into your
into your personality because it's still workingfor you. Well, I grew up
and everything that was white and paststells, and no, I'm rebelling against

(12:33):
that because I love my mom,don't get me wrong, but I'm so
sick of cabbage roses. So Iwanted my room painted in black, and
I wanted furniture that was black anddark and creepy. And my mom's just
like, yeah, whatever, SoI'm starting to slowly convert her. Well,

(12:54):
it becomes an addiction after a while, the whole dark side of things,
it's sort of in my in myexperience, kind of envelops you after
a little while. Well a lota lot of people look at it and
the psychology behind it being pretty muchbill but um, death is something that

(13:15):
we are so uncertain about. It'ssomething that a lot of people have that
more morbid fascination with, but we'renot necessarily able to express it. How
do we express it? You startcollecting the dark things, you start you
know, imbibing more of that thataspect, and kind of it's just it's
more of a way to remind usabout our own fragility and our own life

(13:37):
expectancy, and that it gives usa chance to kind of be more at
ease with it. You know.I know, most people who are into
the darker esthetic are like, youknow, if I die, I die.
But the people that are you know, really into you know, mountains
and things like that, um,the you know, total go get or
you know, they're the ones exercising. They're like, no, I can't

(13:58):
die. I can't die. Idon't want to see what comes next.
Ghostly passengers, No, I don'thave any ghostly passengers on the horse.
However, we did talk a littlebit about your shop. Did you want
to get yep, the I actuallyhave a brick and mortar in Burlington,
Wisconsin's where I live, so Iliterally am about three minutes away from my
store. Now. The building thatI am in was built somewhere between eighteen

(14:24):
forty three and eighteen seventy four.They don't know exactly when, but it
was during that time. Is thatjust because of like poor record keeping or
was there like some pretty much poorrecord keeping? And I know over the
winter because I opened up in November. Black Friday was my official grand opening
weekend. You opened up a brickand mortar during a pandemic at the beginning

(14:48):
of winter. Good for you.Well, I knew that if we had
to close again or anything like that, I could still do shopping by appointment.
It gave me a chance to takemore pictures and get things up online.
And that's how I can actually sithere in front of a blank wall.
Because this room that I'm in youcouldn't walk through it, you couldn't
get into it, and most ofmy house was that way. And having

(15:09):
a four year old son yet kindof need run space. So I knew
I would be okay, would giveme time to get things set up and
get going before you know, neededa panic about you know, making bills
or anything like that. So itgave it gave me that opportunity. But
started to learn more as we gotthe camera system up because I have you

(15:31):
know, camera system recording everything.It's not on Wi Fi, so I
can't. I got to download everything, and we started noticing sid my friend
Sidda, she works there. She'smy terro reator, so she's there with
me a lot of the days.And we were noticing a ton of orbs.
We were noticing you know, allsorts of things. There was back
by one of the doors. Wehad a little thing just appear and go

(15:54):
wiggle, wiggle, wiggle. Iwas like, okay, so yeah,
we're not talking dust. You're talkinglike active moving objects. Oh yeah.
And a couple of weeks ago,before it started to get warm, we
had another major you know, plunginginto the cold where the pipe's next store

(16:15):
froze and I have a pass throughthat goes to the building next to me.
So I'm hoping on actually, ifI can get enough income coming in
through Madam Corus to take over bothsides of the building. I can start
putting up this place for the museumin the other side, as well as
having the store right next to eachother, because I'm kind of a one
woman wrecking crew right now. Yeah, and I had to have somebody,

(16:40):
you know, somebody had to goin and defrost the pipes because we have
apartments upstairs. Well, I'm reallyanal about checking all of my doors,
all of my locks, making surethat I go through this step so I
don't sit there and go home andgo Did I forget to do this or
did I you know, do thesame? And I got passed through door
that it has a double key locksystem. Well, I went home on

(17:03):
Saturday and I went back in onWednesday. While I found out from the
owner on Tuesday that my furnace wasn'tworking, and I was like, how
how did this happen? Well,I had to have a plumber come out
for the other side, and hewent through the door and he went and
checked your building. How it's adouble lock system and I make sure I

(17:26):
locked the doors every time I leave, and he was like, it was
unlocked. He went right in,he checked your pipes there frozen, and
he told me that your furnace wasn'tworking. When we are you're gonna tell
me it wasn't working. Wow,So you did not leave that door unlocked.
So something somebody was, you know, in the building was definitely.

(17:47):
Absolutely. I think they like me. I'd imagine they do. You're keeping
their spirits alive and that's amazing.So I'm actually, you know, with
being a ghost tour guide as well. I work with American Ghostwalks. I
do ghost tour guiding with in LakeGeneva, Wisconsin, and my boss and

(18:07):
everybody we do, we also doparanormal investigations. So I'm hoping sometimes soon
to be able to get the teamin there and actually do a paranormal investigation.
There's a lot of people in thechats that are friends of ours that
aren't paranormal investigators as well. You'llsee um Ted Vansona keep popping his name
up. We've got Robin Joan Carter, they're paranormal investigators. Dominic he's an

(18:32):
investigator. I'm personally not I liketo dabble, but I'm really not like
I'll use my ghost Radar app tolike find ghosts. I don't need that.
I don't need an app for thatthey find me. I'm sure they
do. I mean, not justbecause of your interest in them, but
I'm sure there's also like there's gotto be attachments and things to some of

(18:53):
the stuff that you sell. Sometimes, you know, sometimes some of the
stuff I have is from you know, estates where somebody might have latched onto
something. But I've always been kindof a conduit, so a lot of
you know, I'm not necessarily,you know, totally in tune where I
can channel, but I do havea tense making things stronger. Oh maybe

(19:15):
you're a little little EmPATH there.Um that's telling me that that app doesn't
work. It works. Let mehave my Let me have my delusion.
Um. I mean I go everywherewith a Geiger Counter. UM, I
have my a VP, my EMSor yeah, black light, flashlight ten

(19:38):
xlumex. I literally have it togo bag of nothing but scientific tools at
my disposal. We'll get really intothat when we talk about the museum.
Um, my sister's just posting thather house doesn't need any apps either because
her house is really haunted. Andyes, Ted, I'm a little bit
delusional. You know that the sameKenny Biddle Biddle is on our station as

(20:02):
well, and he is the skepticalhelp bar, so that's his he can
he can debunk all of my delusionsof using the ghost radar. App um
so um, how long have beendoing ghost tours? Five years? Oh?
That's awesome. I can't remember.They all kind of roll into each

(20:23):
other. It's so much fun.I get to talk about the history of
a Victorian town and I get totell the ghost stories along with it.
And on weekends that we're really lucky, we actually get to tell stories inside.
The last set of stories is insideone of the buildings. That's the
oldest building in Lake Geneva. Ohwow, so that one's always fun.

(20:44):
Yeah, how far is that is? That? Is that about twenty minutes
from me? No, I'm spoiled. I just walked down the street and
tell stories right down the street.Unfortunately, Burlington doesn't have enough tourism to
do a whole tour, so,you know, or enough stories. I
mean, we were part of theunderground railroad. Burlington was part of the
underground road during a you know,um Civil War and whatnot, and some

(21:07):
of the tunnel systems were used duringProhibition. The building right across the street
was from me was supposedly owned byal Capone. It was a bar on
the main floor and a brothel onthe top two floors, and it had
three tunnels until they did it right. And one of the tunnels comes to
me, and one of the tunnelsgoes next door and goes underneath the river
and back up the other side,and it's like, wow, we could

(21:29):
talk about that history. But Idon't know much about the ghost stories in
town. Yeah, we have.We have some underground tunnels here in Keyport
as well, and I just can'tseem to get a good enough set of
facts about them to create a story. You know, everyone talks about them,
and there's rumors and there's legends andstuff like that, but I can't
I can't get like the actual Yeah, weas we based all of our stuff

(21:52):
off of actual stories. And youknow, we don't embellish anything or create,
you know, to make it scary. It's just, you know,
we pride ourselves on our historical historicalaccuracy. Same. I do the same,
and I always tell people they aretrue stories to the best of my
knowledge. So the first personal accountsand um as accurate of the history as

(22:14):
we can make it and also makesit fun because people learn a lot more
about the town that they're in.I think so too, And I think
that, I mean, for me, at least, the thing that draws
me to the ghost tours and I'llgo on ghost tours wherever I wherever I
go. Um, it's really thefact that, like, you get to
learn the history, but it's morememorable when there's a haunting involved. I

(22:37):
also go and buy every single ghostbook I can. I do too,
and I have far too many books. So if you need books from Adam
Cora's, let me know. Igot a ton and the museum, so
oh we can. Well, we'regonna get to that in a second.
I know we keep alluding to it, and I'm like, maybe I'll go
to maybe go to commercial earlier.Um, we can get into that.

(22:59):
Anything else you want to share aboutthis amazing shop that you have, Well,
if I don't have it and it'ssomething you're looking for, let me
now, because you may. I'mstill pulling product out of places I forgot
I had. Well, I meanit's a nice it's a nice um avenue
to circulate your collection, right,and you know, I'm being able to

(23:23):
showcase other people's work as well.As my own. It makes it nice,
absolutely, and I love that becauseI think that UM, like the
I don't want to like pigeonhole anybodyinto being goth or whatever, but like
this. UM let's call it asubculture of Halloween related lifestyles. O god,

(23:45):
yeah, somebody told me once Iwas the pinkest Elvira they've ever met.
I would take that as a compliment. But I feel like I feel
like we have we we have tosupport each other. We have to like
keep each other moving forward because it'swhat we do. There's yea and we
have like minded interests, so it'sit's all good stuff. There's Kenny Biddle.

(24:10):
Hi, Kenny, you missed ourdiscussion about the ghost radar app Shame
on you, Kenny, you're late. Um let's go quickly to our commercial
so that we can get into themuseum because this is as much as I'm
fascinated by your shop, Um,the museum is like the thing that is

(24:30):
really cool. They're all really cool, but say in a minute, see
it in a moment. Let mesee w LFE desh dB dot com,

(25:15):
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(25:36):
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dot com. You're listening to wlfdB Radio. Now back to our program
and we're back. Um, nowwe get to get creepy. Yes,

(27:51):
well, you know we're always creepy. At least I'm always creepy. I
don't want to speak for you,but I'm always paint and creepy. But
yeah, that's the hard part aboutdating. That was the hard part about
Daton was just like you know,everyone's like, oh, you're so cute
and pink and like happy go lucky, and I'm like, yeah, but
I collect dead things and funeral andi'd drive a hers. You gotta keep

(28:18):
them, you gotta keep them ontheir toes, right. Yeah. So,
um, the Museum of Mortality.And I absolutely love the name.
UM, big huge fan of thissort of thing. UM. And not
to sound excessively creepy or anything likethat. UM, it's more from the
perspective of, like we've kind oftouched on earlier, where if we're talking

(28:42):
about death, we're trying to,um keep that part of our lives and
acknowledge it. It's less scary.Yeah, definitely. So the Museum of
Mortality my brain child. Um.It started off my mother and I have
been collecting antiques since before I wasborn, So of course I got into

(29:04):
it and I learned. I learnedso much about like, you know,
I can date furniture, I canI'm starting to learn glass patterns and styles
and ages. I'm like a rollingcatalog. And well, she was collecting
things that she liked and I'm like, you know, and she was like,

(29:26):
well, when I go, it'sup to you what you want to
do with this stuff, and I'mlike, sell it off because it's not
something I want to collect. Andshe was like, well, what would
you be interested in collecting? Andso I brought up like, you know,
memento MORI. I'm more into,you know, the history of you
know, all of our mortality stuff. And so she started getting into the
funerary side of Victorian funerary because sheended up doing a cemetery ghost walk,

(29:52):
You're a cemetery walk where she wasportraying a character in a cemetery. And
of course, you know, shedid Renaissance clothing all the way up to
like seventeen hundreds, and then Ikind of picked up where she left off.
I had a steampunk business, soI did a lot more like the
Victorian style. I love the steampunkstuff, Oh, I absolutely love it.
So she messaged me and she waslike, I need a skirt,
and I'm like, okay, giveme your black linen and your black velvet.

(30:18):
And so I made her an eighteeneighties walking skirt, bustled walking skirt
from the skin out. I said, I'm not doing a corset though,
that's all on you. Yeah,that's tough. So when she s,
you know. So she started reallygetting into it and started looking for Momento
Mori pieces and she's started getting fascinatedwith that. And then one day I
was talking to a friend of mine. I sent her a picture of a

(30:38):
hair artwork cabinet in a cabinet andI was like, I really wish I
could have that, and she waslike, no, Mine, I want
it. It's like, oh no, no, you're not getting it.
She goes, well, your momneeds to adopt me, so when she
dies, I get half the collection. I said, over my dead body,
well that's the point. I'm anonly child. It's all all mine.
And she was like, well,that's some of that stuff really needs

(31:00):
to be in a museum. AndI was like and there. It was
a month and a half later.I had a notebook put together, this
thick of everything that was going togo in that museum, a plan on
what I was going to do andeverything, and it was launched. That's
fantastic. So you guys check outdown there on Facebook dot com Museum and

(31:21):
Mortality definitely check it out, big, huge, long thing about about it.
But primarily it's the Victorian era eighteenfifties on up to the nineteen fifties.
That's when a lot of our mortalityrates changed. We went from honey,
mud maggots, blood letting, leechesinto patented medicines. We had a
life expectancy of maybe thirty years ifyou got out, if you got past

(31:45):
being a toddler. Now we're wehave patent and medicines. We have a
life expectancy a lot farther ahead,and our life, our quality of life
has really changed. So with themuseum, not only will we be covering
death and things like that, butalso how we are bringing to light,

(32:05):
like how do we experience our livesnow, there's so many different facets.
One of the main areas will beon funerary rights traditions in history. Another
area will be on the medical advancementsof the last one hundred and fifty years
basically, and the third one willbe the rise of spiritualism. And people
are like, okay, well,how did these all play into each other?

(32:28):
Well, with the funerary you startedhaving embalming, you started having you
know, being able to dissect people, and you had preservation. While that
gave the medical side the ability tospend a lot more time with the body,
be able to really get down intointo the nurse where they didn't have
to worry about decay. Well,you had the rise of spiritualism and spiritualists
that had mesmetism, hypnosis. Thesquack medicine became popular, and a lot

(32:52):
of it was because of the riseof spiritualism. So the scientific and medical
community had to debunk that, sothat challenged it. So then you had
funerarium and spiritualism challenging each other.And that's really what got some of the
ball rolling on how our mortality changeopposing forces to make things grow right right,

(33:14):
Yes, so, and there'll bean area to be determined. I
actually did a spider map up nottoo long ago, so if you scroll
down a little bit on the Facebookpage, you'll see the spider map of
some of just the main key areas. Now, one of the things I
want to do is I want todo a street of olden days and have
it time progressed, so you know, like a log cabin, blacksmith all

(33:35):
the way up to the nineteen fifties, and have like many museums within the
museum. So I've been collecting things, like you know, antique glass,
so I can do a display caseof like every ten years on how glass
changed. And then I started gettinginto collecting uranium glass and radium dials,
and that's a that's a discussion thatwe had earlier, and this is this

(34:00):
is really fascinating stuff. So yeahsa ball rolling. So there's so much
to it. It literally we couldgo on for hours. This is my
friend Jennifer. She keeps popping upin all of her comments about the horses
and stept Jennifer is a mortician's apprenticeright now, so she's she's totally on

(34:22):
board with all this. Yeah,yeah, I'm well, I've got an
entire case of embalming tools and Ihave no idea what kind of trocars they
are. I'm still looking for somebodythat's got the time to investigate all of
them. Because when I do thedifferent areas, I don't want to just
throw a bunch of tools up ona wall like you go to most museums
and they put a bunch of thingson display, but they don't really explain

(34:44):
what each thing is. And soI want to do more, you know,
like in the blacksmith shop, becauseblacksmith were also undertakers, So in
the blacksmith shop will do the wallof tools, but I want to explain,
you know, have a card thatsays what it is, so it's
not just oh, look, here'sa bunch of tools that might have used,
you know, it's this is whatthey you know, this is what
they are. And so I've gota little bit of everything. And one

(35:07):
of the embalming cases I went throughfinally had some glass jars still in it,
but most of the two of themain ones had had been broken.
But inside we found a glass bottlewith an unknown red liquid substance inside.
So I'm still trying to find anational laboratory that will test it for me.

(35:29):
The bottle predates nineteen o four becauseit has a cork top. Nineteen
o four is when the screw topswere invented. And even though the bottle
is amber, the interior liquid isa very dark red and it's got a
quarter of an inch of sediment eventhough the cork is still attacked intact.

(35:50):
So I don't know if it's constemplatedembalming fluid. I don't know if it's
the first cast off of embalming fluid. I don't know, but I I'm
trying to find a laboratory and I'vecontacted, like you know, the community
colleges and the big colleges in andaround me, and nobody has the ability
to do a full spectral analysis,you know, spectrum chemical anassis. So

(36:13):
it might be a diet, mightbe all sorts of things, but it's
it's something that it's the mysterious redliquid bottle, red liquid bottle that could
be like just as you walk inthe mysterious red liquid bottle. You know,
We've got We've got a lot offun things in the works with the
museum. One of the things thatI'm telling you guys is I'm actually also

(36:34):
working on putting together in an entiregame that will launch the same time the
museum does. Because the game willbe based on items and artifacts that are
in the museum. That's cool,So it'll be it'll be a family game.
But basis is you're trying to liveto be a certain age and then
have a good death while trying tokill off your opponents. Good family fun.

(37:00):
But I also want to do likeQR codes where people can scan it
and then it'll take them into thebackside of the system where they can actually
look at the artifact in the museumand the history about that item. So
because the people a chance to youknow, collect the cards, to collect
the items, to learn more aboutthem and have some fun well doing it
interesting, so you're not busy atall. And then I chase a four

(37:24):
year old around. Yeah, mygoodness, Um, just let me go
back to some of the artifacts thatyou've already gotten. Where do you find
this stuff? Everywhere I'm in I'mI'm in some of the different oddity groups,
collector groups, antique show, youknow, antique stores, things like
that. Right now, I'm inthe talks with different people that do a

(37:47):
lot of picking and collecting out onyou know, like in the East Coast
where towns are older than where I'mat, and they find the most unusual
things picking and they're like, hey, when you're right, I'll sell you
the entire collection. And I'm likeone of my friends. I bought an
eighteen like late eighteen hundreds, eighteeneighty to turn of the century homeopathic medicine

(38:12):
kit. Wow, what's in that? I don't know. I haven't emboxed
it yet, and I should havebeen boxed it like three months ago when
I finally got it. And I'msorry, Josh, but I'll be doing
a video and I'm boxing it,but there are medicines in there still in
the vials that are sealed. Wow. So one of the other reasons for

(38:32):
finding a lab is because I'd liketo send in some of these old medicines
that I might still get my handson to do the analysis, to show
people this is what people were puttingin their bodies. Yeah, well,
if you're gonna do that on avideo, please let me know. I
will happily cross post it on allof our social media. Yeah. I
just did a video last week ofmy early nineteen hundreds pathology kit. We

(38:55):
just unboxed that. Well, that'sinteresting. I'll have to if your if
with you're okay anything. So that'son Facebook, and I do have a
YouTube for the museum. I'm goingto be getting into TikTok. I'm on
there personally and I keep connecting withpeople that are my people, so it's

(39:16):
been awesome. But I'm going tostart one for the museum too, So
well, I think that's that's um. Another good point is that people start
becoming you know, you start becomingthe person that people call when they find
these things. Ye. Right now, it's like, hey, I've got
this any idea what it is.It's like, yeah, it's well,

(39:36):
you know, because I'm like arolling rolodex right now with all the artifacts
I've got. I literally I havea stack of papers this and I haven't
even gotten to hardly any of thecollection that my mother and I have already
collected over the last like three years. Wow. So the purchases that people
make at Madame Cora's go to startup the Museum of Mortality exactly. And

(39:59):
you also have a go fund Mepage. I do have a go FUNDI
for the museum. I sit downwith a specialized CPA April second, for
going after my five O one Cthree not for profit status. Once I
have not for profit status, thenI'll be able to accept larger monetary donations
and artifact donations as well. Ohthat's wonderful. And this is I think

(40:21):
that that's an important thing too,because so many people out there want to
start something like this or they they'reinterested in things in this vein and knowing
that path, knowing what you're going, like what you're doing to pursue this,
I think that that's really that couldhelp people. Well, not only
I want to be you know recognizedthat, you know, they're Everyone asked

(40:42):
me like, okay, so who'syour competition. I don't have any.
The closest competition I have is theMuseum of Death in Louisiana and also in
Lay. Those are private owned museums, so you know, they're not They're
not publicly assisted or educational really inany ways, you know, kind of
like somebody's you know, private collectionthat they just put on display. Whereas

(41:05):
I really want to go after theeducational status because I want to work with
schools. I want to set upyou know, girl Scott, you know
programs. I know it's a littleweird that, you know, a bunch
of brownies and Daisies might be cominginto the museum. But if I've got
the space, and if I havea good program director that can say,
okay, well, if we dothese ten different things in the span of
two hours. The girls just earnedfive badges because this one plugs into this

(41:30):
one working with mortuary students. Youknow, I'm not too far from Wheeling,
Illinois with Worsham Brain is fried.Sorry, so I got Worsham and
then also up in Milwaukee is throughUW is one of the other program for

(41:52):
is the only mortuary science program inWisconsin. So I want to set it
up where funeral directors and where youknow, funeral students can come through.
I want to set it up withthe classes that they can come up,
you know, spend a half aday in the museum, and then have
their class there. It gives thema chance to see some of the stuff
firsthand that you know, like oneof my main books is the Big Blue

(42:15):
Bible. It's the it's the historyof funeral directing, and it's one of
the books used in the classes.Interesting and you know, like just to
your point before you when people areasking who your competition is and stuff like
that, I don't, you know, I feel like this with my ghost
tours. I don't feel like I'min competition with anybody because I feel like
people that are drawn to this aregoing to go to la and go to

(42:36):
the Museum of Death. They're goingto go to Wisconsin and go to the
Museum of Mortality, or they're goingto go to Chicago to the Museum of
Surgical Sciences. Yeah, it's alllike, you know, we're going to
keep we keep promoting each other ina way, you know. Yeah,
this nice little network of things thatum you know, if you're interesting,
if this is your interest, you'regoing to scout out all of these places.

(42:58):
You're not just going to go toone right then. And being being
a fully fledged five O one Cthree not for profit allows me to work
with other museums like the Smithsonian.That would be fantastic where I can go,
hey, do you have I wantto do an exhibit on such and
such. Do you have anything thatmight be hiding in your you know,

(43:20):
because that's the other thing. Mostmuseums only put out about ten to fifteen
percent of their entire collection. Yeah. I read that somewhere and I was
fascinated by that. I want tosee the other stuff. Yeah, same
here. I really like a lotof the things that get donated to the
museum, you know, artifact wise, I want it out on display.
I want to make sure that it'sseen, because having stuff that's locked away

(43:44):
and not able to be seen drivesme nuts because it's like that's not necessarily
fair. But it gives me theability to work with places like the Smithsonian,
natural history museums across the world,you know, museums across the world,
and do inter museum you know loan, and it will help bring a
different caliber and level to my museumas well. So it's it's not going

(44:07):
to be for profit, it's foreducation. So what sort of space are
you looking at? Is it goingto be like if you have like even
remotely, it sounds like you're gonnabe a huge space, is what I'm
saying. Somewhere between forty thousand andtwo hundred and twenty thousand. Wow.
Well, definitely, guys, checkout the check out the Facebook page Museum

(44:28):
Immortality, and check out Madam Kors. Let's help Melinda get Let's help her
get to her goal, because that'sdefinitely a worthy cause. April second,
I start going after the paperwork,and then I can start really soliciting.
So right now, you know,with the with the museum starter and on
the go fund me, if youdo like two hundred and fifty dollars or
more, that'll claim a brick.So when we get a building, I'm

(44:49):
actually going to do like the brickwalk and then for some of the I
do want to do a cemetery anda graveyard mini versions, so I want
to eventually excited at that. I'msorry, I want to pit some companies
against each other, like you know, like Pepsi or coke can go here
lies Pepsi courtesy at Coke here Li'sco courtesy. Yeah, and have the
rival Ryan tombstones go back and forth. So you know, there's gonna be

(45:10):
a lot of you know, almostlike Easter eggs in a way throughout the
museum as well. So because yougot to keep death fun, right,
you have to. So there's gonnabe we're gonna do scavenger hunts, We're
gonna do overnights or you know,all sorts of things, because there's gonna
be attachments that will come in onthe artifacts. You know. I right

(45:32):
now, there's two different coffins inmy collection. One is in eighteen fifties
to eighteen sixties ice pack transport previewcoffin, So that was just literally for
transport. And then I have awicker one that was anywhere from eighteen fifties
on up. It hasn't been datedjust yet, but that was for transporting
either to a hospital as like thefirst kind of gurney or it was a

(45:53):
cooling casket where you know, bringit to like a place for them to
be you know, taken care of, like the beginnings of funeral homes.
So I don't know if there's somethingin on either of those, but I
know there will be. So we'lldo like after hours gooes tours. I've
got friends of mine that do tintype so Victorian he does actual Victorian tin

(46:17):
type photos. He was from theGettysburg area, so there they'll be days
when he comes up and this,you know, spends like a week doing
tin type photography like in our eighteennineties funeral parlor in full funeral so for
a couple extra bucks, will throwyou in cash and put you in the
tin type next to the casket.Nice way too excited about that. It's

(46:43):
just I mean, it's it's justso cool. I'm gonna say it.
It's just so cool. I havenot met one person that has when I
start explaining the museum to go,and I don't think you will because of
the way that the way that youare approaching it too. I think so

(47:05):
too. It's not just about beingover the top creepy and weird or anything.
It's it's really prodding the mind toget the discussion of death on the
table. And one of the mainthings for me was the fact that most
people don't realize. In the UnitedStates, the day you turn eighteen you
need to have a power of attorneyfor both medical and financial in place.
You date your birthday. You're eighteen, you're out calivanting with friends in a

(47:29):
car, you get into a caraccident, you are kept on life support
until your parents sue you to beable to take you off life support,
and then they're stuck with the bills. Wow. And that's the thing too.
I don't think that enough people havethe education or the mindset to prepare
for things like that. I mean, I know I preach it, and
I certainly haven't done it. Youknow, in the Victorian era, death

(47:52):
was every day. Sex was tabooed. Now it's gone to the opposite where
you know, a refrigerator is set, see a car is sexy, This
is sexy. But oh, deadbody, we don't. We don't want
to talk about death. So Ithink if we can get the ball rolling
in an educational manner, it won'tbe as scary. People will start talking

(48:13):
about and go, you know,I, you know, I really like
that aquamation I heard about. Ohdon't know about aquamation. It's basically using
alkaline water in order to break downthe body. It's similar to cremation,
but it takes the water. Itbasically turns you into a water format that
is non toxic, non harmful,instead of sending all of the toxins into

(48:36):
the air via burning. So we'regoing to have the alternatives out there now.
They're starting to be just like Ithink Maine now there's an area in
Maine where you can actually do aViking funeral pyre. Wow, I didn't
know that. So we want todo as as like on an exit wing,

(48:57):
talking about what's available now to getpeople bowl to start bringing it up
more and become more comfortable with it, because it does it doesn't matter.
You've got your beginning dates and you'vegot your end dates. The end dates
are always going to happen. Butwe need to talk about that space in
the middle. Absolutely. And Ithink the other thing that's really powerful about

(49:17):
that too is that if people knowahead of time, if people are secure
in what your final wishes are,it takes a ton of stress off of
them at probably their most vulnerable time. Yes, So it's just so incredibly
important, and I really appreciate whatyou're doing. I think that that's just
it's it's fantastic. You're doing atrue service, and it's gonna be a

(49:39):
lot of fun along the way becausewell, you know, I'm gonna get
I'm not back in funeral. That'sone of my favorite phrases. It is,
it's it's just it's one of thoseamazing things. Awesome. Do you
have timelines yet or have you notgotten to that to them within three to

(50:00):
five years? It depends upon howfast I can get the ball rolling as
far as like getting a location andgetting the donations going where I can start
building. It's going to be closeto Milwaukee. I'm trying to put it
between like a twenty minute car ridebetween the airport just outside of Milwaukee and
downtown Milwaukee, so that way Ihave ye around tourism. It's going to

(50:21):
be important that people can be ableto get to me, you know,
whether it's a quick uber ride ora quick drive. So I'm hoping for
within that small, you know area, So people that just happen to be
you know, flying in or youknow, flying anywhere, they might want
to do a one night layover inMilwaukee and come visit the museum before they

(50:44):
go off to some place else.Well, I think that that's that's something
I would do. That's definitely somethingI would do. I can't wait.
Are you looking for um? Doyou think that you'll look for land or
do you think are you looking forlike a building? Depends upon what's available.
But when I'm ready to do this, when we're ready to do a

(51:05):
physical launch, I have all thefaith in the world that you will find
the exact place at the exact time. Well, I know Milwaukee Public Museum
is planning on moving. Unfortunately thebuilding was built before ADA compliancy, so
I don't know what they're doing.Maybe I can get my hands on it.
I mean, if you put itout there, they are like two

(51:25):
hundred some odd thousand square feet,I think I could fit At the rate
you're going. I'm sure you'll haveenough stuff told me about it. That's
awesome though, And I'm finding mypeople Like I just started talking to somebody
within the last twenty four to fortyeight hours who wrote her entire thesis on

(51:49):
insane asylums, And I'm like,good, that's an area I haven't jumped
into yet. You be my residentexpert on that, will you please?
Yeah? Well, I've had friendsthat have studied coffin hardware as part of
their thesis, and like figuring allthat stuff out good. I got a
few pieces. Oh, I'm sureyou do. I am sure you do.

(52:15):
Well. I found something in thebasement and I was looking at it
and I'm like, what the hellis this for? I think it's a
prescription box. But and I tookpictures of it and posted it to Weird
and Wonderful Finds like the Morbid groupon Facebook, and I was like,
Okay, since y'all are a bunchof creeps and freaks, what do you

(52:37):
think this is? And somebody's like, it's a prescription box. They would
put the prescriptions in there at nightand close it up. It's fireproof,
so in case the building went upin flames, all the prescriptions are right
there. And I'm like, wow, it's a rusted box. You never
would think that, right. Ithought it was just because of the knowledge
base I have, but I waslike, I'm just gonna make sure.

(52:58):
And then like, yeah, threeor four were people popped up. Nope,
that's exactly what that is. AndI'm like I love it. I
gotta go. I've got like twomore caskets. I gotta go pick up,
I'm waiting until the weather. Howoften do you do you get to
meet people that say that? Ithink like pretty regularly in my in my
group of people. Yes, butwell it's just like I once I get

(53:22):
the hearse up and going, I'mgonna start putting together some hearse runs.
And I'd love to put together anational group of female hearse owners. Oh
very cool. I think you'd havea lot of people. It'll be fun.
It's just it's all about boostering,you know, and bolstering people and
making them feel good about themselves.Because when you live in in small conservative

(53:43):
areas, especially when you're a littlebit on the weird side, you get
put down a lot. And whenyou find your people, you find your
people. So if you own ahearse, you're my people. If you
like to talk about weird dead things, I'm your people. My guest.
Last week we were talking a littlebit about that, like how everyone has

(54:04):
this misconception of being goth as beinglike sad and downtrodden, and and we're
like pretty happy, you know,I mean, listen to us, we're
giggling. I get go like aschoolgirl. You get me going on something.
And my poor boyfriend um, theone who dragged my horse back for
me. He's not into the weirdcreepy stuff at all, but he gets
so excited. When I get excited, and I'm just like, I'll go

(54:27):
off on a tangent. I'll belike, oh sorry, and he's like,
no, no, no, keepgoing, It's okay. I like
how you blush. I could bein full goth makeup and you know,
all in black and just start turninglike bright pink when I start talking about
something and people are like, that'swhy, that's why. I guess that's
one of the reasons why I getcalled the pinkest elvirus people have ever met.
Because I'll take it. Yeah,I would agree. Um, so

(54:54):
we only have like two minutes left. I know it goes so fast,
right, Yeah, we'll have tohave I'll definitely have to have you back
to talk more about this stuff.Well, and people can said, you
know, can take a look atthe website, they can take a look
at some of the stuff, puttogether a list of questions to send to
you, and we can do aQ and a time And that's a great

(55:15):
idea, bring up things ahead oftime, and we can do segments on
it because I'm with you. I'mwith you. Awesome. I'll be on
as often as people want me tohear that, guys, let me know.
Um Madame Korzemporium dot com, don'tforget the um. The code is
parlor pr p A r l O. You are for fifteen percent off of

(55:37):
your purchase and that's good for theentire month. So please please go there
support Melinda and her awesome mission.Any final words, visit the Museum of
Mortality dot com. There you go, visit the Museum of Mortality. Why
am I stumbling on my ms today? The Museum of Mortality dot com rented

(56:00):
mouth. It was a pleasure.Thank you everybody for tuning in this week.
Thank you so much for joining me. This was great. Definitely we'll
have to talk more. We willabsolutely have to talk more. Oh we
got Radium girls to talk about.We didn't even touch on that tonight.
Oh there's so many things, somany things. Well, hang out there,

(56:21):
I'll catch up with you in amoment. Thank you again, Melinda,
Thank you for having me. Hieveryone, that's just about all we
have for this evening. Everyone,thank you so much for joining me here
and joining Melinda here at the CreepyParlor. Don't forget to stay tuned.
Next up we have Where's My Stage? Next week we have a Haunted Happy

(56:42):
Hour here on the Creepy Parlor,and we have lots of really cool stuff
coming up for April. So ifyou haven't already, please like, follow,
and share us on Facebook. We'llhave all sorts of really cool updates
posted up on there soon, Sothank you everyone, have a creepy evening.

(57:04):
Thank you for joining us on theCreepy Parlor. Join us next Tuesday
at seven pm Easter for another fantasticshow