Mortality and Mourning: Women in Black

The historic Ximenez-Fatio House Museum offers spectacularly spooky candlelight tours every Friday and Saturday from October 3 through 31, 2025, at 6:30 and 7:30 p.m.

Mortality and Mourning: Women in Black

During the Mortality and Mourning: Women in Black candlelight tour, you are guided through the 223-year-old house and museum and learn how residents practiced mourning rituals in St. Augustine in the 1800s. Women of that era shaped some of the cultural aspects of death and the grieving process. 

The tour is lit only by electric candles to create the ambiance of a home in mourning 200 years ago. The guide discusses mourning rituals of those who lived here in the 1800s, including embalming, spirituality, and the role of women as "caretakers of the dead."

While spooky, this tour is suitable for all ages. Tickets are $22.00 per person and are available in advance.

Admission: $22.00 per person for Mourning and Mortality: A Century of Death. Tickets are available online here.

When: Every Friday and Saturday, from October 3 through October 31, 2025. Tours are at 6:30 and 7:30 p.m.

Where: Ximenez-Fatio House Museum, 20 Aviles Street, St. Augustine, Florida 32084

The Ximenez-Fatio House Museum

Built in 1798 during St. Augustine’s Second Spanish Period, this coquina stone house has witnessed more than 225 years of Florida history. Don Andres Ximenez (a merchant from Spain) was its first owner, having built it for his family.

After Florida became a United States territory, the house was owned by a series of women who operated the property as a boarding house hotel. Three of these female managers were widowed, while the most prominent, Louisa Fatio, remained single.

In 1939, the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the State of Florida (NSCDA-FL) purchased the derelict house. They hired the best preservationists to ensure it was as historically accurate as possible to the Boarding House Period (1830s - 1880s) and ultimately named their newly opened museum "The Ximenez-Fatio House"—Ximenez for the man who built the house and Fatio for Louisa Fatio, the house's last historic owner.