Rich Daddy Got Mummified in St. Louis Nearly 100 Years Ago
Truck driver and Carondelet resident, Joseph Marconnot was a bachelor who saved up a lot of money. While a good amount of that money went to his niece and nephews, other funds were designated in his will to preserve him forever for the public to see him lying in state... The only way to do that was to make Marconnot into a mummy.
Joseph Marconnot, a wealthy bachelor from St. Louis in the 1920s, left specific instructions in his will to be mummified after his death according to this article in The Telegraph.
Die-hard fan of Egyptology, Joseph Marconnot, passed away at the age of 64 in St. Louis’ Barnes Hospital in 1924 and left specific instructions in his will to be mummified after his death according to this article in The Telegraph. The wealthy bachelor from St. Louis left a sizable fortune to his nieces and nephews, of which some funds were reserved to preserve him in the style of King Tut and place his mummified remains in a mausoleum with a glass door.
The tomb of Tutankhamun was discovered only two years before in 1922, so Marconnot’s “balmy” funerary plans seem rather hasty. Perhaps he was a keen reader? According to the History channel, Mummy’s entered the popular imagination in the early 20th century after Bram Stoker — who famously wrote Dracula in 1897 — published the novel, The Jewel of the Seven Stars in 1903, which recounted contemporary knowledge of Egyptology in exhausting detail.
Who knows? I just love how Marconnot, as a character both in life and in death, perfectly reflects St. Louis’ quirky history as a classically “modern” city caught between the dreams of fantasy novels and novel inventions.
Next year the remains will be 100 years old. Fox2Now reports spooky occurrences in his mausoleum, which is now open to the public every year for Marconnot’s birthday, on May 8th, and also every major Catholic holiday.