A look at some creepy spots with haunted historiesSome spirited guests just can't give up favorite hauntsBy JAN UEBELHERR
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 Photo/Erwin Gebhard David Parr and Carol Hirschi in a suite of the historic Brumder Mansion Bed & Breakfast that exhibits some weird happenings. |
Fear draws us in now, before we are thankful next month, and before the giving season follows soon after.
Why are we this way?
David Parr, a dabbler in the spiritual realm who puts on the Haunted History show at the old Brumder Mansion, has some theories.
"Our society suffers from a dearth of wonder and awe," he says. "And this is one of the few ways we get it - through horror films and haunted houses and ghost stories . . .
"We're so jaded as a society by technology, I think this is one of the only ways we experience that deep, primal speechlessness at something."
Joanne Cantor, author of "Mommy, I'm Scared" (Harcourt and Brace, 1998, $13), believes man is wired for an adrenaline rush.
Man had to pay attention to "issues of death," says Cantor, who is a professor of communication arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "If we didn't pay attention, we wouldn't survive very long."
She adds, "There is this need to be taken outside yourself for a little bit."
There's also the irresistible urge to revisit mysteries. "It makes you feel vulnerable, so you keep going back to it, looking for that thing that's going to explain it all," says Cantor, whose book urges parents to shield children from scary things.
Not only do we want to be scared, Parr says, we need it.
"There's the old Greek notion of catharsis, and it's a very important one. Without it, I think, people become psychotic. We need, as human beings, some outlet for raw emotion. And screaming your head off at a haunted house, or on a roller coaster, or freaking each other out at a slumber party is how we get it."
Places get scary for a variety of reasons - dark tales, legends, the unexpected, the suggestion of death. Rats and mice. Unexplained events.
Mr. Hitchcock, who once said his mission in life was "to simply scare the hell out of people," declared, "There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it."
Hitchcock was not available for further comment.
Another expert in the field, horror master Stephen King, told Yankee magazine this month that some places just have an "eerie resonance that amplifies the quality of a scary story."
Then there's the matter of darkness.
"There's something about darkness that awakens some very primal emotions in us as people. And the fact is that as people living in the 20th century, we don't experience darkness anymore, at least not like our ancestors did.
"For people like us, darkness can be a really shocking experience."
Milwaukee historian John Gurda says he is not frightened by the usual eerie places, such as cemeteries. He just finished "The Silent City," a book on Forest Home Cemetery, final resting place for some of Milwaukee's finest families. He liked the place.
What he finds scary is "lack of habitation - the feeling that people once were there, but are no longer. That's a lot eerier to me than a dark woods."
Old, abandoned factories are like that, he says (though he hesitates to tell you where they are, since it is both dangerous and illegal to wander around in them).
But there are plenty of places in plain and public view that should suffice for our purposes.
The places visited here are notorious, for many of the reasons mentioned. These places are inhabited by past deeds and, in some cases, past residents. Or so some people say.
The fact is, terror is all around us. It lives among us, in old hotels, churches, theaters.
With few exceptions, these places are open to the public.
For maximum effect, it is suggested that you visit each of these places well into the evening.
Is it our mission to simply scare the hell out of you? Perhaps, perhaps. But that is what you want. Besides, it can't be helped. It's in the October air.
If you're ready for a good scare, come along for a tour of legendary haunts. Ratings range from 1 (not so scary) to 10 (a total creep-out). Be forewarned!
The basement of St. James Episcopal Church, 833 W. Wisconsin Ave.
 Photo/Michael Sears Lydia Vinton, whose tombstone was unearthed in the basement of St. James Episcopal Church, is said to make her presence known in the building. |
Have you met Lydia?
No one at St. James Episcopal Church has, but they believe they hear from her once in a while. Lydia is Lydia Vinton, whose headstone was found in the church basement, once the site of a cemetery.
The city gave the land to the church, which moved the graves to Calvary Cemetery. Well, mostly.
They did a less-than-perfect job, as Rector Debra Trakel points out. Bits and pieces of cemetery - bones, grave markers - keep showing up. All of Lydia's tombstone is there (she died in 1839 at age 28), along with the marker of Dr. John Parmele, who died in 1844 at age 43.
They're in the dirt basement of the church, which is scattered with traps for rats or very big mice. City steam pipes overhead provide a moist environment. A doorway leads to a secret staircase to the altar. This was a stop on the Underground Railroad.
These days, when things go missing or a strange sound is heard, people blame Lydia. "We tease about Lydia," says Trakel. "I don't believe she's around, but there are those who do."
Perhaps she had a hand in the dramatic end of a recent tour there. While Trakel showed a photographer and reporter around the dirt cellar, the lights went off and the door closed. "Oh God," said Trakel. She and her party scurried to the door, which Trakel feared might have been locked by a church worker who didn't know someone was in there. The door was unlocked. When Trakel questioned workers in the nearby kitchen, they said they hadn't turned off the lights. Maybe it was a delivery man, they suggested.
Creep-Out rating: 11. (Tombstones and rats and darkness??? Terrible. Terrible.)
Hallways and Other Places, the Pfister Hotel, 424 E. Wisconsin Ave.
 Photo/Michael Sears Charles Pfister (that's him staring out at your from the far left), who built the Pfister Hotel in 1893, still roams the building's hallways. |
Some workers and guests report spotting a dignified older gentleman in this grand old hotel. Trouble is, he doesn't stick around. One worker encountered him in the elevator on the night shift, according to concierge Peter Mortensen. When she stepped aside to let him off, he was gone.
A maid encountered the man while she was making up the eighth floor, and refused to go there after that. There have been sightings in the balcony of the Imperial Ballroom and on the Grand Staircase, too.
Mortensen became aware of the legend when people would refer to "Charlie." "Something would fall and people would say, 'That must be Charlie.'"
Mortensen has never seen the man. But he believes it is Charles Pfister, who built the hotel with his sister Louise in 1893. He died in 1927. "My take on it is he just every once in a while comes down to see how the Pfister compares to his current abode.
"He's more along the lines of a guardian spirit than a ghost."
Creep-Out Reading: 6. Chuck is a harmless guy.
The Gold Suite at the Brumder Mansion, 3046 W. Wisconsin Ave.
Come October, the Brumder - a renovated B&B that's a blend of Victorian, Gothic and Arts and Crafts styles built in 1910 - greets guests for a night of fright all wrapped up in black funeral crepe. Master of ceremonies is David Parr, whose annual "Haunted History" is an adults-only show. Visitors move through the dark home and must be prepared to "encounter scenes based on real accounts of the strange and supernatural." Later, a 19th-century style seance is held in the billiard room.
This is unsettling, but things are strange in this old house even without the show. Owner Carol Hirschi, who co-produced and appeared in the recent movie "Wisconsin Death Trip," says the Gold Suite, once occupied by George Brumder's sister, is the scene of much strangeness.
Guests report having vivid and strange dreams there. An American Indian medicine man who stayed there announced at breakfast that the suite had many spirits - not malevolent, but talkative.
Hirschi also recently found droplets of fresh blood in the bathtub of the suite, and she cannot explain the source. But she wonders whether some of the goings-on in the room encourage these occurrences. The suite was used for murder scenes in "Wisconsin Death Trip," she notes.
"Haunted History" runs Oct. 20 to 31. Tickets are $15. No one under age 17 will be admitted. Call .
Creep-out reading: Blood in the bath tub? A solid 8.
Granny in the Streets of Old Milwaukee, Milwaukee Public Museum, 800 W. Wells St.
 Photo/Mary Jo Walicki Granny, part of the Milwaukee Public Museum's Streets of Old Milwaukee exhibit, has spooked some visitors for years. |
The dark street is from a bygone age. Watching over it is granny on her porch, wrapped in a shawl. Rocking, rocking, rocking. Music from the 1890s plays in her parlor and drifts out the open window.
The granny on the porch has creeped out generations of Milwaukeeans who step into the exhibit on Victorian era life here.
"Some of the security people mentioned that some people thought she was kind of 'Granny Creeps,'" says Ed Green, who designed the streets in the mid-'60s. At the time, people weren't used to moving figures in exhibits.
Curator John Lundstrom recalls that the granny at first was "very rugged looking" and reminded people of "Norman Bates' mother." Her look has been softened up over the years.
In fact, granny is fashioned after a real lady, and a nice one, too. She's Mrs. Baer (her full name couldn't be confirmed), and her home was the model for the one granny occupies. Baer's east side home was one of many being torn down to make way for the never-built Park Freeway. Baer, who was going to a retirement home, was happy to accommodate the museum. "She says, 'Why don't you take the furniture, too," says Green. "So some of her furniture (in the exhibit house) is from her house."
Creep-out reading: 4. Go visit granny. She asks about you all the time.
The spirit of the Pabst Theater, 144 E. Wells St.
Old buildings have a tendency to creak and moan and sigh, but the storied history of the Pabst leads Phil Procter, former director of the theater, to believe that more than just ambient noise lives there late at night.
"Do I think the Pabst is haunted? You bet," says Procter, who says he never saw what might be considered a ghost himself.
One candidate is Franz Kirchner, a former director of the Pabst, whose body lay in state on the stage after his death in 1919.
The tunnel beneath the stage would make an ideal haunt, Procter believes. It's a dark out-of-the-way place open to the public only during tours on Saturdays.
"If anybody's hanging out there, that's where they're hanging out," says Procter.
Randy King, a custodian who has worked in the Pabst for 12 years and is frequently alone there, walks the tunnel.
Voices have a way of carrying, he says. "I've heard a few sounds over the years," he says. "I became familiar with them. When I first started, I would think I heard voices. It's like a part of the building."
Creep-out reading: 5 for the general public; 8 if you work there.
Lakeside Inn, 801 N. Cass St.
In the 1880s, a Dr. Hutchinson had an office on Jefferson St., where he practiced and, one day, was killed. Records couldn't be tracked down, but some say the doctor was killed by a female patient.
The building was moved and became part of another building, which now houses the Lakeside Inn. Owner Diane Benjamin knows about the legend.
"Was it a deranged patient, or was it 'the other woman?'" she says. "There's not a lot written about it."
She figures the murder happened in what is now the dining room. The upstairs, which is a bed and breakfast, is called the Hutchinson House.
Benjamin doesn't mind the building's past. In fact, she likes it.
"I always like to be in the building by myself - because I don't feel like I'm in the building by myself," she says. "At the end of the day, I think there is something to be said about the spirits of old buildings."
Creep-out rating: 6. Murder details would improve the score.
The lobby of the Shorecrest Hotel, 1962 N. Prospect Ave.
The Shorecrest is a lovely old building with a colorful history. Built in 1925 on what was then Milwaukee's Gold Coast, the elegant Moroccan-Art Deco building was named to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
In its heyday, famed musicians like Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington once played the piano. These were the days of cigarette girls, bell-hops who hopped to, ladies in hats and gloves. Years later, it was the scene of an FBI raid during an investigation of the Balistrieri family. The Shorecrest is owned by Joseph Balistrieri.
The glossy black grand piano is still in the imposing lobby, with its vaulted archways, potted palms and ornamental iron. Sometimes in the night, the piano is heard through the halls of the old hotel. Who's playing it?
This "legend" came to us anonymously but, sadly, no one who lives or works there could confirm it.
The Shorecrest has lots of interesting tales, but none are of a supernatural nature, says John Balistrieri, brother of Joseph.
"I'd like to tell you we saw Fellini in the lobby . . . " he says.
Creep-out Rating: 2. A darn shame this one could not be corroborated. This stylish building gets a mention for having more than its share of atmosphere, and a storied past that lives on within its grand old walls. Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Oct. 6, 2000.
