Zombies in Long Beach, CA – 29 OCT 2011

The day started with the Eight Annual Halloween and Mourning Tours at Heritage Square, just north of downtown Los Angeles.

Palms Depot

Their special Halloween event included education on Victorian era funeral customs and the Spiritualism movement.

We attended a séance, had our fortune read, witnessed a Victorian funeral and toured several houses.

Perry Mansion

William Hayes Perry Residence is example of classic Greek Revival Italianate was designed by E. F. Kyson. When it was built 1876 in the then-fashionable Boyle Heights, it was the finest and most expensive residence in Los Angeles.

Hale House

James and Bessie Hale House was built 1887 by George W. Morgan, a land speculator and real estate developer. It was sold many times before being purchased by Hale in 1906.

Dr. Osborne’s Carriage Barn

Valley Knudsen Garden Residence

Longfellow-Hastings Octagon House

A few of the Victorian customs they had on display include postmortem photos and items made from hair. 

Bereaved families wanting to keep a memory of a lost child would have a photo made of the child lying in the coffin or posed as if at rest...many times the postmortem photograph was the only image that existed of the loved one.

Hairwork jewelry took various forms including brooches, bracelets, watch chains, and earrings. Some times the hair was woven into elaborate designs and framed in a shadow box.

Before returning home we stopped across the freeway at the Lummis Home. 

The garden has grown to the point where you can not photograph the entire building. The light today was too hash, and filled with shadows and sun spots; but, this link will show you an early view of the stone house. Link to LAParks.org

Charles Fletcher Lummis was an early activist, author, anthropologist, photographer, civic booster and first city editor of the Los Angeles Times. Check out the detail on the door:

Next we went home, applied our zombie make-up, grabbed the dogs and headed to Long Beach to become part of the World’s Largest Zombie Walk.

Long Beach was having a Zombie Walk in an attempt to break the Guinness Book of World Records.

Guinness officially recognized the New Jersey Zombie Walk held on Oct 30, 2010, with 4,093 zombies. 

Long Beach ran into some trouble with their official count because the “Get Counted" photographers’ booth was closed down by the city due to the ever-lengthening line.  

When we got there it took us a while to figure out the “count” procedure.

Count Dogcula

When we got in line, it was over 4 blocks long but, we got documented: Link to: Zombie Walk LB

Below is Bob’s Big Boy with the head of Burger King on a platter.

After that, we were tired and called it a night while everyone else was just getting started.

The next day the estimate was 8,000-11,000 zombies but by Nov 3^rd the count was 14,000 zombies. No word as to it being an officially recognized record…the good news was “a complete lack of violence or dangerous misbehavior.”