2003 Happenings

Jan �03 � I was home alone and expecting late arriving guests. I had unlocked the front door because the weather was very blustery and I did not want the guests to have to stand outside when they arrived. They could just come in. But when they did arrive, they rang the doorbell and waited outside for me to answer the door. I wondered why they did not just come in, when I saw the door was locked. This is the second time this has happened to me. In Aug. 02, Chris Bennett was going to bring his son, Christopher, over about 4am so Cindi could baby-sit him and put him on the school bus in the morning. Both Cindi and I had checked to make sure the door was unlocked so Chris could just come in and put Christopher to bed in Room 1 without waking anybody. At 4am, Cindi heard a knocking at the front door, and came down to let Chris in. The door had been locked.

Several times I have encountered a cold spot in the hallway on the second floor. I get a momentary feeling of disorientation and then it is gone. When I go back to the place where the cold spot was, it is gone. Cindi has had similar experiences in the same place. It is always in the hallway between Room 6 and the closet door on the second floor.

A customer told us this story: One night when he was staying here, (when the McDermets owned the Inn), there was a knock at his bedroom door late at night. He answered the door, but there was no one there. He closed the door and there was a knock again. Once again he opened the door but there was no one there. The next morning, at breakfast, the other overnight guests were all talking about how they had all had similar experiences the night before with someone knocking on the door but no one was there.

Feb. �03- About 1am, I heard the door to our bedroom squeak open. I heard the floor squeak twice as if someone had entered our bedroom. (It was dark and I did not have my glasses on to be able to see anything). There was a pause and the floor squeaked twice going back out the door. Then the door closed with a loud boomp. This woke Chuck and he sat straight up in bed. The next morning he said it felt like a cat was sleeping on the foot of our bed. He could feel the vibrations, like purring, on his left foot. But when he looked, there was nothing there and then the phone rang and the vibrations quit.

March 4, �03- My daughter Kristin said that she was climbing the stairs to her room on the third floor and she saw something white out of the corner of her eye standing in the doorway to the front bedroom. As she got closer to get a better look, it disappeared. The vision lasted only a moment, but the impression Kristin got was that it was an old woman in a long white dress or nightgown, about the same height as she is (5 ft. 4 in.).

June 26, �03- This morning after breakfast, the guest who had stayed in Room 5 the night before, called me aside and said: �I don�t mean to scare you or anything, but did you know you have a ghost here?� I answered, �Well, yes we have suspected it. Did you see something?� She answered, �Sort of. Last night I was sitting in the rocking chair in my room, reading a magazine. My husband was in the shower. Suddenly the room got really cold and I got goose bumps all over my arms and the hair stood up on my arms and the back of my neck. Then I saw an area of fog begin to form over by the twin bed. I just watched as the fog got thicker and I could almost see the head of an old man, but then the fog just vanished. Then the room warmed up and I thought to myself �that was interesting� and I went back to my magazine. It was not scary or anything, just interesting. So I just wondered if you knew you had a ghost here.�

July 10, �03 � I keep seeing a man in the mirrors. He is tall and thin with white hair and his body is just a gray fog. I have seen him 5 times in the last 3 days. I have seen him twice in the upstairs hallway mirror, twice in the parlor mirror, and once in the hallway mirror outside Room 5. He is standing behind me. But when I look, there is no one there, and then he is not in the mirror anymore either. I told Kristin about it and she said she had seen a �floating head� in Room 8 a few weeks before. The room was dark except for the head and if the body was fog, that would explain why she did not see a body.

August 10,�03 � Yesterday we had two people here who said they could see and sense several ghosts in the Inn. (Their names are Dan and Jessica.) They said there is a little boy, about 10 to 12 years old or so, who sits on the second floor landing and waves at people as they pass by. (This might be George.) Then he is sad when they don�t wave back. They said there is a bloody body on the sidewalk in front of the Inn. Someone fell down the back staircase and broke her neck. Someone was killed in the dining room by the bay windows by 4 men at about midnight, and it is reenacted every night. Something bad happened in Room 7 and there is still a lot of bad energy in there. The doctor equipment in Room 5 still holds lots of

energy from it�s owner. And something bad happened in the hallway outside of Room 7 and there is a lot of bad energy still there. There is a woman in the southern 3rd floor room who likes to look through our stuff in there. (We use that room as a storage room and Cindi says she hears things moving around in there.) They said there is a protective spirit in the dining room who likes to take care of the house. (Fannie Mason Kurtz died in the dining room in 1951.) Dan said he saw a woman brushing her hair while seated at the mirror in

Room 5. She turned to look at him when he entered the room, and then went back to her grooming. All in all, they said the ghosts know we are here, they are aware of us. They don�t like it that we are here, but they are used to us and won�t hurt us. The little boy is mischievous and likes to play pranks.

Other things around the town that they talked about: They said there is a man in a black suit that walks the bridge at night. They saw him 2 nights in a row, but the third night when they wanted to capture him on film, he did not appear. Our son and daughter-in-law got married in the Rose Garden and had their reception picnic at the shelter house. I took this picture and there are many orbs enjoying the activities.

August 13, �03 - Chuck woke me up about 2am and asked if I heard a noise that sounded like paper rattling in the Keeping Room. I did hear something that sounded like cellophane or a plastic bag being crinkled. But it stopped suddenly and did not reoccur. In the morning I found an empty Wal-mart bag on the counter top in the Keeping Room. When I crinkled it, it made the sound I had heard. But who or what had been crinkling it?

August 18, �03 � We had a guest here the last 2 nights who said she has been here before and always has some kind of weird experience. When she was here during the McDermet years, she was in Room 6 and the room was warm and stuffy when she went to bed. She opened a window and turned on the air conditioner full blast. During the night, she woke up because the room was freezing. She commented to her husband that the room felt like a freezer, just then the window slammed shut. That scared her and she lay awake for a while to see if something else would happen. The room started to warm up and she got up to check the air conditioner. The thermostat on the air conditioner had been turned down to number 6. (She had put it on 10 before bed.) She figured whoever it was had heard her say the room was too cold and had taken care of it for her. This time the guest had stayed in Room 8 and said that between 2am to 5am she had been hearing doors slamming on the second floor. In that 3 hour time, she heard doors slam shut at least 10 times. Her husband did not hear anything, neither did any other guests. The second night, about midnight the door slamming started again. This time it sounded like her own bedroom door was being slammed shut. She sat up in bed and told it to stop. The slamming sounds stopped and the Inn was quiet the rest of the night�.for her. In the morning she was telling the other guests about her experiences when a guest who had been in Room 1 said that she had been poked in her left arm all night long, starting about midnight. At first she thought it was her husband, but he was asleep and on her right side. It was just a poke at odd intervals throughout the night. About 5am, though, she was grabbed and shaken on her left arm. Her husband was turned away from her on the other side. That was enough for her and she got up and went outside for a walk.

Sept. 5, �03 � We had a guest here who likes to hear the recent happenings and I told him about the plastic Wal-mart bag incident. He said he was intrigued and had left an empty plastic bag outside his door in the hallway during the night. He was the only guest on the second floor that night. He listened for the crinkle sounds all night and was disappointed that he had not heard any. In the morning, he opened the door to pick up the bag, and it was not there. He found it down the hallway in a different room!

Sept. 22, �03 � We have been taking pictures with a digital camera in the Mason House and also outside around the town. There are orbs all over the place! The bridge seems to be a popular hangout as is the Mormon House. We went up to the cemetery with 2 cameras and both cameras caught orbs up there. We took some pictures in the parlor with some guests, and there were orbs in the pictures with the guests.

Oct. 3 & 4, �03 � We had some guests here this weekend for a family reunion. One woman named Patti asked if we had spirits. She said she could feel good vibes in the house and said we had happy spirits. The next night, the family was having a musical sing-a-long in the parlor and Chuck took a picture with the digital camera. There was a huge bright orb over Patti�s head! We took several pictures that night and the next and there are several orbs in them. Patti was thrilled to have an orb by her and named it �Roy Orb-son�. They sang Roy Orbison songs to �invoke the orbs�.

Nov. 21, �03 � We had 2 different guests mention things today. One was a man who took a tour of the Inn and later commented that something violent happened in Room 7. He got some very strong feelings when he was in there. The same day, there was a lady eating lunch in the dining room. She kept looking over toward the fireplace. Then she commented to her friend that there was a spirit in the room. The friend said she should tell the owners. I happened to be clearing the table nearby and heard all this. The lady then looked at me and said �Someone died in here.� I said she was right. The lady said �It is a woman. She died here by the fireplace. She is still here in the room walking among the guests. She is happy.� I told her about Fannie Kurtz. The lady said �She is still here.�

Our daughter and son-in-law got married in November and we recently got our pictures back. It looks like the orbs liked this wedding too.