Joy's Journal 2008 happenings

9 Jan. '08 - My son, Jeremy, and his family have been visiting with us this week. His wife, Sarah, has already experienced several things here, but he kept missing it all. Well, he finally did. He had gone to use the bathroom in Room 1 and had closed and latched the door hook. But then the door jiggled as if someone was trying to open the door. Good thing he used the hook. Nobody was in the room, we had all stayed in the dining room. We tried to recreate it with opening and closing other doors to see if the change in air pressure would do it, but could not recreate it. (Besides, none of us had opened or closed any doors while he was in there.) He was so excited to have finally experienced something!

13 Jan. '08 - The couple who stayed in Room 5 last night said they heard children talking out in the hallway. It woke them up about 12:30 a.m., and at first they thought it was their children but then they realized where they were and that they did not bring their children with them. There were no other guests. They said there were several children and at first they sounded like they were right outside the bedroom door, then it faded away like they had gone down the hallway a bit. Then it gradually got louder till it was right outside the door again. It went on like that, back and forth, for several minutes and then quit. The couple said they were talking English, but could not quite make out what was being said.

19 Jan. '08 - This afternoon Chuck and I put away the Christmas decorations and we were taking the boxes up to the attic. Chuck was already up on the third floor and I was on the second floor just about to start going up the stairs, when I heard my name called behind me. It was like "Jo-oy", sort of like a 'yoo-hoo' kind of thing. It was definitely a man's voice. Chuck and I were the only people in the house. I stopped and listened in case he did it again, but he didn't. So I just said, "Hi, Harold or Curtis, I hear you."

20 Jan. '08 - The man who stayed in Room #9 last night said he woke up about 1:30am by a noise in the room. Then he heard, very clearly, a child giggling next to the bed. It really startled him, but then he thought a giggling child isn't anything to be afraid of. So he listened for a while longer and went back to sleep.

24 Jan. '08 - The lady who stayed in Room 5 last night said she felt a cat jump on the bed and curl up against the back of her neck. It was a pleasant and comforting feeling. Then it felt like the cat was lifted off of her, but then it jumped back onto the bed and curled up against the back of her shoulder blades. She could feel the weight and the purring vibrations. It lasted several minutes and then quit. In the morning she found that her husband's glasses had been moved from where he had put them the night before. I wonder if who ever lifted the cat had also played with the glasses.

27 Jan. '08 - The people who stayed in the big bed in Room 6 said that about 10:30 last night they both heard four loud raps on the head board right above their heads. Each thought the other had done it, but they didn't do it. They waited for more, but that was all they heard. They were excited that they got the four knocks.

4 Feb. '08 - We had a GHU class here this past weekend and the rooms were quite active. During the "Telephone to the Dead" sessions, we talked to Harold mostly. Amanda and Markie kept arguing about him being gone so much. Amanda misses Markie and does not like his job because he does not have time to play with her anymore. When asked who was here to talk to us, Harold said "Everybody." But when we asked for Lewis, we were told that he was not here. Neither was Mary, nor Fannie, nor Frederick Hancock, so we did not get any new information about the Underground Railroad. I did talk to Curtis and found out that I had indeed heard him whistling in the parlor the other day. He said he was "by the books", which would be my little library table in the parlor. (I was watching TV and talking on the phone at the same time and I thought I heard someone whistling a little tune in the parlor, but I was not sure.) We asked who the woman and child were that visited Sue in her room during the last GHU in November, and we were told that the woman's name was Madelyn but he did not know the child's name. Before the sessions, a woman had her hair pulled and Amanda admitted to doing it to get her attention. During the session, I had my hair pulled and Harold admitted to doing that one. To read the transcripts of the sessions, click here.

During the night, the lady in Room 8 really had an interesting night. She said that it began with her rocking chair rocking by itself around 1am. She took a picture (literally a 'shot in the dark') toward the rocking chair and got quite a large orb sitting right on the seat! She asked "Is there somebody in here with me?" and took another shot and saw that the orb had moved to the footboard of her bed. Then she felt the left side of the bed go down with a weight on it and she felt her left arm touched and it was ice cold. She said it very interesting and not scary. After about a minute, the weight lifted off the bed and her arm warmed up. Then she heard what sounded like children running up and down the back staircase. At about 2:30am, she said she'd had enough and wanted to go to sleep and everything got quiet and she went to sleep. She was so excited, she could hardly wait to come down to breakfast and show everybody her pictures. The people in Room 4 had Josephine on their bed, and said they could hear what sounded like water glugging sounds coming from Room 5 (sounded like a water cooler glugging). But Room 5 said there was no such sound in their room. One of the ladies in Room 5, in the twin bed by the wall, had her arm pulled on and her hair pulled, and felt a cat lay on her foot. Chris and Dennis were in Room 1, which is right below Room 6, and they said they could hear someone walking back and forth above them all night long. The people in Room 6 said they felt there was someone in the room with them but did not investigate and they did not get up at all during the night.

14 Feb. '08 - A man, named David, who had come here to a GHU class last fall just sent me this picture. His brother, (who does not have a mustache) took the picture of him sitting on the bench outside Room 3. (I smudged his face to protect his identity.) There is a face in the window over his left shoulder. While the face has a mustache and a curl of hair on his forehead, there is no body. In each room, I have a white notebook sitting on a table or dresser that contains Inn history and information. I can clearly see the notebook sitting on the little table, below the face. When Chuck and I tried to recreate the picture with Chuck looking out the window, I can clearly see Chuck's body. I wonder if this is Harold or a spirit attached to David.

17 Feb. '08 - The lady who stayed in Room 1 last night had a very interesting experience. She said that she was almost, but not quite, asleep when she saw an older woman with short, dark hair standing beside the bed. The woman was very motherly and she pulled the blankets up over the lady's shoulder and patted her and faded away. A few minutes later, a younger woman, with her hair swept up into a bun, appeared beside the bed. This woman patted the lady's shoulder also, and then bent down and lightly kissed her on the cheek and faded away. The lady said that at first she was a little frightened, but then remembered that the spirits don't want to hurt anybody, so she relaxed and she said it was a wonderful experience.

20 Feb. '08 - Today I was in the dining room, talking to a friend of mine, when I saw a large gray orb shoot from the parlor to under the table I was standing beside. It was quite large, about the size of a softball and a dark gray, and it was low to the floor. Was this Josephine?

24 Feb. '08 - The couple who stayed in Room 6 last night were thrilled to have an experience, although it was not as dramatic as they had hoped. The man said he had gone to bed early while his wife stayed up, reading in the adjoining room. After a short while, he felt a hand on his shoulder. Thinking his wife had come to bed, he turned over to look at her, but no one was there. She was still reading. Then, about 3am, they heard a very loud bang from above them on the third floor. Right after the bang they heard what sounded like children running around up there. Then they heard children giggling out in the hallway, just outside their door. They said they could see the hallway light going off and on and off and on, several times, then it quit. Everything got quiet and they went back to sleep. They said it was exciting to hear the children.

1 March '08 - There was a paranormal investigation group here last night, from West Des Moines. They set up their equipment about 10 pm, and then separated to go into individual rooms on the second floor to see what they could feel in each room. They did several EVP sessions and had cameras and recorders set up in various locations throughout the main building. Here are some of their experiences...... The man who went to Room 4 was sitting on the bed when he felt a heavy weight on his ankles and feet. He tried to move them, but it was really hard. Then the weight left and he was able to swing his feet off the bed. Then he saw a little golden orb shooting around the room. After it disappeared, he saw a dark shadow, about the height of a child, move around the end of the bed and go out the door. The man who was sitting on Room 7's bed was relaxing with his eyes closed when he felt someone sit on the edge of the bed. He thought it was one of the other investigators, even though he had not heard anybody walking in the room. When he looked, there was no one there. After several seconds, the weight got up off the bed. He also heard some tapping and knocking sounds coming from a certain area of the room but he was not able to determine what was making the sounds. The girls in Room 5 were sitting on the bed and one girl heard breathing very close to her ear. The other girl was not close enough for it to have been her. They also saw several little golden orbs shooting around the room. The investigator with the EMF reader tracked a high spike with the machine. What ever was making the machine spike was moving around the room. Early this morning, a few of the investigators decided to take a short nap in the dining room and parlor, some of them heard a woman humming and it was not any of them. The group said they did get some good EVPs on the recorders and also got several orbs in their pictures. If any of them are exciting, I'll let you know.

23 March '08 - We had some ladies stay in Room 5 last night and they had some interesting things happen to them. The first thing, when I showed them to their room, I noticed three little hand prints on the twin bed by the wall. I did not know they were ghost hunting so I did not mention it to them. Then, when they were standing around deciding who would sleep in which bed, one of the dresser handles started jingling back and forth. They all saw it and they tried to recreate it, but couldn't. Later that evening, one of the ladies was looking through the antique medical books on the dressing table, and she smelled a strong odor of rubbing alcohol, none of the other ladies smelled it. During the night, one lady was poked quite hard in the side, another woke to find her collar rubbing back and forth on her face. The lady in the twin bed by the door heard what sounded like marbles rolling around on a hard wood floor, in the hallway outside the room door. They all got several pictures of two large, bright orbs hovering around the twin beds. One of the ladies, everytime she went into the bathroom, the doorknob would jiggle. The other three ladies vouched for each other that none of them had done it. All in all a very interesting night for them.

27 March '08 - Last night I was sitting in the dining room, watching TV with my arms crossed. I could see my arms peripherally. I saw a silvery-goldish ball of light, about the size of a cotton ball, float across my arm from my wrist to my elbow. I looked down and saw it clearly before it reached my elbow and then floated down toward the floor. When I looked on the floor for it, there was nothing there. It was amazing. I've never seen anything like it before. Like a floating ball of translucent quick-silver. I did not feel any pressure, or tingling, or coldness, or anything. I said "Hi" and invited it to do it again sometime. Later, after Chuck and I had gone to bed, as soon as we turned out the light, there was all kinds of noises down beyond the foot of our bed. I asked Chuck if he was moving his foot and hitting a bag or something, but he said he was not moving. We both heard rattling sounds and knocking and tapping sounds. It rattled paper and plastic bags and knocked on wood and tapped on the computer keyboard and then more paper, things like that. It moved from the foot of the bed to on the desk, to over by the TV, then back to the desk and finally by the bedroom door and then it was gone. I wonder if it was one of the kids or Josephine having fun.

31 March '08 - This past weekend we had another 102 Ghost Hunting class on Friday night and a 101 class on Saturday night. To read the transcripts of the Frank Box sessions, click here. On Friday night, after a quick review, we went up to the cemetery and did some investigating. The group was off in the distance trying to find some EMF activity and Chuck, Chris, Dennis, and I were standing by the entrance. Off to my right a little ways, by a small tombstone, I saw two little flashes of light. I thought it was lightening bugs, but they were bluish, and lightening bugs are green, besides it is too cold for lightening bugs. While I was watching the spot to see if it would do it again, I saw a single bluish flash about three feet away. I watched that spot and I saw a dark blob take off out of a depression in the ground and it went off to the left. It was about the size and shape of a rabbit and about as fast so I thought it was a rabbit. But when I looked for the rabbit, there was nothing there. I wonder if it was a rabbit ghost. Later we did an EVP session and invited Frederick Hancock down to the Mason House to speak on the Frank Box. During the Friday night session, when we went up to Room 5, I was the last person in the room and I shut the door, it immediately locked. I opened the door and then shut it again, again it locked. The third time I tried it, it did not lock. The lock has to actually be turned, they don't just do it all by themselves. We did an open air EVP session first and during the quiet, Cindi was standing by the closed door and she heard a little girl giggling and talking in the hallway. She thought maybe Aurora had gotten out of bed and was playing in the hallway, but when she looked there was no one there and Aurora was asleep in her room. During the Frank's Box session, there were so many people who had come down from the cemetery that it was hard to talk to any of our regulars. Mary was mad and kept leaving. But we did find out that the orb on my arm was Josephine, the face in the window picture is Harold (he said it was a "lucky shot"), and Johnny is the 11 year old boy who has been playing in our room for the past four nights. During Friday night, the people who stayed in Room 5 were poked on their legs and heard the tapping sounds. The people in Room 6 did not get anything and were really disappointed, but we cannot control who the spirits find interesting or not. They did hear some knocking sounds, but they thought it was Room 5 doing it. Room 5 heard it also and thought Room 6 was doing it!

On Saturday morning, we went outside to try and find the Underground Railroad tunnel that Lewis Mason had referred to in past sessions. At first we only got someone named Patrick. Chris asked him "What are you?", expecting him to say either 'intelligent' or 'earthbound' but Patrick said "Dead". Because Patrick did not know anything about the tunnel, and he would not let anybody else speak, we terminated that attempt and tried again later. In the evening we tried again and we did get Lewis Mason, but also some other people who kept adding their own opinions so it was very frustrating. Lewis got mad and left at one point and we had to get him back. Chuck had a long metal pole and he was poking it in the ground where Lewis told him to and he did hit wood several times. He put stakes where the wood was. Another time he hit a 'clink' and Lewis said 'no, that's a rock'. The others put in their own advice with 'go east', 'go west', 'too far', 'go back', 'thirty over'. Thirty what? Then when we did the session in Room 5, they were still talking about it and it was hard to get Harold or Amanda to talk. Mary left mad because there were too many others there. They kept saying 'What was he doing out there?', and 'I told him to go east', and 'I told him to go thirty'. I took this picture and you can see Amanda had come out to watch.

When we went up to Room 5 to do the Frank Box session, the cast iron chandelier was already swinging. It continued to swing at a regular pace all the way through the 20 minute session. Harold said he was doing it.

Only after we asked him to try to swing it the other way, did it slow down and stop. We could see that it was trying to swing the other way, but he said it was too hard. The hook it is hanging from is flat, so that probably affects which way it will swing. The people in that room that night said they deliberately swung the chandelier to see how long it took to stop, and they said it took only 10 minutes to wind down. On Saturday night, the people in Room 7 had Josephine on their bed, the people in Room 8 reported that their curtains were waving in and out and they could find no explanation for it. The people in Room 5 heard a rhythmic creaking sound and later, after trying to recreate it, decided it was the gliding rocking chair in the room. In Room 6, one of the ladies said, for a few minutes, there was a heavy weight on her legs and they felt very cold. Here's what she had to say about it:

Natalie

(This is one of the pictures that Natalie sent me. The large, bright orb on the right was moving at the time she took the picture, that is why it looks fuzzy. There is another small orb over Chuck's head which is reflected in the mirror behind him, but you probably can't see that very well in this small picture.)

14 March '08 - Some ladies stayed in Room 5 for the last 3 nights and they were disappointed that not much happened during their stay. But they did report that they had left the ceiling fan on low and one time they had found it on high, none of them had touched it. This morning, one of the ladies said she had been sleeping on the twin bed, which is above the parlor, and she had just gone to bed, about 10pm, when she heard a man and a woman talking in the parlor below her. She thought it was Chuck and me so she did not investigate. (Chuck and I were in our bedroom at that time and not in the parlor.) She said they sounded like they were arguing about finding something. They were speaking English, but she could not quite make out what they were saying. It went on for several minutes and then stopped. There were no other guests in the house, and I know it was not Chuck and me. I wonder if Frank and Mary were arguing again.

21 March '08 - There was a group of ghost hunters here last night from Kindred Moon Productions and as soon as they arrived, things started happening. When they were bringing the equipment from their van to the house, the leader of the group, Mike, looked up to the western window of Room 6 and saw a person wearing brown. He could not tell if it was male or female, but as soon as it saw Mike watching it, it walked away from the window. At first Mike did not think anything of it, but then he realized that no body in his group was wearing brown. Chuck and I were in blue, Jinni was not home, and there was nobody else in the house. He was excited that he saw an apparition. After a quick tour around the Inn, they set up night-vision cameras in various rooms on the second floor and in the hallway. We could see dozens of orbs flying around, up and down the hallway, in and out of the rooms. It was amazing! As the hunters went from room to room doing EVPs, the orbs would follow them from room to room, it was so funny. Big orbs, little orbs, some had a nucleus, others were small bright pinpricks of light. But all acted intelligent. We could imagine what they were thinking....like "Where are we going next?" and "Wait for me!". One orb was swooping from side to side as it came down the hallway and then zoomed into Room 6. It was incredible! During one of the EVP sessions, they heard an audible response to one of the questions. Two of the people heard a little girl say 'yes'. I hope they caught it on the recorders. Two of the ladies in the group went into Room 6 and were taking pictures in the dark. When the camera flashed, one of the ladies saw a face right next to her. She said he had a mustache. It really surprised her and she would not go back into that room alone. I told her that Harold does not stay in Room 6, he goes all over. I don't know if that helped or not. The leader of the group, Michael, just called me and said they got something on film that is more than just orbs but he would not tell me what it was. He wants to surprise us at the "reveal". I'll let you know when I know.

6 May '08 - Oh Boy! What a weekend we've had! First we had Ghost Hunt Universities for three nights in a row. On Friday night we had the 102 class and we went up to the cemetery where we picked up a not-so-nice entity who followed us back to the Inn. He was an angry spirit and he would not let anybody speak during the Frank's Box session. There was alot of interference and it was very hard to hear. That night nobody had anything happen in their room, except for Chris Moon and Dennis who heard children running up and down the staircase and giggling in the hallway outside their room. On Saturday's 101 class, it was too cold and windy to go up to the cemetery, so we did the hunt inside the house. Then, during the Frank's Box sessions we found out that the not-so-nice entity we had picked up on Friday was still hanging around. We found out that his name was Samuel Paine and he wanted Herman Greef to come over and give him a public apology on the Box in front of everybody! We tried to convince him that Herman would not come over to Lewis's house and that he should go over to Herman's house and talk to him over there. After that the interference was a little better and we were able to talk to Harold and Amanda. We found out that a set of 11 year old twins named David and Michael have taken up residence here because the heard it was a good place to come. When we had finished the session and went to leave, we found that the door was locked. The person who had closed the door said he knew it was not locked when he closed it, sometime during the session we had been locked in. Good thing the door locks from the inside. That evening, again Chris and Dennis experienced things in their room. They heard tapping on the window in their room and sounds of footsteps on a wooden floor walking around in the room. During the Sunday 101 class, there was still too much interference inside the building so we tried something new and held the Frank's Box sessions outside, in front of the Inn. We gathered around the box in small groups so we could hear it as the volume was very quiet. To read the transcripts of these sessions, click here. During the night, Room 5 was the active one. Their bathroom door kept opening when no one was near it. They had a video camera running in the room and caught the curtain behind the big bed being flipped over the headboard. It happened twice within a minute. There really is no explanation for it. One woman felt the back of her hand being caressed for about a minute. The people in the big bed felt it move like someone bumped into the mattress. They all heard a loud snoring sound and assumed it was coming from Room 4, but the people in there said it was not them. Then for a short time, only the man in the big bed heard it and the women in the twin beds did not. Then they heard a scratching sound on the wall that they could not explain. The woman in Room 7 said she heard a loud breathing sound in her ear that was on the outer side of the bed. Then, on Monday, there was a group here from the Carroll Area Paranormal Team and the Bluegrass Paranormal Society. They set up infra-red cameras all over the house and did EVPs in the upstairs bedrooms. During the night they saw a shadow of a man in Room 7s bathroom. And a middle-aged woman wearing a dark skirt and a white blouse with her hair up in a bun sat on the bed in that room and then disappeared. From the description I think it was Madelyn. They heard children giggling in the hallway outside of Room 7. In Room 1 they heard a tap on the window glass and the bathroom door kept opening and closing. In Room 8, one man heard loud breathing in his ear when no one was on that side. And one of the women laid on the bed and felt a sharp poking in her back several times. She asked them to stop and they did. In the dining room, two people saw moving shadows at different times and some saw it at the same time. There was also footsteps walking back and forth in the room that sounded like boots on a hard wood floor. The groups are going to review their tapes and recordings and get back with us with any other evidence they may have. All in all, they were thrilled with their experience here.

7 May '08 - It is about 10:50pm and I just came from the dining room where I was watching TV. A short while ago I saw a large golden orb shoot across the TV and immediately after that there was two loud knocks on the wooden fireplace mantle. It sounded like knuckles on wood. I said "Hi" to Harold or Markie, which ever one did it, and it did not do it again. Earlier this afternoon, Chuck and I both heard a knock on the window in the dining room, but it was just one rap, not two like tonight.

11 May ’08 – There were some ladies who stayed in Room 5 this weekend and we plugged in the IR cameras so they could see what kind of activity they had in their room. Several orbs followed them around the room and sat on the bed when they did. The only activity they had other than the orbs, was that one lady took a nap in the afternoon in one of the twin beds and about 4pm the bedroom door opened about six inches and then closed again. Nobody was there. We tried to duplicate it by opening and closing outside doors to see if the change in pressure would affect the door, but it didn’t, we could not duplicate it. Maybe somebody checked on her. We also had a bus tour come through here last Thursday. One of the women from the bus just stood at the bottom of the stairs looking up. I said she could go up and look if she wanted, that's where the bedrooms are. She said "Yeah, that's where the ghosts are too." And she turned and went back outside.

16 May '08 - Last night the people who stayed in Room 6 said they heard a scratching and knocking sound coming from the outside wall, so they knew it was not the people in Room 5 but they could not figure out what was making the sound. They also heard someone walking back and forth near the bed but there was nobody to be seen. They were so excited. The people in Room 5 heard a snoring sound coming from Room 4, but there was no one in that room. But the strangest thing was Purdy. I had let her outside like I always do in the morning, but then she started barking at the window on the second floor above the back door and the hairs on her back were all standing up. She was really giving something the what-for. This would be the hallway window near Room 8. There was no one in that room, but I thought maybe somebody from Room 5 or 6 was looking around. I asked them at breakfast if any of them had been back by Room 8 and they all said they had not left their room until they came down for breakfast. Purdy has never barked at any of our guests or at any windows before. I wonder what she saw that had her so upset.

19 May '08 - Last night, I was watching TV in the dining room when I saw, peripherally, a bright yellow-white light flash up on the far left bay window pane. It went straight up and straight back down again almost like a flash of lightning. It went about 3/4 of the way up the window and then back down, being one solid color all the way from top to bottom. At first I thought it was a reflection of a car light or the flashlight of somebody walking past. About 5 minutes later it happened again, but this time it was on the second left window pane. I went and looked to see if there was a car or somebody outside, but there was nobody. The light was solid from the bottom up, not concentrated in one spot like a flashlight would have been. I went back to my chair and watched to see if it would do it again. About 15 minutes later it did it again on the third window pane. And right after that there was a small golden orb that shot across the table in front of me and I heard a clink. The salt and pepper shakers on the table had clinked together as the orb went across them! I said "Wow, that's a pretty good trick. Can you do that again?" But it did not do it again and there were no more light flashes on the window. Then, this morning, Chuck and I were in the kitchen when we both heard a man's voice say "Hello?" It was a question, like a "Is anybody here?" type of voice inflection. It seemed to have come from the dining room, but there was nobody there and the only door not locked was the kitchen door near where we were standing and I know it was not that close. I think they are all getting stirred up for the Paranormal Expo that is coming this weekend. I was also told, by the CAPT group, that May 30 is supposed to be an active day because the "veil" between here and the other side will be the thinnest it's been in a long time. Should be interesting.

21 May '08 - Yesterday, Chuck and I gave a tour of the Inn to some school kids. They were all in Room 6 listening to Chuck's talk and I was by the door near the hallway, waiting to usher the kids to the next room. Then I heard some shuffling sounds behind me. I thought maybe one of the kids had stayed behind in the last room and was just now catching up, but when I looked there was no one there. As I was looking, I heard little footsteps running down the hallway toward the laundry room. It sounded like one, maybe two little tiny children. Incredible! She was right behind me and I heard her running, but I did not see anything. Sure wish we'd had the IR cameras running and taping at the time!

26 May ’08 – This last weekend we had the W.I.S.P. Expo here in Bentonsport. It was a Women’s Paranormal Investigators conference. They had speakers like Steve LaChance from “Children of the Grave” and Patrick Burns from “Haunting Evidence”, two TV shows about paranormal investigations, and Kristy Hinkle who has a radio program about paranormal topics. Here is a sample of things that happened to some of the people staying in the Inn: Early in the evening on Thursday, one man was playing the piano in the parlor, and two women sitting in the dining room saw little children running around the dining room tables. Then they heard heavy footsteps go from the dining room into the parlor as if to enjoy the music in there. On Thursday night, the people in Room 4 saw their alarm clock move across the dresser, a bag that had been on the dresser for hours suddenly fell off as if being pushed, there was a tapping sound on their glass lampshade, and the man felt a sharp poke in his back.

In Room 5, one woman saw a man wearing a flat brimmed hat standing at the foot of her bed. She saw him again on Friday night and the lady in Room 4 reported that she had felt a cat jump onto her bed and curl up against her back. It was kneading the pillow and once it started kneading her back but got a bit carried away with the claws and poked her. She felt around, expecting Smokey who had been following her around, but there was nothing there. On Saturday night, the Expo attendees went on ghost hunts in buildings throughout the village. I have not heard yet any reports about the other buildings, but here at the Mason House there was some interesting things. Two ladies went up to Mary’s room on the third floor and, seeing the door was closed, they knocked and asked if they could enter. There was a very empathic “NO” that came from the other side of the door. They said that if she wanted them to go away, she should knock twice. Immediately, there was a loud KNOCK KNOCK from inside the room. But the women went in anyway, thinking it was a trick, and found no one there. Another woman saw a child run down the hallway and we watched on the IR cameras as the little orbs flew around her in the hallway. In the Parlor, Patrick Burns was demonstrating his “Paranormal Puck” which is a version of the “Frank’s Box” but the “Puck” is a type of microphone that the spirit talks into and then the words are printed out on the computer screen. He had some EMF detectors that had some lights that would light up when an electrical field is detected. He invited the children to play with the device and showed them how the lights would blink. He put two of these on the floor a few feet away from him and in a little while the lights blinked and the words “Christmas lights” came up on the computer screen. Later in the evening, when people were laughing and having a good time, the lights on the detectors went crazy. I guess the spirits were having a good time too. Click here http://www.jacquicarpenter.com/paramonthly_review/may.htm to read a newsletter about the expo and an article I wrote about our experiences.

30 May '08 - There was a couple here a few nights ago who said she was descended from a Native American Shaman and she could feel the aura of things. She said the Inn had a good feeling and there was no evil in the place. But there was a picture in her room that made her feel uneasy and so I took it out. Several people have said the room has negative energy, but she thinks it is the picture not the room itself. So I took out the picture and put it somewhere else. If people now think that room has negative energy, we'll know it is the picture and I'll get rid of it. She is going to send me a nice needlepoint rose picture to put in its place.

The people who stayed in Room 5 last night felt like they were being watched. And they heard what sounded like furniture or boxes being moved around on the third floor. I guess Mary is busy up there again. I told them about a lady who stayed in Room 5 last weekend, and she was going into the room to get something when she heard a man and a woman in the room talking. The woman made a comment about "Look at this mess, these people are such pigs." The lady thought it was Chuck and me in there cleaning, but when she opened the door there was no one there. So I told the man last night, maybe Mary is checking to see if they were going to be messy too. They brought a toy for Josephine to play with, we'll see if it gets moved.

1 June '08 - Well, Josephine did not play with the toy, but Misty certainly enjoyed it! The couple in Room 5 took a nap on the twin beds around 2:30pm when they heard some shuffling sounds just outside the door. They heard a child say "Momma?" and then the footsteps ran down the hallway. They thought it was someone checking in with a child, but nobody was here at that time except them and me, and I was downstairs at that time.

Nothing happened on the night of May 30. The only guest we had was a woman in Room 1 and she took out her hearing aides and slept well through the night. Last night we had three ladies in Room 6 who heard Harold tapping during the night and again this morning when it got alot louder. When one lady said "Good morning, Harold" the tapping stopped. I guess he was happy to be acknowledged at last. Another lady in the same room kept feeling like her nose was being touched. She finally got irritated enough to pull the sheet over her face, but the feeling kept on right through the sheet. They used a pendulum to talk to Harold and when they asked how many people were in the room: One? 'no' Two? 'no' Three? 'no' Four? 'yes' -- the three ladies and him makes four!

8 June '08 - Yesterday, while I was cleaning in Room 4, I heard a shuffling outside the doorway. I knew it was not Chuck or Jinni because they were not home. I said out loud that it was okay for whoever it was to come in the room, and I saw a small shadow, about three feet tall, peek around the door and then pull back fast. I wonder which one of the children it was. Then, last night we had some ghost hunters here from Night Watchers; www.nightwatchers.info . They taped a radio show while they did their investigations. Early in the evening, one of the men heard a child giggling behind him in the Parlor. In Room 7 they got a picture of a ghostly figure sitting on the rocking chair. One of the women, Serenity, is a psychic and she said she could hear the little girl saying, 'rocking, rocking, rocking' in a sing-song kind of voice. Later in the night, the people who slept in that room saw the chair rocking. In Room 5 during an EVP session, the group heard a woman and some children talking in the hallway, but everybody from the group was in the room. Serenity said they were welcome to come in and join the group and a child size shadow entered the room a short way. When it ran out again, it brushed up against the leader of the group who said he felt it as it brushed by. Later that night, as Serenity slept in the big bed, she heard a woman and man talking in the room. She felt it was Mary and Frank and that Mary was upset that someone was in her parent's bed. Serenity asked them to be quiet so she could sleep and then the bathroom door slammed shut. When we did an EVP session in the Parlor, we heard a knock sound in the dining room. Serenity went to look to see who was in there and she saw a man with shoulder length hair and wearing a light colored long sleeved shirt. Sounds like Curtis. She said he was just standing there watching us. Other things that happened were that three rooms had locked doors when the people in them did not lock them. And they got an interesting picture of a tall, thin black shadow standing on the staircase. They said they got some good EVP and video evidence too. This morning, about 6:30, I heard three hard knocks on the keeping room door. I thought maybe someone was looking for me to make them some coffee, but when I looked, there was no one there. I asked at breakfast if somebody had knocked on the door and they all said they were still asleep at that time.

19 June '08 - The Des Moines River flooded here in Bentonsport, starting last Saturday, so we have been closed for guests since then. Thank you to all our friends and guests who have been wondering if we're okay. The river got up to the sidewalk in front of the Inn, but the sandbags stopped it from coming into the Inn. The pumps in the basement kept the water from getting too high in there. The river is slowly going down now, so we are open for business again. People keep asking me if the flood has affected the ghost activity, but there has been nobody upstairs for a week, so there has been nobody to report anything. As for down stairs, there has been some knocking sounds in the dining room like always but not any more than usual. I will tell you about something that happened last Monday night. Chuck and I slept in Room 1 for several nights so we could listen for the pumps and make sure they kept going all night. About 1am on Monday morning, I had a very vivid dream that a girl in a nightgown was standing beside the bed. She said "I can't hear the pump anymore. Maybe you should wake up and check it." Immediately I was awake and, indeed, I could not hear the pump going. So I got up and checked it and it started again. I had the name Anna in my head as to who the girl was. We will ask at the next GHU class who Anna is and how she knows what a pump is.

22 June '08 - There were some ladies staying in Room 6 this weekend and the lady who slept in the twin bed said that after she turned off the light, she could see some little bright lights flying around the room. It lasted several seconds and then quit. Later that evening, she was awakened by her bed shaking like someone was pushing against it. She said it was fun and not scary. She admitted that she was a little intrepid about staying here (it was her sister's choice), but now she is very intrigued and wants to come back again with her husband.

25 June '08 - The people who stayed in Room 6 last night said they had set up IR cameras and voice recorders throughout the house and let them record all night. They will let me know if they get anything good on them. As for personal experiences, the man felt a hand push him in the back, and he saw a moving shadow that he could not explain. He said it looked like someone peeked into the room and then pulled back. The woman felt a tug on her collar but there was no one behind her. They both saw Room 4's bedroom door move and when they asked for it to move again, it did twice more. When they did some temperature readings in the parlor, the gold chair was reading about 6 degrees lower than the rest of the furniture in the room. I wonder who was sitting on the chair. Earlier in the day, when I put the cookie jar in Room 6, I had noticed that the ring and two rocks on the little shelf had been moved, so I put them back together. The woman said that later that night, she noticed that the ring had been moved away from the rocks, so she moved them back again. Then, this morning, she noticed that the ring had been moved again and one of the rocks is completely missing! She looked all over around the little shelf but could not find it anywhere. They said they would send us any evidence they get on the recorders or videos.

1 July '08 - We had another Ghost Hunting University class this past weekend. On Friday night, the 102 class went up to the cemetery to do an investigation and then we did more investigations in the Inn. Samuel was still hanging around (or maybe he followed us back from the cemetery again), so we could not get good reception on the Frank's Box in Room 5. Chris Moon found that he could get some reception when he was outside, so we did the sessions out there. We found out that Anna is a 13 year old girl who did talk to me when I was sleeping, but she said I woke up too fast and only got half of the message. She said that we should not take down the sandbags yet as the river was likely to come up again. That night, the only thing that happened in the rooms was that in Room 7, the lady was getting ready for bed and she took off her necklace and put it on the dresser then she went into the bathroom. When she came out, she noticed that her necklace was missing. She looked all over the place and could not find it. She said out loud "That's not funny. Put my necklace back!" Then she went into the bathroom to see if maybe she left it in there. When she came out, it was back on the dresser, but not where she had put it before. During Saturday's 101 class Frank's Box session, we used Room 4 because it was getting some good reception. We asked who had taken the necklace and Amanda admitted that she and Harold had played a trick on the lady. But they put it back because she had asked and they were afraid she was going to cry. Anna again talked about more floods coming and that it would be devastating. I asked which flood she was talking about, thinking maybe she was stuck in 1903, but she said "This year, 8". Later, Chris asked the technician, Tyler, if he thought Anna was correct about the flooding, and he said she was over reacting, there would be some more flooding, but nothing like what she had described. Chuck talked to Samuel and asked what we could do to make him happy so he would stop blocking the box. Samuel wants recognition, with a plaque and a ceremony. He wants us to invite all the spirits in the house and the town and to "say words". We'll have to do some research and see what we can come up with on his participation in the War between the States. If anybody who reads this can help us with information on Captain Samuel Paine, please let us know. During the night some things that happened were that the people in Room 6 heard a voice say "Stop yelling. Stop yelling. Stop yelling." It was whispered, but it was said three times. They also heard footsteps in their room like boots walking around. Cindi was sleeping in the Keeping Room and she heard footsteps in the hallway above her that sounded like a small child running after some adults. She said the heavy footsteps kept going back and forth but the child went one direction (toward Room 8) and did not return. She assumed the people in Room 8 had put a child to bed, but there was no child in that room that night. She said it was about 3am, and some of the people up there had stayed up till 3:30am doing their own investigation, but none of them saw a child. Cindi must have heard one of the ghost children following them in the hallway. She said she wished she'd known it was the ghost child at the time, because it would have been more fun. I am currently working on transcribing the Box sessions and should have them up in a few days.