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and use code Tori20. Bro, from the show last night to this drive, why is it never chill?
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Default terms at mintmobile.com. Welcome to my favorite murder. The mini-sode. We'll re-read your stuff back to you.
00:02:31
Don't worry about it. It's not a problem. Stop worrying. Stop acting like everything is a fucking problem that we do.
00:02:41
We've got, we'll take care of you. Look, we've always let you down before. You know that you can't rely on us.
00:02:48
You can't count on us. We don't know what we're talking about. Everything we say is false.
00:02:52
So why are you panicking now? So what's the problem now? You should have done it like six months ago.
00:02:57
Yeah. So here's what's amazing. Last time someone told a story. How did this happen, Stephen?
00:03:04
Someone. Episode 97. But it was a Minnesota, right? Minnesota. No, it was a false philosophical.
00:03:12
So and this is a Phyllis Diller. Right, Stephen. And OK, it was a full episode. And someone said something about something in the walls.
00:03:21
Right. Me. It was me. We went all, yes, you started it, and then we began to discuss finding things in walls.
00:03:28
I told the story about Katie Neuberger's house, things in walls. Yes. So basically, Stephen had this great idea to, wasn't it your idea?
00:03:38
To ask for people to send us hometowns of stuff in walls, right? It was yours, Stephen.
00:03:43
No, I feel like it was a group effort. I mean, I guess I should take the- Good move.
00:03:47
The consummate politician. Yeah. You should take credit? Was that the last thing you were going to say?
00:03:52
I'm pretty sure we have. Yeah. Okay, fine. I'm deleting the text where you asked.
00:03:58
And we're all, and it never happened. It was a team effort. We need to start doing more team building.
00:04:04
I would like to do trust falls at the end of this episode, please. Really, let's get into the circle of trust.
00:04:12
Surround yourself by a, listen. Okay, so what happened? Oh, yeah. We don't know.
00:04:19
Put stuff in walls. And we were like, why don't you tell everyone, do you have a weird story or photos?
00:04:23
Tell us what you found in walls. Exactly. We're in love with that. And it's our dream.
00:04:26
And what was awesome is right after Stephen posted the episode the next day, it started immediately.
00:04:33
And somebody said, and I have one here, but there are so many good ones. And I would like to just say this quickly.
00:04:40
Somebody came and said, we opened a wall and tons of razor blades came out. Right.
00:04:44
And then someone else, this was a real time thing that happened on Twitter. and someone else came in and said in the 20s,
00:04:49
that's how they used to dispose of razor blades. Your medicine cabinet that got set into the wall
00:04:54
had a little hole where you were supposed to put the razor blade into this like a little spot.
00:05:00
It was like dispose of razor blades here. Why? And it just went into the wall. That doesn't make any sense.
00:05:04
Steven has a photo? Yeah, but that was like, you know. Holy shit. That's how they did shit back in the day.
00:05:09
Oh my God, just piles and piles of old razor blades laying there. That's creepy.
00:05:14
So if you've ever had that happen to you, there's it there's an explanation and i just love that we have listeners that immediately like
00:05:21
let me tell a little something about medicine cabinets in the 20s okay fucking facts i love
00:05:27
pointless facts we love them so credit to kim m thanks kim for educating us on that so i didn't
00:05:32
mean to like you know that was a great one too but that just kicked us off and now steven he's got
00:05:38
some stories do you want me to go first you go first okay i'm all sitting up and ready i know
00:05:42
Um, because I really did love this one. So it's, hi ladies, love you both and you're amazing, etc.
00:05:48
Boom. We're in. Love you too for writing it that way. My grandfather bought an old Victorian hotel in Ireland in the 1970s Attached is a picture of the hotel in its heyday Let see that picture Yes You can find these photos on Twitter and Instagram It looks amazing
00:06:06
Sepia-toned. It's everything you want out of iron. The hotel is sepia-toned. Yeah, that whole neighborhood.
00:06:11
They painted everything sepia-toned. Just to give you, this picture is from 2011,
00:06:16
but it's sepia-toned, so it feels old. That's not true. Okay, so it had about 20 bedrooms,
00:06:22
and at the beginning, before it opened, my dad's family lived in there um about six months after about six months one of my uncles
00:06:30
who was six or seven at the time was playing and slammed hard into a wall head injury uh
00:06:36
it broke the wall broke revealing another room which had been sealed up once my grandfather
00:06:44
broke the wall down they found an empty room with only a trunk inside and when they opened the
00:06:49
fucking wait oh what i just want to savor this moment like where i'm so excited and i don't know
00:06:54
yet okay okay when they okay go ahead when they opened it they it had a fucking skeleton inside
00:07:02
uh-huh and then the next sentence an actual human skeleton what the fuck an actual it's an actual
00:07:10
human skeleton and the jaw was going ah no uh granddad's photo was in the local paper and it
00:07:17
was a really big deal in this rural irish town when the police looked into it it turns out a
00:07:22
doctor had lived there years before and it was his office prop oh i mean still how fucking rad
00:07:29
like no that whole experience like what else do you want it to be nothing anything else is
00:07:34
disappointing no you're right but it's not as fun it's you don't want someone to have been
00:07:39
terribly murdered and then sealed up into a secret room absolutely not of course you don't want that
00:07:45
but but but we're trying to tell stories here this is my favorite murder look uh listen i got i was short on i was late i was trying to hold for you and then i had to move on
00:07:56
um granddad was so disappointed he's an old irish murderino oh my god granddad was so
00:08:04
disappointed and always would tell the story to people when they would come to the hotel oh i love
00:08:08
it they're like oh great oh and then she wrote og murderino oh my god nice ssdgm lara thanks
00:08:17
That's Laura. That's Laura. That's a good one. This is how Cousin Doris ruined her life by finding treasure.
00:08:26
Treasure! Yeah. Hi, Karen, Georgia, Stephen, and Pets. I'll be honest, after listening to you guys for close to two years,
00:08:33
I'm both thrilled to finally have a story for a mini-sewed category and pretty terrified of screwing this up.
00:08:40
Uh-oh. All right, Kathleen, don't screw this up. You better fucking nail this, Kathleen.
00:08:44
Cousin Doris was actually my dad's cousin, So she's probably my second cousin or something like that.
00:08:48
Yes. In the 1950s, she lived on a farm with her husband out in the sticks of Pennsylvania.
00:08:53
Late one night, a friend of their stops in and asks him to hang on to a box for him.
00:08:58
Yes, no problem. Won't look inside at all. Absolutely. We'd love to have that box.
00:09:03
Give it here. Give it over. He'll be back to get it in a little while. Doris and her husband put the box on a top shelf in the closet and forget about it.
00:09:11
Without even looking at it. Yep. Better person than I am. I bet it's his hat or his hat on.
00:09:17
It's his old check stubs. About two years later, Doris is wrestling around in that closet and knocks the box over.
00:09:25
It falls to the ground and bursts open to reveal cash. Cash. More cash than Doris has ever seen in her life.
00:09:34
She and her husband go on a shopping spree. She buys furs and he buys a beautiful Packard convertible.
00:09:39
Wait, how many years later? Sorry. Two years later. So it's like 1950, whatever.
00:09:45
Yeah, but where's the guy? They're just spending the guy's money? Oh, sorry. There's only one problem.
00:09:51
I think that they were just like, fuck it. Yeah, cash. It's been two years. Nobody can prove that we did or didn't have this cash.
00:09:57
That's the problem with cash. There's only one problem. They live in a tiny rural town.
00:10:02
Everyone knows their business and everyone super duper knows that they have no legitimate reason to have that much money.
00:10:08
the authorities get involved and actually and eventually piece together that the friend who
00:10:13
disappeared had robbed a bank hidden the money at doris's house then accidentally fucked off and
00:10:18
died so it's horrible let's go ahead well i was just gonna say so if they had played it right
00:10:25
yeah you never buy a fur or a convertible that's why you don't need a fucking fur unless you live
00:10:31
in the mountains yeah yeah just move out of pennsylvania just you could go you could move
00:10:37
somewhere or you could just buy small nice things right every time you go to the drugstore a new
00:10:43
pair of hose right something like that yeah go to sephora and do like a 250 dollar sweep
00:10:48
no one it knows the wiser the point is to be uh responsible with the money you've stolen
00:10:55
yes please be a practical uh thief and criminal yeah like of course not okay just use your head
00:11:05
Doris and her husband are convicted of aiding and abetting, receiving stolen goods, etc.
00:11:11
She does 18 months either in prison or jail. I'm not sure which. Except here's the sad twist.
00:11:17
Doris was in her mid-twenties at the time that this happened. While she was locked up, she started hearing voices and being bothered by people no one else could see.
00:11:26
Nowadays, we understand that the onset of schizophrenia is pretty common in a woman's twenties.
00:11:31
but as far as my family was concerned prison drove her nuts well yeah we called her crazy
00:11:38
cousin doris until we understood that that was not a cute nickname no which probably took way
00:11:43
longer than it should have she got divorced pretty soon after getting out of prison and
00:11:47
moved to california and spent the rest of her life reading magazines about aliens hell yes at
00:11:51
least she was happy about the little gray men not creeped out by them stay sexy don get murdered and be careful of free cash Kathleen Am I crazy Cousin Doris Because that sounds like a dream life Reading magazines
00:12:05
In fur coats. But also sitting in a convertible. Right. You know how much you love your fur coats, Kathleen.
00:12:11
Is it my turn? It's your turn. And the subject line is, when I was in a cult, we lived in a former crack house with random hidden treasures.
00:12:17
Oh my God. Read this to me slowly. And it just says, salutations. I grew up really poor primarily because my parents were part of a very restrictive, quote, religious organization, a.k.a. apocalyptic cult.
00:12:30
Oh, honey. And while they didn't make us all live in a compound, they did dictate when my father could work.
00:12:36
No Saturday work. And my mom was supposed to be the Stepford wife. No work at all.
00:12:41
Fuck that. My dad was in construction and money was tight. This resulted in our family living in some pretty interesting houses, but by far, the former crack house was the best.
00:12:53
My parents didn't announce that the house was a former crack house, but as I got older, I put two and two together.
00:12:59
Not only was there tons of furniture and other belongings everywhere in the house when we moved in,
00:13:04
it also had tons of children's stuff and Polaroids of children labeled blackmail picture.
00:13:12
What? Uh-huh. There's a child finding these pictures. What the fuck? I wanted to leave this next detail out, but my husband insists that it be told.
00:13:21
Absolutely. Marry the right man. Yes. And he's the right man for us. Yeah. That's what matters.
00:13:27
That's what we meant. That's all that matters. In the hallway, someone had knocked a hole in the wall, and that hole was full of used hypodermic needles.
00:13:38
Uh-huh. My dad patched it up, and we went about our lives. someday we're gonna get out that's what we found in the wall story it's gonna be
00:13:46
hypodermic needles yep and it's gonna we have then we'll have to come right back to this episode
00:13:50
okay it's kind of like the shaving razors in the wall but more disgusting yeah i've always wondered
00:13:56
if anyone ever discovered them anyway that's what we were just talking about us too us too
00:14:01
samesies anyway in the backyard there was a shed that was filled with porn mags and strangely
00:14:07
beautiful antiques. What? I mean, which ones together? Who can say? I have two passions in this life.
00:14:16
Filthy porn and old lamps. We were only renting this crack den, so my mom said we weren't supposed to
00:14:23
throw anything away and that we couldn't go out there. But I thought it was hilarious to have all that porn
00:14:29
and regularly got in trouble for bringing friends over to partake in the fun. Fuck yeah! Yeah, you gotta look at that porn.
00:14:36
Whoops. after a couple of years living there, we discovered that the strip of green shag carpet
00:14:43
in my brother's closet came up to reveal an outline on the floor. We lifted it up and found a room dug out in the crawl space.
00:14:55
We were too freaked out to explore down there anymore, so we threw a bunch of toys and stuff in it
00:15:01
and never spoke of it again. I love how they put stuff on top of it. Yep. I love this family.
00:15:07
They're all about denial and sublimating everything. Covering it up. Cover things up.
00:15:13
Cover it up. Cover things up. Patch it. Seal it. And walk away. Someone else's problem in the future.
00:15:18
That's what I mean. Someone else's hometown in the future. Throw some drywall up over it.
00:15:23
Nail it on. Oh, my God. Okay. By accident, one day, I discovered that the broken AC window unit in my room was filled
00:15:31
with old newspapers and JFK half dollars. What? That's nutso. That's cool. Money in the air conditioning.
00:15:39
See, because people on drugs, they get real nuts. And then they're like, I have to hide this.
00:15:43
And they hide it. And then they don't remember where they put it or why. And they think someone stole it.
00:15:48
And then they kill someone because they think they stole their shit. And then they realize they just hid it in the fucking AC unit.
00:15:53
It's just in the AC unit. Oh, shit. I killed fucking whatever. My best friend. Okay.
00:15:59
We lived there over five years. And every year we would find more and more stuff buried in the backyard.
00:16:05
Dude. Fuck. Mostly kitchen items, like wooden spoons. What? I gotta hide these wooden spoons.
00:16:12
The government's coming for my spoons. But also the occasional antique china. I never made it into the attic, primarily because of rats.
00:16:21
Jesus Christ. But also because I could see into it from the garage unit via giant holes in the ceiling,
00:16:28
and it did not look structurally sound. But I bet there was some cool stuff up there.
00:16:33
Eventually, my parents left the cult. we moved, but before we did, I made sure to hide stuff around the house before we left
00:16:39
for some other kids to hopefully find. Oh, no. In addition to the crack treasures, whenever I'm in town, I check to see if it's up for
00:16:46
rent or sale in case there's a chance to do a walkthrough. Oh, my God. Fun fact.
00:16:51
When we moved into the next place, my sister promptly found a Nazi coin in one of the closets.
00:16:57
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Cause nobody plans anything bro. Good thing the Rogue's ready like that. For real. Rain, dirt, whatever. Available all wheel drive. Five modes. We still outside.
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Taxes and fees extra. See full terms at mintmobile.com. Okay, so the subject line of this one is found in the wall.
00:18:44
These never get old for me. Amazing. Go. Hi, Karen, Georgia, Stephen, felines and canines.
00:18:48
Great. Oh, that's the first one of that. Never really thought about the fact that it kind of rhymes.
00:18:52
First of all, I love the podcast Second of all, I once found some fucked up shit
00:18:57
In the wall of an old house Here we go Several years ago, my dad was buying old Victorian houses
00:19:03
And fixing them up and flipping them Yes Cool dad You know, before the whole housing bubble burst
00:19:09
Yes, I do know about that I was underwater in my own home One house he bought Needed a bad gut job
00:19:18
The dining room was covered in this wonderful 1970s wood paneling And every bedroom had a different, incredibly ostentatious wallpaper.
00:19:26
Ugh, my dream. Please show me 17 pictures of that. I love wallpaper. I love wallpaper.
00:19:31
I love it. Do you remember the store Wallpapers to Go? Oh, my God. Yes. In the 80s, 70s, 80s.
00:19:38
Yes. And you could go down there and they just had a, it was like a store filled with wallpapers on the wall.
00:19:43
A drive-thru. It was to go. You'd order it to go. No, but I do. And wallpaper is making a comeback.
00:19:48
The secret is you get a really tacky, crazy wallpaper, but you only wallpaper one wall with it.
00:19:53
And you paint the rest of the walls like a light, you know, complimentary color.
00:19:57
Yeah. Everyone. And it becomes your fascinator wall. Follow my design blog. It's called Wallpapers to Go.
00:20:04
By Georgia. By Georgia. The room I was living in was covered in gigantic blue and lime green flowers.
00:20:10
100% on board. Hard to sleep. While pulling down the wood panel. It's aggressive.
00:20:15
Yeah. It's like. Yeah. It's like when my sister and I got to pick our paint wall color when we were in the house where I heard the dog outside my bedroom window.
00:20:25
I wanted it to be kind of a nice moss, a light moss green. It was fucking neon lime green.
00:20:32
Oh, shit. To the point where I feel like, you know, they do those studies where if you paint the wall a certain color, it has psychological effects.
00:20:38
Yeah. I am 1000% sure that it made my experience as a 12 to 14 year old much more painful than it needed to be.
00:20:48
Zap that brain of yours. Okay. Back to whatever this show is. He's pulling down the fucking.
00:20:58
While pulling down the wood paneling in the dining room, we discovered a hole in the wall.
00:21:03
My dad comments that it was so lazy of the previous owners to just put paneling over a hole in the drywall instead of repairing it.
00:21:10
But I looked inside the hole and found a very old manila envelope. It wasn't a million dollars inside, but it was two very old 8mm film reels unmarked.
00:21:27
Naturally, I assumed it was a snuff film. Sure. Wouldn't we all? So I called a friend that worked at a video production company and asked him what to do with these film reels.
00:21:38
Bring them down immediately. I have to know what's on them, he tells me. Love you.
00:21:42
Love you. So the next day, I drove to his studio and cleaned the film with cotton and baby oil, trying to restore them.
00:21:50
I think it was supposed to be he cleaned, whatever. My friend told me we'd only get one viewing out of them because the film was so deteriorated.
00:21:57
Oh, my God. So I call a few more buddies, and we had a screening party. What was on the film?
00:22:04
They're all dead now. What? You want to do a guess? What was on the film? Snuff film.
00:22:09
Oh, you think it was a snuff film? Yeah. Steven, what do you think was on this film?
00:22:13
Mustache porn? Just childhood memories? No, it was homemade porn. Oh! From the 1960s.
00:22:21
Holy shit. Judging by the woman's plastic and unmovable gigantic hair and the man's...
00:22:27
That's not what I thought you were saying. and the man's impressive mustache. And the room they were in had gigantic floral wallpaper, my bedroom.
00:22:42
Amazing. So good. Freaked out, I returned home and talked to the elderly woman who lived across the street.
00:22:49
She'd been in her house for about 40 years at that point, and I asked her if she remembers the people I described from the film.
00:22:57
You know, they had a giant bush. she's like oh yeah yeah yeah i know her yeah oh sure she had a giant bush god that thing was big
00:23:04
um i uh she said that in the late 60s there was a pastor from the local church who lived there oh
00:23:11
really he wasn't married so who was the mystery woman i still have the film reels but they're so
00:23:18
badly damaged they can't really be viewed anymore anyway ssdgm and always watch mystery films found
00:23:24
and walls. Annie. Annie. Fuck Annie. Amazing. That was everything we need it to be. I think
00:23:32
I would prefer, I mean, obviously finding money is great. Bloody blah. I think finding
00:23:38
two film reels would make me go insane. The thing of we'll only be able to watch this
00:23:43
once is almost, it's like from a movie where you're like, come on, it's not a thing. So
00:23:49
everybody get down here, call everybody. And then it's exactly what you'd want it to be,
00:23:54
which is fucking homemade vintage porn. Homemade porn. And if only that pastor knew.
00:24:00
That in 40 years, homemade porn would be a celebrated piece of the internet that everybody participated on.
00:24:08
Everyone loves it. It's like not even real porn. I love it. Okay. Hello, Karen, Georgia, Stephen, and animals.
00:24:14
You mentioned in your last podcast that you were looking for people who found cool things in their walls.
00:24:18
I didn't find anything murder related, but I did find a random assortment of objects.
00:24:21
My fiance and I were renovating our basement about a year or two ago, and the basement had a horrible decor, wood shingles on most walls.
00:24:28
Ew. inside inside shingles a large native mural of a bird wooden arrow on one wall shag carpet
00:24:38
amazing yeah we found the following items in the walls during demolition a black sharpie message
00:24:45
quote we hope the world is better for you because it sure is fucked up in our time
00:24:50
ron and brian december 1976 oh my god and there's a photo and there's a photo oh my god sorry ron and brian brian brian we got bad news yeah guess what you baby boomers are
00:25:04
probably the republicans now uh also it peaked 76 it may have been at the top oh my god that's so
00:25:13
good let me see that's the other one so oh my god so that message then a blank postcard of a man in
00:25:22
a bright pink Speedo chest hair and all. There's that picture. He's so good. He's amazing.
00:25:28
A deck of playing cards featuring naked women from the 70s. A pipe with weed stuffed in it.
00:25:33
Fuck yeah. A wooden dildo that was clearly homemade. Wow. Ew. A woodshop. A small Batman figurine.
00:25:42
And an ABBA Greatest Hits Volume 2 vinyl record. Wow. Anyway, thanks for the laughs.
00:25:48
It was great seeing you at the Toronto Live Show, Renee. Oh my god I like that It's so good
00:25:54
Live your life Okay The subject line of this is My literal job is finding stuff in walls
00:25:59
This is slightly long But it's really worth it I am here for it Hi Karen in Georgia
00:26:06
Imagine my delight when I realized Your obsession with finding shit in walls Was very real
00:26:10
Clearly you were operating on my level of obsession Which is basically the doctoral level
00:26:15
Of finding shit in walls I am director of museums For Historic Charleston Foundation in Charleston
00:26:20
Oh, my God. South Carolina. Charleston, that's a whole sentence. As a historian and preservationist in charge of two sites in the historic district, we find, all caps, a lot of shit in walls.
00:26:32
Here's the latest and greatest story. One of the house museums I oversee is called the Nathaniel Russell House.
00:26:37
It was built by, hey, you guessed it, Nathaniel Russell in 1808. The original house consisted of an enormous three-story federal mansion, kitchen house, carriage house, work yard, and garden.
00:26:50
Russell moved into the house in the spring of 1808 with his wife two daughters age 19 and 17 and 18 enslaved men and women We have owned the Russell House since 1955 and since 1989 much time funding and effort
00:27:06
has been poured into the study and restoration of the main house. As such, it is a pristine example of the towering wealth
00:27:13
of slave owners in the early 19th century, whereas the areas inhabited by those 18 enslaved people
00:27:20
were used for offices or storage and were not considered essential to the telling of the full history of the house.
00:27:28
Needless to say, that line of thinking has evolved, and last year we began an intensive study of the kitchen house
00:27:34
to learn more about the lives of those living and working in the kitchen, laundry, and living quarters between 1808 and 1865.
00:27:41
I should add that since very little about the daily lives of the enslaved survives in written record,
00:27:49
It's only through forensic evidence and archaeology that we were able to piece together what life was like.
00:27:55
Even microscopic traces of pink can tell us volumes about a room from 200 years ago.
00:28:00
We began our study of the kitchen house by assessing the structure and realized that the upstairs living quarters were drywalled in the early 20th century.
00:28:09
Oh, shit. And we could hear voids behind it when we tapped along the walls. A contractor on our team used a very small reciprocating straw to cut a small hole in the drywall, and we were astounded by what we found underneath.
00:28:23
Behind the drywall, perfectly encapsulated, was the original plaster walls of the first period slave quarters, complete with original lime wash.
00:28:33
We were amazed since features like this don't survive 200 years of renovation. But as we removed drywall, we realized that practically everything in the room was original to the period of enslavement.
00:28:45
Plaster, woodwork, paint finishes, window sashes, doors, everything. As the drywall came down, the room transformed, and we were looking at the same walls from the early 1800s.
00:28:57
Oh, my God. It was an incredibly emotional day, thinking about how everything we could see was built by the enslaved,
00:29:03
from the bricks and mortar to the plaster and paint. And these surfaces hadn't been seen for at least 100 years.
00:29:10
This was a living space for enslaved people and probably the only place in the house they could have a moment piece, if any.
00:29:16
It was like a sacred place, to say the least. So then it gets better. Oh, my God.
00:29:20
As we rounded the corner and continued to remove drywall, we discovered tons of debris packed in between the studs and baseboards.
00:29:27
Well, all that shit ended up being the remains of several undisturbed rats nests.
00:29:32
before you freak out finding a rat's nest is like christmas morning for preservationists because
00:29:37
they take it and run yep we were literally jumping for joy holy shit um rats tend to gather items
00:29:43
from a 50 foot radius pack it in there and then pee all over it and thankfully rat pee is a
00:29:49
preservative holy shit so even if a nest is hundreds of years old the things in it tend to stay intact over many years Oh my god They like tiny time capsules If time capsules were full of gnawed bones mummified rat poop and a shitload of sweet artifacts
00:30:05
Fun. We wasted no time pulling all that shit literally out of the walls. I'll attach a photo of us
00:30:11
combing through one night rat, one of eight rat nests. Oh my God. So you can see how much debris
00:30:17
we are talking about. We spent several days painstakingly combing through the debris
00:30:20
and removing artifacts. We uncovered hundreds of artifacts, these fucking rats had straight up stolen from the people living in the kitchen house.
00:30:29
We found buttons, stockings, marbles, straight pins, a portion of a waistcoat, a veil from a bonnet, hundreds of bones from butchered animals.
00:30:37
They were likely stealing these from the kitchen one floor down. We found a small lidded paper box containing a cake of makeup.
00:30:44
Oh my God. The most exciting finds, however, were two fragments of paper. One was a minuscule bit of newspaper with the name Crookshank on it.
00:30:51
my colleague was quickly able to search the historic newspaper database and match it with the digitized original, which dated from November 1833.
00:31:01
Holy shit. It was incredible to know that everything we were looking at was from such an early period.
00:31:05
However, it gets better. The most intriguing artifact retrieved from the nest was a tiny fragment of a reading primer.
00:31:12
This one made us all tear up when we realized what it was. You see, reading and writing was illegal for enslaved people in South Carolina in 1833.
00:31:22
Despite this, someone living above the kitchen at the Russell House got their hands on a reading primer and were possibly learning to read and write.
00:31:30
Holding the physical evidence of potential resistance was one of the most powerful moments of my career.
00:31:35
So that's my touching story of finding shit in walls. The kitchen house restoration is still ongoing.
00:31:41
You can come see it when you come to Charleston in September. Dude. And we are in the fundraising period now, hoping to fund a full restoration of the kitchen house so it can be put on public view, along with the artifacts we pulled out of the walls.
00:31:54
Telling the story, the full story of Charleston and its complicated and painful past is basically my reason for living at this point.
00:32:02
So it is important, especially in this political climate. Thank you so much for keeping me company during long hours of cataloging museum objects.
00:32:09
You guys are the best. cannot wait to see you in September SSDGM Lauren. Holy shit, that is incredible.
00:32:16
Isn't that amazing? Incredible story. She's the director of museums for the Historic Charleston Foundation.
00:32:25
So whenever the Historic Charleston Foundation starts that fundraising campaign,
00:32:32
there's nothing I'd love more than to see that house. Let's just go knock on that
00:32:36
door. Hi! Hi, Kimmy Kimmy. We'll go there, but we'll be wearing gloves and masks and booties on our shoes.
00:32:43
Totally. Steven has the photos. Oh, oh. We'll put them up on Instagram and Twitter and shit.
00:32:48
Oh my God. And Facebook. That's so much stuff. Oh that is creepy and looks so much fun Wow Look at those bones That very it like American Indiana Jones Can people who are who work in museums i know like a lot of museums have their like their shit that they that they
00:33:07
just store that they don't have out like send us the weirdest thing you have or the creepiest thing
00:33:12
you have or your favorite thing that you have in there it sounds like you're trying to rip off
00:33:16
don wildman's mysteries of the museum essentially don wildman us we want to get bite that don
00:33:23
Wildman style. That's right. And we want you to mysteries at the museum email us.
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Well, because there's nothing more fascinating than the real stuff. The real history.
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Which is, by the way, you should watch the show. It's a great show. However, we want the ones that
00:33:37
Don Wildman doesn't want. They can't tell every story. Listen, send us a whistle.
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Send us a wee-woo. Weet-woo us. At my favorite murder at Gmail. Send us a whistle.
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Send us a whistle. Weet-woo at us. and uh stay sexy don't get murdered goodbye oh does he want a cookie
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that's right yeah we just we would he would bro from the show last night to this drive why is the never chill because this is our life
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