Mortality and Mourning: Women in Black

The historic Ximenez-Fatio House Museum offers informative and spooky candlelight tours every Friday and Saturday from October 2 through 31, 2026, at 6:30 and 7:30 p.m. "Reimagined for 2026, this tour explores how the experience of loss transformed women, and how their resulting sorrow and societal roles reshaped the way households and society navigated mourning.

Mortality and Mourning: Women in Black

During the Mortality and Mourning: Women in Black candlelight tour, you are guided through the 228-year-old house and museum and you learn how residents practiced mourning rituals in 1800s St. Augustine. Women played vital roles as caretakers to the dead and memory keepers. The tour examines mourning practices and the rise of spiritualism from the Spanish Colonial Era through the Victorian Age.

During this immersive experience, the tour is lit only by electric candles to create the ambiance of a home in mourning 200 years ago. While spooky, this tour is suitable for all ages.

Admission: $25.00 per person for Mourning and Mortality: A Century of Death. For more information and tickets, go here.

When: Every Friday and Saturday, from October 2 through October 31, 2026. 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.

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