Podcasts about hillside cemetery

Hello, my friends! Tonight, we journey to Hillside Cemetery in Skiatook, Oklahoma. A bewitched grave and the phantasmal remains of an accident are said to be located here. We begin the story "Lazarus" by Leonid Andreyev. I do hope that you enjoy our time together, and encourage you to share the podcast with family and friends. Until next time, my friends... https://www.hauntedplaces.org/item/witchs-grave-hillside-cemetery/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/from-a-graveyard/support

There is something serene and comforting walking through a cemetery. A name etched in granite can bring back memories; the absolute silence can offer time for self reflection; and those under the earth can lie in peaceful silence…most of the time. Lets accompany a pair of cemetery walkers as they give us a unique tour.... Read More

A group of teens encounters a strange man while exploring a cemetery late at night. Here is a preview of the story. “This encounter happened when I was in my late teens.  The guy that I was dating at the time and I decided to go hang out at Hillside Cemetery in Lyndhurst, NJ (Where Joey Ramone is buried).  We mostly went there to just relax and just watch the NY skyline while making sure to be respectful of the dead.  It was around 2 or 3 in the morning when we decided to head out.  We had sneaked into the cemetery through a hole in the chain-linked fence to the side of the cemetery.  We were making our way back when we saw him.”To hear more real ghost stories, become a supporter of our show and get every episode, including our weekly bonus episodes at http://www.ghostpodcast.com or http://www.patreon.com/realghoststories Watch more at: http://www.realghoststoriesonline.com/If you have a real ghost story or supernatural event to report, please write into our show or call 1-855-853-4802!If you like the show, please help keep us on the air and support the show by becoming an EPP (Extra Podcast Person). We'll give you a BONUS episode every week as a "Thank You" for your support. Become an EPP here: http://www.ghostpodcast.com/?page_id=118 or at or at http://www.patreon.com/realghoststories

This episode we talk about The tell of Mrs. Jones, Blanchard Cemetery. Imo Cemetery, Jesse Creek and The Hillside Cemetery should be scary. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stephen-booth7/support

This episode we talk about The tell of Mrs. Jones, Blanchard Cemetery. Imo Cemetery, Jesse Creek and The Hillside Cemetery should be scary.★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

In episode #10 of Tombstone Shadows we will visit the Calvary Cemetery in South Portland, Maine. History: The Calvary Cemetery was established in 1858 as a resting place for those who followed Catholicism (all denominations were welcome, though). Tombstone Shadows Investigations: Lillian I. MacDonald (Born: June 1, 1910; died July 12, 1930). Calvary Cemetery James M. Mitchell (Born: May 27, 1909; Died: March 20, 1982?) Hillside Cemetery, Libson Falls, Maine (?)

Content note: mention of suicide, anti-semitism In this week's belated episode, I talk about the witches of Whitewater, the Morris Pratt Institute, and how traditional views of what's 'weird' shift throughout time. Don't forget to check out the True Crime Podcast Festival in Chicago. Look, I know it's not until July, but it was SNOWING today and I need something to look forward to in my new older age. Photo of the Morris Pratt Institute from Wisconsin Historical Images Resources Second Salem Whitewater college paper on hauntings Spine-tingling tales from a weird site Roots of Whitewater's witch lore Whitewater Historical Society on the Morris Pratt Institute WPR piece on the MPI MPI site In Frightening Times, Witchcraft Rediscovers Its Political Roots You can’t control the government—but you can hex it Why millennials are ditching religion for witchcraft and astrology Intimate photos of modern-day witches across America 9 Myths About Witchcraft That Modern-Day Witches Like Me Are Tired of Hearing Anti-Semitic Legends Why Do Witches Wear Pointy Hats? Transcript Welcome to another edition of the Spooky Sconnie Podcast, the podcast that talks about everything, wonderfully creepy, spooky, criminal, and weird in the state of Wisconsin. I'm your host, Kirsten Schultz. And before we dive in to today's very interesting topic, I do just want to remind everybody that I will be at the true crime podcast festival in Chicago that's coming up in July on the 13th. It's a Saturday, it's just the one day, but it's like all day. We did get some more details that um, there's going to be a meet and greet portion of the event with a kind of a relaxed atmosphere and that podcasters are going to be around in the main hall, um, so that you can come meet with us and hang out. So you know, come hang out. The website for that is tcpf2019.com and you can get your tickets and see all the cool stuff going on. I apologize for this episode being late. Um, yesterday was my birthday and I chose to go get drunk and eat a hamburger instead of recording my podcast. But also I have just started a new full time job and my schedule's been a lot busier because of that and because of some of the other volunteer stuff I'm doing. So I just didn't have time to record. I mean I probably did, let's be honest, but I didn't really. ----more---- So, um, for today's episode we're going to be talking about the witches of Whitewater and as I was digging into this, it's really interesting and it's part of why I do a lot of research on the topics I'm covering because if you just kind of take a cursory Google search, um, things you'll find are, you know, like haunted stories of, of people relaying information from another person about like the campus of UW-Whitewater or being haunted and things like that. And a lot of that stuff is actually not entirely true - surprise. And so what I'm going to be talking about today is more about not only, you know, things that are supposedly haunted but also debunking some of the other issues like I do. In the late 19th century, whitewater began being referenced to as the Second Salem and why water is really interesting because it's about an hour from both Milwaukee and Madison. So it's a little bit more south of both of those cities. Um, and it's right at the edge of the kettle moraine state forest. So there's kind of a lot of greenery and a lot of stuff that's already kinda spooky. Anyway, so the tales about Whitewater being haunted popped up. Um, as I said, it was the late 19th century - the late 1800s hundreds - and that was about the same time that the Morris Pratt institute was built in town. The institute was known for Teaching Spiritualism, and that was a really popular belief during the 1800s and incorporated things like seances and mediums and a lot of the spooky stuff we discuss today, Ouija boards, et Cetera. So there were regular lectures at the institute about, um, paranormal items, psychic items, and they also taught people how to be better and mediums, which is interesting. The building supposedly also had an all white room that was used to conduct seances and, um, a couple of the articles that I found had some really influential people involved, um, within Whitewater itself. So as somebody who's an archivist or historian for Whitewater, another person who's a historian that really focuses on the area as well. Um, so I'll be quoting them throughout this episode too. Morris Pratt was someone who was born in New York and he built the institute in Whitewater in 1899 ish is what it was finished. It wound up being a three story building, had two auditoriums and one of those was big enough to hold 400 people. Morris Pratt's dive into spiritualism was interesting. It was around 1840s and 50s when he became interested in it. And that's a pretty popular, um, subject for that time period. There have been a lot of podcasts to kind of go over what spiritualism is, what it isn't the rise of spiritualism so I'm not going to go into that because this would be another really long episode. Um, but during that time period, not only did Pratt get really interested in spiritualism, he really got serious about practicing it. In the 1880s, he met with a medium here from Wisconsin named Mary Hayes-Chynowith and she really focused on using her skills to heal and then also give advice to rich people naturally. She had, um, told Pratt to invest in land in northern Wisconsin and that land turned out to have some of the richest iron ore in the state. And Pratt got super rich. Um, naturally it probably didn't take her to, to convince him to do this. The state of Wisconsin was really going through a large population boom at the time. People moving in, a lot of lumber jack-related things and companies getting set up here and you know, people were finding iron ore already in the far north part of the state. So yeah, Pratt took the time to find land and uh, and bought it and had an iron ore mine and became extremely rich. And I guess in those conversation with Chynowith, he promised that if he ever like made it rich because of her assistance that he would somehow invest in teaching spiritualism to others. So he began building what he referred to often as the 'temple of science' in Whitewater using the profits from the sale of his mining stock. Of course the residents of Whitewater weren't super enthused like at all. And then would always refer to as Pratts folly, which I think is interesting. In April of 1888, um, that's when the, they broke ground and began to actually construct the building. And by December the building was getting closer to completion and editor, an editor of a local paper, the Whitewater Register, got a grand tour. So, um, he was really very hush hush about what this building was actually supposed to be for - a lot of rumors began circulating throughout the community and you know, people knew he was very into spiritualism, but a lot of people didn't really understand what that was. And so there were a lot of rumors flying around, a lot of gossip about what does this man, what is he doing here? What is he doing to our town? Who is he going to windup inviting into the town? And even as he's giving this newspaper editor the tour, he's really vague about it, right? So what he says is that he 'hopes it may prove a useful factor in the education, morally, mentally, scientifically, and philosophically of that class of society that needs it most.' The editor summarized it as 'let us give him the credit he deserves of making the splendid improvement, which adds to the beauty and business of our city. And having done it without a selfish motive,' which I think is a nice touch. But of course the following year, um, when it opened, things were not as great. And I just want to go back. I think I said 1899 when it opened was 1889. Um, so April of that year they published an opening - Um, you know, a little thing that said they were opening in the register. So it was the opening and dedication of m Pratt sanitarium and hall of Psychic Science. And actually what's happening this weekend, April 26th, 27th and 28th, the announcement didn't wind up being written by the editor of the newspaper, but it was something that like Pratt and his pals had submitted and had publish. The next issue though of the newspaper talked a bit about the dedication of the building and it wasn't great. It didn't go well. Um, the dedication wound up being buried within the newspaper was very short and the editor was not thrilled with what he'd heard of the ceremony. He was really critical about the spiritualists that were speaking there and of how, um, critical they were of organized mainstream religion at the time. So that was kind of, I think, their motive behind hiding really the, the report on the dedication. So, you know, that wasn't a great start. Things were still really tense. In December of that year, Pratt had issued a challenge to the clergy within the city, um, and wanted to debate them on religious issues and he publishes it in this newspaper that isn't thrilled with him and I don't know how he keeps being able to do that. Um, he proposed a debate topic and it was 'resolved that the so called teachings of Jesus Christ as found in the new testament are immoral and their tendencies.' So, you know, no one really jumped into that debate. So you can imagine in January of the next year, he again issued an invitation for people to come to the institute and see what it was like. He was a lot more friendly at this point though, probably realizing that he had come off real standoffish the year earlier. So his call this time was to 'both young and old, the president and professors of our schools, the clergy, lawyers, doctors, and business men to meet . . . for a social and intellectual feast, and if they see fit to lay out a plan for future work to build up and maintain a higher state of civilization.' Yeah. Other than that, there really wasn't much within the newspaper about what was going on at the temple. Um, it was either because Pratt was being really reserved and quiet or because of the editor and their run-ins. Given the way the building was set up, it wound up being used for a lot of lectures and meetings and it really wasn't at the time set up as a school or a college, but more like where spiritualists from around the country you could come through as they were like going on speaking tours and um, that people could come and meet them and hear what they had to say, or that spiritualist relatively locally, you could also come and meet and mingle together. There was always an evening lecture on Sundays that was open to everybody, so that tended to be then those kinds of lectures were scheduled. By early 1902 Pratt was now 80 years old and the temple wasn't sure it was going to do. He decided to about that time period form something called the Morris Pratt Institution Association and then gave the temple to them and they made plans to run the temple, um, as a more formal spiritualist school that not only had classes on spiritual isn't, but also general education. And they did this rather quickly. So by late June of 1902, the newspaper reported that the meeting of the trustees was really successful and that public interest was really high, um, about turning the building into a school. And so at that time is when it was actually formally, um, renamed as the Morris Pratt Institute. The full course of study consisted of two different areas. So the first area was general education stuff - so grammar, rhetoric, writing, lit, history, geography, all the good stuff, right? And that was pretty typical of what people were expected to learn at secondary schools throughout the country. Um, and was really helpful, I think at this point because there really wasn't an extended organized school system. The second area of study was only open to people who were practicing spiritualists and it included things like psychic research, comparative religion, evolution. And Bible study as it relates to the principles of spiritual wisdom. Like, dude, I want to take those classes. Tuition was really, really reasonable. It's $50 a year. Um, and then plus you got a room that was $1.50 to $2 a week. Only girls were allowed to board at the meeting or at the building, excuse me - while dudes were boarded in private homes instead. And even though there was a separation between Gen ed and um, spiritualism - it didn't give degrees. Um, you could not get a college degree from the institute. It was more set up like a, like a boarding high school. They could become really well versed in being a medium, um, giving lectures, working as a spiritualist, but also could, you know, have a really nice firm background in their studies from which to um, ease into college or something else later on. And this was really, they saw themselves as offering ways for people to pursue self improvement activities. That was, whether they were spiritualists or not. And I couldn't find anything about how many people actually took the institute classes to become mediums and to just go through, um, you know, the Gen ed curriculum. But, um, there was an article in 1917 that reported students that had come to the institute, um, from all parts of the United States. The, the, the current number was about 25 people in the school of the time, mostly coming from the Midwest. As I said earlier, the community kind of just keeps being really unsure about how they feel about the institute. Um, you know, on the one hand it was this really helpful space and provided needed education and was relatively low cost a boosted the city's economy. And on the other hand, you know, it was still weird. It was not normal. Um, one thing I saw some of the students at the State Teacher's College, which was also in Whitewater, would go to the Sunday services just to like make fun of everything. And it seems like the institute became kind of a running joke throughout the town During the Great Depression in the 1930s, the institute really struggled and wound up closing its doors, but it did move to Milwaukee. There's a local historian named Carol Cartwright and I found several interviews with her about the institute and about like haunted Whitewater. And she thinks that Whitewater residents were distrustful of the Institute for a couple of reasons. So one is that spiritualism was much more popular in larger cities than isolated kind of rural areas. And Whitewater, even though it's grown to a sizable city, at least in Wisconsin, which is not saying much, um, it's still really rural. It's still pretty. And you know, if people want to do something cultured or something fancy, they would just drive to Milwaukee or Madison. Like the Whitewater is not a fancy place. Um, it's still today. So, and then the fact that only spiritualists could go to seances or attend certain programs made everybody wonder what was actually happening. Like what is going on? Are they devil worshipers? Are they sacrificing babies? All of those kinds of things. And of course, once the school stopped operating there, everything became embellished. It turned into like, oh yeah, like some of the other students at other places would come and mock this place too. Oh yeah, no, we totally saw witches from that place, like practicing witchcraft. So I dunno. Um, this building was torn down in 1962 but before that it served as a women's dorm and the forties and 50s. Um, Cartwright said “You can imagine how those stories picked up steam. There’s a lot of confusion between who the spiritualists were and what they were doing as opposed to other occult practices. Many of the spiritualist mediums were women. They were engaging in nontraditional activities for women, so making that step from mediums to witches was easy for some people to take." Before the institute was established, there were actually already rumors of witches throughout Whitewater. I mean, it's probably true of just about everywhere. Gotta be honest. Um, but one of the legends, um, talks about the fact that there was an active coven in the late 19th century that had ceremonies and tunnels and kept an altar either in the field behind, um, one of the dorms at university or in one of the cemeteries. And supposedly all these things are like buried where they once stood. So like the altars buried where they were, that once stood. And then like there's several dead coven members that are supposedly buried around there. I don't know. Um, it's an interesting place. One of the other legends talks about the three cemeteries in Whitewater and proposes that they form a triangle known as the witches triangle. A home buildings and land on the sides of the triangle are supposedly haunted and um, one of those cemeteries called Calvary Cemetery has Gates that supposedly close on unsuspecting freshmen that sneak in at night? So there's, um, Calvary Cemetery, Oak Grove Cemetery and Hillside Cemetery are the ones that are supposedly positioned in a perfect isosceles triangle. Um, there are stories from Oak Grove Cemetery. Um, it said that it was the final resting place of this ax murderer named Mary Worth. And legend says on Halloween night she can be spotted among the tombstones. And it's interesting because that's supposedly from Oak Grove and then Cartwright shared that according to another legend, she's buried in an unmarked crypt in Hillside. And the problem is though, there's literally no evidence she ever existed, not in city directories, not in the census, no birth or death certificates, nothing. And that's not - it's hard, right, because it's not that uncommon for people to like not have many written records during that time period by Wisconsin actually did pretty well with some of those things. So Cartwright believes that the stories circulated for so long that like eventually a composite of somebody named Mary Worth just kind of popped out of them. Another story is about the stone water tower in Stairin Park. Stories say witches would surround the tower at night and perform rituals in the park. An iron fence was put up around the tower with barbed wire spikes pointed inward as if it was trying to keep something in rather than people out. The tower sits just south of Wells Hall, which is also said to be super haunted since being built in the late sixties. And that's actually not the only student housing hall that has questioning stories. Um, in 1981, the Alpha Sigma Sorority heard loud noises coming from their basement while they ate dinner. Bricks of the basement floor were scattered around everywhere when they went to check it out, revealing a tunnel that had never been seen before. Story of that goes on to talk about the tunnel system having been used by witches as a way of traveling between the town's oldest mansion sized homes without being spotted by civilians. And here's the other interesting thing, right? That actually exists. Um, the tunnels are probably, um, from the underground railway, from hiding people from them, um, from, from, you know, slave owners trying to find these people and, um, and as a part of the system that moved them up towards Canada, it's just really interesting. Um, yeah, everything I saw said that, you know, those exist. I don't know. I'm going to take that with a grain of salt. The most recent story about witches took place in 1982, three students supposedly witnessed a late night ritual on the beach, near Whitewater Lake, and during the ritual it appeared as if a huge object was coming out of the lake and when they saw that they split naturally. Another interesting, um, rumor is that there's a locked book in the special collections section in the basement of Anderson Library. We're immersed say that the dark contents of the book have driven three students and a professor to commit suicide. Supposedly one person who borrowed the book wound up being locked in an insane asylum. Because of that, the book is not hidden under locking key at there is now hidden under locking key at the library. If you ask to see the book, supposedly you'll be expelled. Um, and a librarian at the, this location [acutally an historian named Weston] helps clear that up: "The only locked book we own is actually a Catholic hymnal. We think the stories about it come from the fact that up until 1989, 100 years after the Morris Pratt Institution was founded, the storage we used for the book was a locked cage because it’s the only storage unit we had. A locked book in special collections got this image of being dangerous. However, none of the people who have ever talked about this Catholic hymnal have given us a publisher, a title, an another, no date, nothing.” It's unknown if this mysterious book remains unlabeled for reasons or if it's just a coincidence. In 1909 there were large ice flows in the lake in June. There's a lot of weird stuff that happens in Whitewater. In 1923 some fishermen said their boat turned over and they were dragged underwater by a creature with large tentacles. They had a really hard time getting back up and when they came back up, they were supposedly covered with small bite marks. In fall 2003 while hiking the trails near Calvary, a professor and several other people supposedly saw a strange flying objects. They were sure it was an alien and posted fliers asking others who had seen it to let them know. Of course it wouldn't be, uh, a story full of shitty haunting rumors if I didn't share that supposedly many of this, these disturbances are caused by the development of the city and the ruining of Indian burial grounds. We've already talked about this, right? How that's bullshit? And some fucking colonialist narrative that does not need to be continually perpetuated by anybody? Okay, cool. One of the interesting things I found too, um, in articles that I read were some personal story is related to these hauntings and spooky things. So I wanted to share some of them cause I thought they were interesting. This first one is from someone named Jeff: "I live in Whitewater, and according to legends, the whole town is haunted. The university that is in town was originally built as a school for mediums and research into the paranormal. I have been told that all possible ways to leave town require going over running water and that the cemeteries form a five-pointed star when looked at from above. There is a hill behind the student dorms that is supposed to where a coven of witches (evil ones, of course) meet. Also, an apartment building was once the residence of a guy who fancied himself a master of the black arts, and is haunted. Whitewater has been referred to as the "Second Salem." I can attest that some areas of town just really give me the creeps. The problem is this: There is reputed to be documentation telling about the weird things in town. However, the town council has made sure that none of that exists in town anymore." I don't know. I just seems to me that sometimes some of these people don't question anything they hear like at all. I don't understand that. Anyway, I like this, this next story a lot better. There a man named Dave Saalsa - It's s a a l s a - and he remembers walking his dogs one evening across the wooded lawns of Whitewater's Hillside Cemetery. The animals completely stopped and stood extremely still, and Dave looks up to see what the dogs are looking at, but he doesn't see anything - until he sees it, right? He says “Right across from a crypt, I saw this full-bodied apparition of a woman. She was floating up the hill.” The owner of the Quiet Huts Sports in Whitewater - That's Dave's job - wasn't sure what it was he saw, but people who come to his store have shared really similar stories of encounters at that cemetery. “I don’t know,” Dave said. “I don’t discount it. I’ve talked to people who have seen firsthand some strange things. There are logical explanations for things, but there are also legitimate goings-on that can’t be explained away.” His longtime interest in local history really became ignited when he was a student at Whitewater in the 1970s he was working on this class project and wound up interviewing a local historian for it and heard a lot of local budgets, including the head of Mary Worth, who we've already talked about. Um, you know, one of the articles that I found earlier that I referenced like earlier in the podcast was that she was an ax murderer. Here, she's supposedly a self proclaimed witch, and Dave learned in this conversation with the historian that Mary Worth put a curse on a Whitewater manufacturer of wagons, and the company's owners died not long afterwards. People now living at the former house of one of those owners named Lucius Winchester have reported here in footsteps without seeing anyone and light switches mysteriously turning on and off. Dave has heard of a coven that still supposedly practice and local cemeteries according to local cemetery workers, circles of stones can be found around the properties and a pyramid shaped cap that topped the monument on the gravesite of Morris Pratt was stolen at some point back. “Back in 1971 when I was still a student, on Halloween night, one of the students broke into the crypts at the cemetery, stole a coffin and brought it to the fountain on the mall. We have to admit we have a rich history in Whitewater of all kinds of things, from stops along the Underground Railroad to a school for spiritualism, whose founder promised to connect people with the departed," Dave said, and there you have it. Is Whitewater haunted? Are there still really witches? I have no idea. I think it's plausible. Um, I think that most places probably have more occult-related activities than anyone realizes. But I also think that the notion of which is being creepy, people with pointy hats who were all black and hang out in cemeteries is outdated. That's not what a witch is anymore. Witches are everyday people. Witches are people who use their powers for good and for evil. And you know, the mark of a witch is not necessarily the ridiculous, the overdone antisemitism of, you know, witch drawings of days past. And I think too, one thing to note as we talk about witchcraft is that within the last few years, More women and other femme people have gotten involved in witchcraft. And it's not anything like, it's not a bad thing. Um, for them, it represents a way to take control of your life. In a way to honor nature sometimes. Um, like for people who engage more in Wicca related activities. It's also I think, um, a giant fuck you to people like Donald Trump, um, who dislike the idea of women having power or of, of anybody of any, um, gender identity that is not a cis male having power. And it's really helped people find others who are likeminded, right? Just like listening at creepy podcasts, um, you run into somebody and you're like, oh, I love purity podcasts, do you, and that's an instant bond, that's instant shared experience that you have. And it's the same with being on a running team or going biking with the same friends every week. Oh. Um, you know, being a part of online patient activity groups or you know, things like that are all ways to build shared experience and community. And just some of us take weird routes to it, or I shouldn't say weird, I should say nontraditional routes to finding community. And I think we have to remember that those, those ideas changed throughout time, right? Back during Morris Pratt stays, they probably never would have thought of the Internet. They would never have thought that anybody would be listening to like a podcast. Um, so what seems nontraditional in society's view - and something maybe impossible in the views of people around when Morris Pratt was still alive - that's changing and that changes with every generation. And as we grow and we figure out what we like and don't like, um, we, we tend to push society the way that we're thinking depending on how many numbers we have to, to influence that push. But, um, all of that is to say which is they're not at all like the sisters from Hocus Pocus, they are not all like the wicked witch. Um, they can be everyday people that just liked to do cool things. I'm not a witch, but also like I have friends who are, and you know what, that's kind of awesome and we just have to step back and realize that being a, which isn't anything different than, you know what it's been for the last several hundred years because I, for the fact that it's a lot more different than the societal ideologies related to being witches are right, the stigma associated to being a witch. So I'll put some links in the show notes. Um, not only the links I referenced and pulled a lot of texts from, from the episode like I always do, but also some links about witchcraft and about what witches look like now and what they do now. Um, and more people becoming witches in the wake of Donald Trump's election. So that's, that's Kirsten's rant corner for this episode. Um, I'm not sure what I'm going to do next week. I'll probably try to pull another cryptid out. I think The Beast of Brey Road looks like a good possibility, although I have a busy couple of weeks, so we'll see how that goes. Maybe something slightly shorter again, but stay tuned. Make sure you checkout the true crime podcasts festival in Chicago. If you are in the Midwest. Um, I would love to see you and hang out and I'm going to try to get some goodies to have at the table. If I have a table, I don't know exactly what's happening with that yet, but you know I'll have some goodies on me with the logo on it. Um, so that you can maybe win some, maybe purchase some, however you'd like to handle that. And um, the other update I have is the thing I'm going to be doing a couple of minisodes a month, maybe if I could swing it after this month is over and call them badger bits. Um, and just do like a really quick, not like biography but kind of have some influential Wisconsin related people. I think that Kinda sounds fun and I stole it from my husband, so I tend to stay a lot of things from him, but he freely offered it, so whatever. So you know, stay tuned for that if that's something you're interested in. And for now, have a wonderful couple of weeks until I speak with you again. You just listened to the Spooky Sconnie podcast. It is produced every two weeks by me, Kirsten Schultz. The intro, outro music is from Purple Plant. You can find show notes and more over at spookysconnie.podbean.com, including a transcript in case you missed anything. Take a minute and rate and subscribe if you can. You'll help more people see the show by rating and you won't miss a single episode if you subscribe, and that's pretty dope. You can support the show over at patreon.com/spookysconniepodcast and you can email me anything you'd like me to know at spookysconniepodcast@gmail.com. Meantime, sleep tight. Don't let the badgers bite. Bye.

Brett and Harley join David Flora from Blurry Photos for a talk about Hillside Cemetery in Skiatook, OK. We discussed our experiences and the history of the Skiatook Witch. If you haven’t experienced the award winning Blurry Photos Podcast or the musings of the one and only David Flora, then you are a slacker. Listen … Continue reading "Guest appearance on Blurry Photos" The post Guest appearance on Blurry Photos appeared first on Travel Oddities Podcast.

Brett and Harley from the Travel Oddities Podcast join Flora to talk about Hillside Cemetery in this episode! The hosts of the award-winning Travel Oddities Podcast dish about their experiences at Hillside Cemetery and other adventures in Oklahoma. The supposed grave of a witch in Skiatook, OK, is said to have some bad mojo around it. Harley and Brett went there and share their story. They also talk about another interesting encounter in Sasakwa, OK, a story no description can do justice to, you just have to hear it. Learn about these boys and their tales in a fun, discussion-ful episode of Blurry Photos!  

Episode 48 has us looking in depth at some topical news items plus some upcoming events in the Reno area. Issues we discuss:* Should you be concerned with hemlock growing along the Truckee River?* The inside scoop on legislation signed by the governor that will help protect the Hillside Cemetery from development* A review of Murder in Green Meadows at Reno Little Theater* A preview of Artown 2017* Five events to check out this coming Memorial Day weekend.Enjoy.Support the show (https://thisisreno.com/subscribe/)

How do we knew when a body is truly dead? Modern science shows us that the body dies slowly, not all at once as we used to suppose. It takes time. The body is a rather vast and complex ecosystem of enzymes, processes and functions that rarely, if ever, stop all at once. With our modern sensors and advanced medical knowledge, we usually determine the moment of death as the time when the brain ceases to show any sign of activity. However, if the heart stops beating and breathing ceases, there's just no way that a body can function much longer. Today, an coroner always double-checks to makes sure the recently deceased is actually and fully gone, but in the past, not so long ago, we did not have the precise knowledge that we have today. What follows is a horrific example of what may have happened on a rather regular basis in the days before electricity. The thin line between life and death was often out of focus and those whose task it was to pronounce a person living to dead may have had a tough time getting it right all of the time. The Howe family was one of the oldest founding families in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Of note is their founding of the Wayside Inn at Sudbury, Massachusetts which was later lovingly restored by Henry Ford.  It is also famous for Elias Howe's invention of America's first lockstitch sewing machine in 1846. Such a family had established itself as memorable by the time they settled in Damariscotta, Maine  after the War of 1812 and began their strange association with the phenomenon of American Spiritualism that ushered in one of New England's saddest and possibly darkest burials. Colonel Joel Howe, the family patriarch and veteran of the War of 1812 had nine children, all curious, well-read and very interested in the new ideas of science and invention beginning to take hold in the popular imagination. Of particular interest are son Edwin and his little sister, Mary Howe.  Author Harold W. Castner who researched the legend for Yankee Magazine, actually interviewed people who were present and witnessed the events that passed in the Howe family home, fourteen people, in fact. Their stories corroborated the events described in local newspapers in the Newcastle and Damariscotta area at the time.   The Howe Family made their income from the stagecoach tavern known as the Howe House Inn. It was in that house that the family began their attempts at communication with the dead. This might sound like something out of a 1960s Hammer horror film, but the Spiritualist Movement in America was a bona fide religious organization that still exists today. It first appeared not far from Maine in the 'burned-over district" of upstate New York with the Fox sisters and their supposed communication with the dead. Devout spiritualists at the time were often protestants who were using the idea of a life beyond the physical form in which a person could still learn and grow and, to the great interest of the believers, could communicate from beyond the veil with the living. Fueled by the written works of Emanuel Swedenborg and Franz Mesmer,  spiritualists believed that there is not a single Heaven for all to enter, or even a single, solitary Hell. Instead, there was a hierarchy of both, much like  Dante's leveling of the Underworld in  his Inferno. Spiritualists ascribe to the idea that the spirits of the dead act as a kind of network of connections between God and his living world. Through the souls of the deceased, Spiritualists believed that they could commune with the Almighty.  In order to speak directly with the dead, one needed a medium, a gifted living person who could, through a kind of self-hypnosis, get themselves into a mental or spiritual state that was amenable to contacting the dead. Once that state of mind was achieved, the medium became the terminal in the network that connected both worlds. All you had to do was sit quietly and ask questions. If someone on the 'other end' was willing, the medium spoke or wrote your answer.  This practice still exists today, but in 1882, it was all the rage. In the forty years since its birth in New England, Spiritualism had grown into a recognized religious organization. Which brings us to young Mary Howe and her brothers and sisters, all living together under the same roof in Damariscotta. The family was gifted with the ardent belief in life after death coupled with a kind of ingenuity of invention that was the hallmark of a 19th century Yankee. Brothers Edwin and Lorenzo crafted a 'perpetual motion' machine and a way to counterfeit half dollars.   Mary devoted her intellectual hunger toward her faith and the family discovered that she had a strong gift as a medium. Her fame spread throughout the Spiritualist community and beyond. Like so many people who have attended a seance or had their palms read, many visitors to the Inn were simply curiosity seekers wondering what this spiritualist stuff was all about, but some were as devout as the Howes. What they discovered when they attended one of Mary's trance sessions might be a quiet conversation with a loved one, a long session of silence, or they might be treated to something quite theatrical. Once, convinced that she was graced with the gift of flight, Mary Howe jumped off the stairs, her arms spread wide like a bird wings, her mouth speaking in a strange, inhuman tongue. When she landed in a heap at the bottom of stairs with a broken ankle and a panoply of bruises and scrapes, it only served to increase her popularity as THE medium to visit if you wanted speak with Uncle Albert about where he buried his money. A witness to one of the Howe sessions was author Castner's own grandmother. Her question to Mary was a simple one: when would her relative return from his visit to New York. Mary's answer was mumbled and quiet, but she communicated, "I can see him clearly. I see many lights! Wait! He will not return! When all those lights appear, he will die!" According to Castner's grandmother, Mary's prediction came true. Her relative died of apparent heart failure as he witnessed the first nighttime illumination of the lights on the Brooklyn Bridge. One can only imagine how quickly that story spread throughout the community. Though Mary entertained many guests with her sessions, she also practiced another kind of spiritual connection with the world of the dead: she claimed that she could travel there. Her trances were deep, lasting much longer than any visitor could stay. Many mediums in the 1880s did not explain exactly what they were doing or how they achieved their mystical trances, but today we might classify these as self-hypnosis sessions or even as out-of-body experiences. They would need the help of others because their body would remain in an apparent state of sleep for long periods of time. During that time, they would fall into a deep sleep and then, into something deeper, sometimes for days. In order keep the spiritual journeyer's body warm, they practised a strange habit. Normally, the infrared energy created by a sleeping body can be easily captured by blankets and even on the coldest night, the body's own chemistry will keep itself warm. Not in the case of some of these mental journeyers, like Mary Howe. As she lay on her couch or bed, we never discover which, they would lovingly surround her with stones they had warmed on the stove. These stones maintained, they claimed, enough body heat to keep the medium's body preserved and ready for when he or she returned from their spiritual wanderings and could reinhabit the body. It was claimed by those attending the bodies that these medium were indeed still alive, even though no breath fogged a mirror and no heartbeat could be found. Such practitioners might be doubted if it weren't for our own modern understanding of both the coma state and the trances that various shamans enter in indigenous societies around the world. Mediums who practiced this deep type of trance almost always came out of them fully refreshed with no apparent harm to their physical body. If you waited long enough, they always woke up. Which makes the story of Mary Howe so mysterious. In 1882, in her house on Hodgdon Street, Mary entered one of her deep trances. This was a commonplace happening and her brother Edwin knew the routine. He would keep the stones warm and keep replacing them around her body until she awoke and told of her journeyings to the other realm. By this time, Mary's trances were an item of curiosity and many people visited the house to see her lying supine, her mind elsewhere. Edwin welcomed his neighbors and friends in to witness his sister thus. One can imagine the conversations, the cups of tea, and the convivial nature of the guests as they wondered about where she was and who she was visiting. Perhaps someone voiced the question, "What might happen if the spirit found itself astray and lost its way back to its earthly vessel?" People marveled when they visited after a week and still, she hadn't returned to her body. Edwin reassured everyone not to worry - that this was not unusual. But after two weeks had passed, someone must have asked the question, "Is she in a trance, or is the poor girl dead?" Dr. Robert Dixon was a man of science. He did not relish the idea of visiting the Howe household when the sheriff ordered him to make the determination. There were laws, as well as common sense, that dictated that a dead body was a source of disease and must be buried as quickly as possible. Funeral homes existed, but in 1882,  it was common practice to lay out the deceased body of your loved one in your own parlor so that friends might visit to say one last goodbye.  This is almost exactly the scene that the good doctor witnessed when he entered the Howe home. Edwin admitted Dr. Dixon and led him to the room in which the body of his sister lay in her trance. He explained to Dr. Dixon that the stones were arranged thusly to keep her body warm. Dixon did note that the body did not present as though rigor mortis had set in. The skin was supple and the flesh of her cheeks was both warm and flexible. Edwin assured the doctor not to worry. His sister was merely in a trance. The body had been lying in a warm room for two weeks and there was no smell of putrefaction evident.   Though she appeared to be alive, Dr. Dixon knew that all living people had two things in common: they breathed and their hearts beat. Neither was true for Mary Howe. Knowing that life did not inhabit a body that was neither pumping blood nor breathing, he had no choice but to pronounce her dead. Of course her brother protested. So did many in the town who were used to her strange trances. That evening, a deputation on three men entered the Howe household and transferred Mary's body into a coffin. Protesters waiting in the community determined that the authorities were about to bury a living woman. With the authority of the law behind the sheriff, there was little anyone could do. Dr. Dixon, the sheriff, and the undertaker began the process of burial. However, the owner of the Hillside Cemetery, Benjamin Metcalf, possibly refused permission to bury Mary in his ground. He was one of those in town who believed that she was possibly still in one of her trances  and he would not be a part of such a horrific misdeed. Glidden Cemetery in nearby Newcastle would have to serve as her final resting place, but once at the cemetery, no one could be found who was willing to dig the grave for the very same reason. With determination to finish this episode, the doctor, sheriff and undertaker rolled up their sleeves and grabbed the shovels. After the grave was dug, the undertaker's assistant began to realize the possibility of what was about to happen and he refused to help lower the coffin into the ground.  Realizing that they were going to receive no help from anyone else, the three men took it upon themselves to lower Mary into her final resting place. They did not mark her grave, again possibly because they did not want anyone from the community to undo their official work and retrieve her from the cold, cold ground. To this day, no one knows her true final resting place. Today, people are pronounced dead usually after all brain function ceases. The body can be kept alive in a state similar to Mary Howe's state in 1882. However, in 1882 Dr. Dixon might not have been able to determine without a shadow of a doubt that Mary might have been in a deep coma. In such cases, the heart beats very slowly and respiration is neither deep nor easily perceived. Is the comatose person aware? Can a comatose person reawaken after weeks or months. The answer is yes, if their body is being properly fed and if fluids are being administered. But in 1882, there was no way of keeping Mary hydrated or her body fed if she was in a deep coma, or what her brother referred to as a trance. Is it possible that Dr. Dixon and his two compatriots buried poor Mary Howe alive? One must assume that it is possible. In fact, when one considers the incidence of comas in the modern world and tries to determine the number of coma cases that must have occurred in the past, it is quite possible that a large number of comatose people were buried alive, given their incomplete knowledge of the condition. This is why some people chose tombs instead of graves and why some had strings attached to external bells so that, if a person awoke entombed, they could tug on the string and be 'saved by the bell.' Burial would be a faster death due to lack of oxygen.  Given Mary's supple flesh,  the lack of rigor mortis, the lack of the odor of death, and her previous trance experiences, it is not only possible that she was buried alive, but probable. In 1888, six years after the possible living burial of Mary Howe, the Fox sisters of upstate New York, whose interactions with the spirit of a dead peddler supposedly buried in their cellar started the Spiritualism movement in America, confessed in public on several occasions that they had made the whole thing up.  The movement did not lose any ground after their confession. True believers merely brushed them off. Years later, upon the renovation of the Howe Inn , various contrivances were found in the walls: wires with no discernable connection, pipes that led to or from no water source, and other devices whose function defied explanation. This discovery makes for a strong case that many of the trance sessions held by the Howe brothers and sisters were merely parlor tricks after all, perhaps with brother Edwin in an upstairs room moaning through a pipe that led to a hollow space in the wall, amplifying the voice of a long dead relative, strange and distant. As the days and weeks passed, members of the Newcastle community avoided passing the cemetery if they could. Children were frightened and held their breaths as they passed. One can imagine the quiet of an early evening when the sun bathed the darkening world with a fire in the western sky and the wind died down leaving a deep silence, that perhaps, if you listened carefully, you might hear the quietest of sounds and wonder, is that a moan or a cry? Has Mary Howe finally awakened from her trance?