Last Sunday's funeral reenactment at the Merchant's House Museum has caught New York's attention. As has become my annual Halloween tradition, I donned nineteenth-century mourning and reprised my role as Gertrude Tredwell, the youngest daughter of the family that once lived at 29 East Fourth Street. Joined by Roberta Belulovich, who plays Gertrude's mother, Eliza Tredwell, and Carl Raymond, who served as the Revered Samuel Cooke, we recreated the 1865 funeral of Seabury Tredwell, patriarch of the Tredwell family. The event began with a service in the parlors and processed through the streets of the Bowery to New York's Marble Cemetery.
As in previous years, the event was sold out, but this year, nearly everyone in the audience wore period or period-inspired clothing. This made the funeral procession a sight to behold, and as a result, it's been featured in the Observer and The New York Times!
In "Merchant's House Museum's Annual Funeral Rite Raises the Spectre of . . . Spectres," Kim Velsey begins her article:
The drapes were drawn and the oil lamps burning low when we entered the parlor of the Merchant’s House Museum Sunday afternoon to join the mourners at the funeral of Seabury Tredwell.
Read the full Observer piece here.
Then, yesterday, the museum community and I were overjoyed to see our event had been featured in a video by famed New York Times photographer Bill Cunningham. "Head to Toe Black" discusses New York's continued love of black fashion, beginning with its use as mourning attire in the nineteenth century. Watch "Head to Toe Black" here and share your thoughts in the comments!
