Haunted House Article in the Journal – May 17, 1926

Spiritualism – the belief that the spirits of the dead have the ability to communicate with the living – used to really capture the imagination of many Americans. That’s why it’s not that surprising that articles such as the one above were given prominent places on the pages of the Lorain Journal.

The article ran in the May 17, 1926 Lorain Journal and tells the story of A. Nair and his haunted house located in St. Paul, Minnesota. Reportedly after Nairs’s first wife died, her spirit returned to the house almost nightly. Many of the hundreds of visitors to the house reported eerie happenings. One visitor – depicted in the illustration – watched the spirit of the late wife “materialize thru the locked door and become busily engaged in unpacking a trunk in the corner."

Mary M. Wooley wrote the article, and she seems to have enjoyed a certain amount of success as a writer and a poet in her native Minnesota. (Her grandson John Wooley has enjoyed a successful career as an author and editor as well, having coincidentally written and edited many books related to fantasy and horror.)

It’s amusing that the illustration accompanying the short article is reversed (making it look like a film negative) to make it more spooky. It renders not only the ghost opening the trunk as a white outline, but the scared woman in bed as well!

Here’s what the drawing looks like when it is converted back to a “positive” image in Photoshop.

I guess it is spookier as a negative image. I wonder why the artist didn't make the ghost transparent?

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By the way, did you notice the article on the same Journal page about a proposed bridge over the Black River at 14th Street? It’s an intriguing thought about a bridge being at 14th Street (right where Raymond Plumbing is located).

I’ll have more on that tomorrow, courtesy of our pal Rick Kurish.