Grief, Memory, Three O'Clock in the Morning: Supplement, but no vitamin
Gaiety at the Morgue Auction
Dear Friends - This is a departure from Mavis-related writing. Some of you, those with a taste for the slightly morbid, might be interested in this interview I did with Cathy Wurzer on Minneapolis Public Radio. It’s about an unsavoury Christmas tradition that took place in Minneapolis from about 1911 through 1955, the annual morgue auction. The unclaimed items of the friendless, nameless dead went on the block, superintended by the coroner whose name was -- and this, I think, Mavis would have appreciated — Dr. Gilbert Seashore. Trunks and whatever they contained, as well as tubas, violins, pistols, razors, streetcar tokens, glass eyes, prosthetics limbs — all were up for grabs, all the grimy goods and chattels that had been on the persons or in the pockets or in the shabby rooms of the misbegotten indigents whom no one missed or came to identify. Many items had sad tales attached, and Dr. Seashore would regale the crowd with these narrative tailings: “What am I bid for this box of alarm clocks once owned by a man who killed himself in a most inventive way?”
That kind of thing.
It’s a sad tale, but a fascinating one - as most sad tales are, after all. Here’s the link, if you care to listen. And if you care to read more about the auctions, or about the other oddities I cull from old papers, check out The Bankhead Gleaner which I also publish on Substack. It’s free to subscribe. Cheers, Happy New Year.
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2024/12/27/newspaper-archives-reveal-morbidity-tenderness-historic-minneapolis-morgue-auctions
