Pioneer Cemetery Tour--Talking to Dead Folks



I had a good time this Sunday being the character of Anna Alsap, the wife of the first mayor of Phoenix, who passed on in 1902. I gave many speeches about her husband's contributions to the Arizona Territory and luckily we have lots of interested visitors. We hope to redo the event in October, with perhaps a more ominous and spooky edge. A lot of the stories of Phoenix are gritty and raw, so they might lend themselves to a more Halloween-oriented tour.

Comments

  1. I hope you do repeat it in October. My daughter's baby shower was this weekend so I had to miss it. Glad you had fun.

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  2. Yeah, we're thinking of doing a spooky one in October with all the seedy and dark parts of the characters who settled AZ. The Lost Dutchman's grave is there, I'd like to see a crusty prospector talking to the groups, there's some fueding families too, and other tragedies. Would like to see ghosts worked into it too. Should be fun.

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  3. Autumn i look forward to you telling us more about all of this. It sounds very interesting. I like knowing more about other area's that have stories.

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  4. The Cemetery Tour was a great idea. AZ's only reenactment type things are cowboy shootouts at places like Tombstone, so doing something in the historic downtown area was nice. We were able to earn $ for the extremely poorly underfunded Pioneer Cemetery Association. They take care of the cemeteries throughout the state and the historic house/museum and cemetery downtown where all the founding fathers were buried. Having us talk as the departed citizens at our graves was really fun, but I look forward to October when we take a Halloween bend on it and do the seedier side of AZ's historic folks. I hope to use my skills in theater makeup and become a ghost in floating white tattered robes haunting the cemetery as they take the tour, maybe come up behind folks and blow on their hair, dart around between headstones and make them generally uneasy. Hee hee I think in the month of Halloween, that'd be a big hit.

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  5. I didn't know you were into recreating historical characters! Awesome. In my next life I hope to be a museum docent.

    It would be fun to be "a bit of calico." If you have any photos of the event or a link to a newspaper I'd like to see. Wish I could be there to see you bringing the past back to life.

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  6. Hey Celyn;
    I have one of those 100 things to do before you die list and doing a reenactment character was on there--I'm such a geek! I grew up in the part of the country where every historic place has reenactment people, like Williamsburg. I always thought it would be fun to go to William and Mary and work at Williamsburg in my spare time. I enjoyed it a lot, but I have a thing for costumes--just love becoming someone else. I hope to totally creep it out on the next tour and be a ghost instead of a settler. I'll put some pictures from it on MySpace if you want to see it. I'm display name autumnforest ghost hunter" I think you'd make a wonderful museum docent. I grew up digging up relics, polishing them, and displaying them (as well as reading their pasts by holding them), but I think it would be amazing to be in a museum and be able to handle the objects and display them properly. How fun!

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  7. I definately scored a big hit developing, researching and hosting the Historic Cemetery Walk for the Pioneers' Cemetery Association! MVD Ghostchaser team members Gary and Shiela participated as two of the characters. Megan and Sharon who are associated team members (folks that help my team out when needed) played a couple of the roles..and two members of the Pioneer's Cemetery Assn played 2 more of the roles, and 2 other very kind men I know volunteered for the last two characters! I had one MVD Ghostchaser team member--Maddie as head tour walker along with a couple of the gals who come to my workshops as her helpers. I had about 55 guests at the first ever walk of its kind! So I was quite pleased with the results of my hard work and thank the characters for coming our and putting on a good show. The cemetery assn. wants me to organize another one in October--but I'll see how it goes with my busy--nonstop schedule!

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