UPDATE:
FOR INFORMATION ON THE 2009 GEORGETOWN MORGUE
AND OTHER LOCAL HALLOWEEN ATTRACTIONS
GO
Today I read an article that debunks the story about The Georgetown Morgue.
I don’t do the haunted house tour thing ( you know, after you’ve worked in a Funeral Home and had to visit real morgues and years later all you can remember is the taste of McDonald’s French fries because you were consistently assigned removals in the afternoons- just before lunch)- Morgues don’t exactly scare me-
the thought of them now just makes me hungry.
For French Fries.
The super-sized serving.
Anyway.
I thought the setup for the Georgetown Morgue was a fun idea, a very neat story and the building the “morgue” is staged in is way over the top and looks the part.
Most funeral homes, let’s face it, were supposed to blend because they were either near churches or in neighborhoods and people actually lived in them.
However subtle- some of them are they are weird if you know what to look for the weirdness- take a look at the garage doors and back doors which are wider then normal to accommodate you know, things which require a lot room to move through, and though the writer of the above mentioned article does toss in the small smoke stacks at the Evergreen Washelli Funeral Home and how unscary they are but he fails to mention the actual creepy thing is the mirror mounted on the roof and tilted upwards towards the smoke stack.
The Funeral Directors use this mirror to make sure the smoke doesn’t turn dark during the cremation process…see CREEPY.
You just need to know where to look to find it.
However- there’s always an however isn’t there?
On a visit Dubque Iowa, I saw this amazing funeral home called Behr’s- which looks scary by any measure.
So what do I think about the ‘debunking’ of the Georgetown Morgue?
Well.
I’d say the writer who did this didn’t prove anything other then the only story he could come up with was the deconstructing of another writer’s work.
Creating a world and a story and legend for you to follow isn’t easy, placing it in terms that invite readers to want actually walk ( or drive ) to that door is actual work, bringing a building and people who never existed to life, takes effort, writing a vindictive little hit pieces to ruin the moment for people who wanted to visit the “Georgetown Morgue” ?
Geeze- now that’s just mean spirited.
So visit the setup site for the Georgetown Morgue, it’s actually well done- I thought the way they wove bits of Seattle’s real history into the ‘legend’ was pretty clever - the earthquakes, the hint of the Wa Mee Massacre, the death of a famous local musician wrapped in media hype- made it possible for present day for local residents to ‘relate’ to this building and to the story.
So no- I wouldn’t visit the haunted house- I couldn’t even be bribed with French Fries…however…if someone were to tell me more stories about the Georgetown Morgue- they would have my undivided attention.
After all, this is what we do during Halloween- we spin yarns, tell tales and for one night not only do we get to face the monsters-
we get to face them down.
It’s all part of the fun.
So.
Try.
A few of you, more then others…
to have a
Happy Halloween.







N.M the next time I go to Iowa I shall take some pictures just for you….
By: Anita Marie on October 27, 2008
at 12:43 pm
hmmm…. where’s my comment gone?
By: nursemyra on October 28, 2008
at 6:57 am
now I can’t remember exactly what it was but I really really love that picture of the georgetown morgue
By: nursemyra on October 29, 2008
at 7:50 am
You wanted to visit the Morgue in Iowa too, which is probably one of the most amazing buildings to house a Funeral Home Ever
By: Anita Marie on October 29, 2008
at 2:47 pm