'Art of the Undertaker' exhibit opens

MOSES LAKE — Moses Lake Museum & Art Center director Freya Liggett said the exhibit that opened Friday had been generating curiosity the entire time the collection’s owners and museum staff were installing it.

“The interest was palpable (Friday) afternoon,” she said. “We had people waiting at the doors at 1 p.m.,” when it officially opened. A substantial crowd attended the opening reception of “The Art of the Undertaker: The Kayser Collection” Friday night.

The meticulously restored 1926 Studebaker hearse parked right outside the utilities department probably got some attention. So did the 1939 Cadillac hearse, with an equally meticulous restoration, parked just inside the museum.

Moses Lake Mayor Todd Voth said Friday night it required a little extra ingenuity to get the cars, and the horse-drawn hearse from 1900, into the building. “We’ve had the public works folks down here taking doors off so we could get the cars in.”

The doors in question would be Moses Lake City Hall’s front doors. The museum has a back entrance for large objects, Ligget said, but the hearses were too long to navigate the tight space between city hall and the Moses Lake Police Department (and Parks and Recreation) next door.

Jerry Kayser, who loaned the items from his collection displayed in the exhibit, expressed his appreciation to the city and museum staff for their help in setting up the displays, including “everybody who moved our cars through those little tiny tight doors.” Kayser and his wife Ronda are owners of Kayser's Chapel.

“They never thought they could get cars in here, but we proved them wrong,” he said.

The exhibit tells the story of the funeral industry from its roots in the Civil War to World War II. The collection started with collecting and restoring classic cars, including the old hearses, Kayser said in an earlier interview, and expanded to include the tools of the trade.

The sheer size of the collection impressed one visitor at the reception. “He must have a museum of his own somewhere,” she said.

One couple grabbed a selfie standing in front of the horse-drawn hearse. “I think we’re learning a lot about history,” said a woman attending the reception.

The collection includes items dating back 150 years, from the utilitarian bottle and jugs that held embalming fluid to elaborate mourning jewelry fashioned from the hair of the deceased. How did undertakers keep everything cool before refrigeration was readily available? People usually held funerals at home right up until the 1920s; how did that work? The exhibit answers those questions, and others.

The exhibit also includes some of Kayser’s landscape photography, and his photographs of old tombstones from the region’s many pioneer cemeteries. There are also 10 bottles of Coke hidden here and there. “Share a Laugh with the Undertaker,” read the placard explaining the pop bottles.

The exhibit will be on display through June 2 at the museum, 401 South Balsam St. Admission is free.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.