Taxidermy Makes Funerals Fun in Wisconsin

Nothing says “cheer up” like taxidermy at your funeral. Right?

We have no shortage of weird things in Wisconsin, but still…you don’t expect to find a funeral home full of quirky, Victorian-style taxidermy dioramas.

Funeral director Salvadore “Sam” Sanfillippo was a WWII vet who, as he would tell it, was left for dead on Omaha Beach during the 1944 Normandy invasion. But the ride to the morgue kickstarted his heart, and he lived a long and odd life until April of 2013, when he died at the age of 93.

At some point during his career, Sam decided people attending funerals needed something to do. So he began assembling a collection of taxidermy in the basement of his Madison, Wisconsin funeral parlor. He collected roadkill, chipmunks accidentally killed by golf balls, albino squirrels and fish for taxidermist Vito Marchino to transform into humorous anthropomorphic dioramas.

Families of taxidermy rodents enjoyed a carnival. Chipmunks danced in a “Topless Girlie Show.” Albino squirrels drove Barbie cars and played basketball. Cowboy chipmunks of the Old West rode plastic horses beside toy dinosaurs.

According to the State Journal, some 26,000 visitors came to see the unusual display in its first year open to the public.

Photos courtesy of Extreme Craft

Due to the high cost of maintaining the roughly 500 piece collection, Sam’s family decided to auction it off in March of 2014. The auction generated a lot of interest. Even Mike Zohn of Obscura Antiques and the Oddities TV show was present to take home some of the legendary pieces. The squirrel bar scene pictured above, which is now part of his private collection, will be on exhibit at the Morbid Anatomy Museum in Brooklyn later this month.

If you have pieces from the Cress Funeral Home taxidermy collection and are interested in contributing them to Cult of Weird contact me.

Got a tip on another weird place? Tell me about it!