When the Children’s Museum closed, jewelry made from hair of presidents and locks of the dead found a new home.

The walls of Leila’s Hair Museum are filled with centuries-old wreaths made of human hair, and glass cases filled with necklaces and watch bands woven from the locks of the dead. There’s also hair that reportedly came from former presidents, Hollywood luminaries Marilyn Monroe And even Jesus.

For nearly 30 years, this children’s art collection in a Kansas City suburb freedom Attracted an eclectic group of gawkers that included heavy metal legends ozzy osbourne,

But the museum’s namesake, Lila Cohoon, died last November at the age of 92. Now his granddaughter, Lindsay EvansBusy reestablishing the collection of more than 3,000 pieces in museums across the country, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC.

“Every time I come here, I feel her here,” Evans said Monday during a tour with representatives of the National Museum of Funeral History. houston Who went away with about 30 pieces. “This space is hers. And so I feel like this process of reestablishing her collection has helped me grieve her in a way that I didn’t realize I really needed.”

It all started in 1956 when Cohoon, a hairdresser, was shopping for Easter shoes. Inside an antique shop she finds a gold frame filled with hair braided into the shape of flowers.

“He said forget the Easter shoes,” Evans said. “My grandfather always used to say it’s the most expensive piece in the museum because look how it started.”

Evans is keeping it to herself.

This art form peaked in popularity in the mid-1800s when women would weave the hair of the dead into ornaments or braid the hair of loved ones into wreaths to tell their family history.

But by the 1940s, Evans said, child art had fallen out of popularity as memories were captured in photographs. Additionally, “This artwork was not celebrated because it was mostly created by women. And so in the big museums, they don’t have a lot of it.”

His grandmother saved some people from ruin, wrote a book and taught art classes, training a new generation of artists.

Child art was often housed in elaborate frames with the original glass, so when her grandmother began haggling with antique dealers for frames, they would often offer to get rid of the hair.

“And she’d say, ‘No, no, keep it in there,'” Evans said.

Then his grandmother would hand him her business card and ask him to be careful. Soon dealers from across the country started calling.

“If there was hair in it, she got it,” said Evans, who sometimes accompanied her grandmother to look for new hair.

The collection was joined by a wreath consisting of the hair of each woman from the League of Women Voters of Vermont in 1865. A pair of crescent-shaped wreaths include the hair of two sisters whose heads were shaved when they entered a convent. Some pieces also feature taxidermy.

The frames filled the walls of her home and the beauty school she ran with her husband. He hid them under beds and in closets. Eventually, the couple snapped up the building — a former car dealership — that was sandwiched between a fast-food restaurant and a car wash.

Celebrities felt the attraction. Actress and comedian Phyllis Diller donated a hair wreath that had been passed down in her family for generations. TV personality Mike Rowe filmed an episode of “Somebody’s Gotta Do It” here. There may also be some Osborn varieties inside. When he came to visit, Cohoon broke a lock, although Evans has still not found it.

Evans said her grandmother has kept quiet about what she spent over the years, but she estimates the art could be worth more than $1 million.

When Genevieve Keeney, head of the National Museum of Funerary History in Houston, looked at the collection, she noted with curiosity the jewelry that commemorated the dead, including a small pin that held a 7-year-old girl who died in 1811.

“I always thought it was important to educate people about death,” said Keeney, who is also a licensed mortician. “Our society does a great job of explaining to people what their true feelings will be when death occurs.”

Evans herself struggles with mixed emotions as she slowly reclaims her grandmother’s inheritance.

“I want people to see all this because that’s what she would have wanted,” Evans said. “But it will break my heart a little when it’s empty.”