While scrolling through Instagram yesterday morning, an image of charred debris caught my eye. It had been posted by Wolf’s Museum of Mystery (@wolfsmuseum). I stopped to read the description and instantly felt heartsick. Turns out their museum had been destroyed in a fire!
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There is no recovery from what has happened but we are sharing this link created by our friend who is trying to help us. Thank all of you who have expressed their feelings and reached out to us. https://www.gofundme.com/fire-destroys-wolf039s-museum-of-mystery&rcid=r01-154993581896-d65169acedc545f6&pc=ot_co_campmgmt_w
Shock #1
I was shocked my friend Karen from Jacksonville hadn’t written me with the news. My husband and I spent Thanksgiving with her and her husband. She went for a jaunt with Wayne and I down to St. Augustine to check this museum out after I’d seen a post about it from another Instragrammer I follow, @supernaturaltravler. (Something I mentioned in the intro to my interview with Cyndi.)
I had to get going yesterday morning before I could text Karen and ask if she’d heard about a fire down in St. Augustine. I couldn’t imagine the museum was the only loss on that street with the buildings so close together. Maybe Karen would write and tell me about it later in the day? Maybe she was busy and hadn’t had a chance yet?
Nope.
Shock #2
When I got home yesterday afternoon I Googled it. I was shocked no news stations came up in the search. The very first hit was from Werewolves.com. That’s how I learned the reason Karen hadn’t heard about a fire in St. Augustine was because there hadn’t been one –the museum had just moved to New York.
The first thing I wondered about was all of their animals. They had a bunch of stuffed critters in the museum, but also also real ones. Dogs, ferrets, rats… Were they inside at the time?
I went to their Facebook page to investigate. Sadly, yes. All their animals were lost in the fire too.
Heartbreaking. Their cool collection of horror art and movie memorabilia is a loss in itself, but the lives of fur kids? That’s a horror no one should ever have to endure. (Not like this. Death comes to all of us eventually. I know that. And when you have fur kids the Living Years are that much more precious. It’s tragedies like this that no pet parent should have to endure. The utter helplessness of imagining the terror they experienced in their last moments, and not being there to help them… Ugh!)
Worse, their new location was both home and museum in one. (Maybe so was the location in St. Augustine. I’m not sure. But I know the new one in New York was.)
GoFundMe Campaign
Wolf and Ali Von Mertz lost everything in this fire. I’m not sure if the person who set up a GoFundMe page for them is a friend or family member, but I’m sharing the link in case you want to help too. Kindness is always appreciated, but during a time of tragedy? It becomes one of the most precious gifts you can give.
Courtney Mroch is a globe-trotting restless spirit who’s both possessed by wanderlust and the spirit of adventure, and obsessed with true crime, horror, the paranormal, and weird days. Perhaps it has something to do with her genes? She is related to occult royalty, after all. Marie Laveau, the famous Voodoo practitioner of New Orleans, is one of her ancestors. (Yes, really! As explained here.) That could also explain her infatuation with skeletons.
Speaking of mystical, to learn how Courtney channeled her battle with cancer to conjure up this site, check out HJ’s Origin Story.
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This is the saddest.
How horrible. I am so sorry to hear this.