Ep. 54: The Roff House
Gina (00:10)
Welcome to I Scream, You Scream, your weekly scoop of the most chilling histories, mysteries, and paranormal perplexities. I'm Gina.
Kathryn (00:20)
I'm Kathryn
Gina (00:21)
And the topic for November is small towns, during which we will be enjoying some local ice cream, which I'm very excited about. I have a new brand and flavor today that I want to tell you about, but I'll get through that. Okay. I forgot about that. Yeah. Real quick, before we get to the ice cream, two very special shout outs to our Patreon supporters. So huge shout out to Adam. Thank you so much for joining us on Patreon.
Kathryn (00:32)
Me too. Mine is not birthday cake.
Yay.
Gina (00:49)
And then also shout out to my mom, Queen Gayle herself. Yes, and also this episode is coming out within a week of her birthday. So happy birthday, mom.
Kathryn (00:51)
Yay! Happy birthday. It's still birthday season. You guys thought we you got away from birthday season and you just not yet. Not even close. Still so many.
Gina (01:02)
Hell yeah.
There's so many, so many more. Mm-hmm.
Yep. Quick reminder, if you would also like a shout out on the podcast and a bunch of other cool additional goodies, feel free to join us on Patreon. Link is in the show notes. We would love to welcome you there. But in the meantime, grab a spoon and let's dig in. So tell me what you're eating.
Kathryn (01:25)
Yay.
Gosh, okay, so many of you, hopefully many of you will recognize the name. It was my favorite local place I mentioned in our birthday episode, so I got it from Scratch Ice Cream. And I got cookie dough, because I wanted to see what their cookie dough was all about. I wanted to see where it stacks up in the line of ⁓ vanilla versus dough. And I will say, having not tried it yet,
Gina (01:44)
⁓
Kathryn (01:55)
It doesn't look like there's a huge ratio of cookie dough, but they do have loose chocolate chips sprinkled throughout, which I have not seen. But yeah, definitely points for that. So we'll see. We'll see how it goes. Yeah. What do you have?
Gina (02:02)
Points for that.
Okay, I'll be interested to hear.
So I have, it's from Purbeck ice cream, which Purbeck is a peninsula in England that's like relatively close to me. So a lot more local than my last one was. And I actually, I'm not using my fancy little bowl today because I love the little container it came in. It's teeny tiny. It's like a little one person size. Yeah, and the name of the flavor is Digosaurus. It's dinosaur themed.
Kathryn (02:18)
Thanks.
Stop! I love it.
Beautiful.
Gina (02:34)
Because
I think Purbeck is on the Jurassic Coast where like a bunch of dinosaur fossils wash up. And the description is vanilla bean ice cream with a milk chocolate dinosaur. And I wanna find out what that means.
Kathryn (02:46)
Okay, I have so many things I want
to First and foremost, actually I'll move number one to number two because it's bigger. New first and foremost, mine also is a vanilla bean base and it tastes very good. Secondly, we're just going to casually brush past the fact that you've got a bunch of fucking dinosaur bones washing up at any given point during the day. I've never heard of this. What?
Gina (02:59)
Nice. We're going classic.
Yeah. So the Jurassic coast, I took my family there when they were visiting for Christmas a while back. And it's just, it's, it's picture a beach, instead of sand, it's rocks and there's tons of tons and tons of fossils there. So people go there all the time to try and like find the cool ones, because there's like tiny ones, there's huge ones, all sorts of cool stuff.
Kathryn (03:30)
That's awesome. I did not know about this. You will have to take us there next time we visit you, just so you know, because that's... I love searching on the beach for things. Usually the only cool thing, quote unquote, we get around here is beach glass, which I love beach glass. I think it's beautiful, but I'm also like... This is the only thing that everyone kind of just glosses over the fact that it's a result of litter. And I'm like, that makes me so sad.
Gina (03:34)
100%.
Yeah
It is pretty though. Like, don't do it. Yeah, yes to both of those things.
Kathryn (04:00)
But like it looks nice, but also I'm sad it exists.
Yeah, I won't get on that soapbox, I promise. Don't worry everyone. But I would love to find a dinosaur bone. That's awesome.
Gina (04:13)
Yeah, I mean, it's mostly just fossilized bugs, but it is still fucking cool. And there's ⁓ this museum, ⁓ feel, ⁓ it's in Kimridge. That's where it is. I was gonna say I feel bad for not remembering, but it's in a place called Kimridge, tiny little town, and they found, also on the Jurassic Coast, and they found right near it, think it's the skeleton of what I can only describe as a real-life fucking sea monster. Like this thing, like.
Kathryn (04:17)
That's that's so cool.
Yeah.
No!
Gina (04:39)
If you just Google Kimmeridge dinosaur, it'll come up and it's wild. And they just found it chilling just in the rocks by this tiny little town. It's very cool. So we'll go there too. We'll have a little sea day and we'll bring cinnamon.
Kathryn (04:52)
Yeah, well, you can come to Cinemini. We'll get a bone for your brother, the spooky dog, okay?
Gina (04:54)
Mm-hmm.
Ha ha ha ha ha.
Alright, so I kind of want to just jump right in because I know you have a lot to tell me.
Kathryn (05:06)
Yes, this is a big one, which I will tell you as soon as I suck down my ice cream. Hold on.
Intro to the Roff House
Alright, let's talk about the Roff House. So, this is going to be kind of a multi-level story that I'm going to tell you all. We're going to start off with the legend of Mary Roff. That actually, I say legend because it is a legendary story, but it very much happened. Everything that I will be talking about today is allegedly true, believed to be true. I will be...
Gina (05:15)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (05:38)
sharing as many facts as we possibly know, and then we will move on to a very special episode that we've been waiting a very long time for, in which I go into details about my very first paranormal investigation that Gina joined in spirit.
Gina (05:48)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (05:56)
So before we get started, this is kind of a feel-good story. It's definitely a lot gentler than ones we've had in the past and a lot more lighthearted, but I do want to give a quick content warning for, I'm going to say depression and also attempted suicide. there are some dark bits, but other than that, it's pretty, I find this to be kind of ⁓ a nice comforting story.
Mary Roff
So Mary Roff was born in 1846 to Asa and Ann Roff in Warren County, Indiana. She was smart, kind, happy little girl, loving family.
There was no apparent drama, trauma, nothing out of the ordinary that we know of. Just kind of a classic normal kid, normal upbringing that ended up turning into a wild legendary story as we have seen so many times. When she was about 13 years old, the Roffs moved to a very small town called Watseka Illinois, about 90 miles south of Chicago. So like Eastern Illinois.
When Mary was a teenager, so around the time she moved to Watseka shortly thereafter, Mary told her family that she could see spirits. And she would have these kind of intense fits where she would go into trances and she would suffer from fainting spells and kind of seize up for a measurable amount of time. And when she'd wake up, she would claim that she had been somewhere else entirely. She was somewhere communicating with people. So she wasn't just gone. She was like, what's the word? Transcending? I don't know. She was like out communicating with the spirits.
This was the mid 1800s when spiritualism was very popular. It was normal for people to have seances just in general and people genuinely believed that the veil between the living and the dead was thin enough to communicate. because of all of this, Mary's family didn't immediately panic at her claim that she was communicating with spirits. Watseka was known to have a pretty large spiritualist community at the time, and the Roff family did practice spiritualism. I believe that was at least in part ⁓ one of the reasons they may have moved to Watseka. I don't know for sure why they moved to there, but I do believe at least part of it was to join a larger spiritualist community where they weren't really thought of as outsiders so much. Despite the fact that they did believe that Mary was speaking to spirits through these fits, they also recognized that like passing out and seizing up on a regular basis was not healthy.
So they also noticed that over time the more I'm going to keep calling them fits. The more fits that she experienced, the more depressed she got. So they did end up calling a doctor who couldn't help monitor her, which, you know, as the story goes, we likely we know now that it was likely epilepsy. I feel like that's very common for people to mistake epilepsy for, you know, communication with spirits, especially at the time.
But they did acknowledge that whatever was happening, whether or not it was spiritual, it was also affecting her day to day life. So they were like, OK, both can be true, which we rarely see, which is part of why I really like this story so much. They weren't like calling the doctor in the way that, you know, my God, she's crazy. But they also recognized that she was being disrupted. You know, her health was not good. So it was kind of the best they felt like they could do.
They were trying to do whatever they could without, making her feel like she was insane, but also not getting her the help she needed, you know? So was kind of, were trying to find the balance between the best thing to do for her, basically. Despite the fact that she was being monitored by a doctor, her episodes did grow to be a lot more frequent. It is said that it was normal for her to have two, sometimes even three every single day, which is a lot. So in addition to that, they also got a lot more violent and unpredictable. And she grew even more depressed to the point where, content warning, one day her parents found her in a pool of her own blood and she had attempted to kill herself. So at that point, with
Gina (10:36)
god. Yeah.
Kathryn (11:00)
the support of her doctor. Her parents made the really tough decision to send her to a hospital in Peoria. A lot of people who tell this story do say that she was institutionalized. It's never explicitly stated where exactly in Peoria she went. There's a few hospitals around there. I couldn't find where it was. So if anyone knows for sure, if anyone has any like official documents of where she was actually sent, I would love for you all to send them to us, iscreamyouscreampod@gmail.com. Because I suspect that she was sent to Peoria State Hospital, which is also more commonly known as the Bartonville Asylum, which I have been to. And I would love if that's where she was, even though I don't love that she was sent to an asylum. But it is said that she was institutionalized. So I suspect that's where she went. ⁓
Gina (11:42)
Hmm.
Kathryn (11:51)
That place was super haunted and super spooky. We will do an episode on that someday, but that's an aside. Anyway, if you know for sure, anyone just let me know where exactly she was and then we'll make a note of it. anyway, despite her being institutionalized and having severe depression, it did appear that she also did have some actual ability or psychic gift of some kind. In addition to claiming to see spirits. They being just the people around her, doctors, family, family friends. I think they had a friend who was like a reporter or something who came in to talk to her at one point. They would all perform tests, which again is another thing that we've seen and heard so many times in a lot of stories that we do.
There's one infamous story about this time where I think it was the reporter friend had a sealed letter tucked into his coat pocket, like his jacket pocket, and she was blindfolded and sitting across the room and she could quote unquote read what the letter said. And she had never seen it. She didn't know who it was from. This was like one of the tests that they were conducting. So honestly, there are so many times where like
Gina (13:06)
Imagine having that skill. my goodness.
Kathryn (13:12)
I just remember growing up, especially when I was a kid, if my parents would get something from school or something, ⁓ my god, it killed me. I would have loved that power. Did you ever try the steam trick? Cover your ears, mom and dad. So what you would do is you would boil water to create a bunch of steam and you'd hold the letter over it. Theoretically, that would undo the glue on the letter so you could open it.
Gina (13:17)
Mm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-mm.
Hahaha
Mm.
Kathryn (13:41)
read what was inside, reseal it, nothing happened. It never worked for me. I did try it, but I never, I don't think I ever generated enough steam. But all of this is to say, what a great power to have. ⁓
Gina (13:47)
Ha!
Never thought I would hear you say, don't think I generated enough steam. Locomotive Katherine.
Kathryn (14:01)
my god, what a dream. That'd be fun to be a locomotive. Pretend I didn't say that. Back to the story. Anyway, so little things like that happened all the time. She knew things she couldn't possibly know. She picked up on things that were, you know, maybe they could be explained away, but it just would be super strange. The classic, we've heard this a million times. But people believed her. This, you know,
Gina (14:04)
Imagine haunting a train. Sorry, okay. No, back to this.
Kathryn (14:29)
This is something that, again, she was part of a spiritualist community. This was the time period of spiritualism. And she wasn't being nefarious with it. Like, this was just a thing that she had. She wasn't trying to trick anyone. She didn't really care if people believed her or not, because her family believed her. And it was just, she was just trying to figure out how to deal with it, you know? She wasn't trying to get away with anything. She was just trying to figure out how to be a young girl living her life with this gift, you know?
One weekend, she... it was July 4th weekend. She and her family went to visit a friend in Peoria for the holiday for 4th of July, and she had been complaining of a horrible headache for days. And once they got to the friend's house, she did unfortunately pass away.
the fact that doctors were involved, I don't think that they knew what was happening. So I don't think she was getting the care that she actually needed. They were trying. Everyone was trying. She wasn't abandoned. I just think she succumbed to her fits, you know? ⁓ So if this was a typical story, this is where it would end, right? But it's not a typical story. This is just the beginning.
Mary Lurancy Vennum
Fast forward to 1877, another young girl in Watseka starts having very similar symptoms as Mary. Her name is also Mary, but her full name was Mary Lurancy Vennum and she went by, people called her Lurancy.
So. Lurancy was, like I said, 12 or 13 when she began fainting and slipping into her own trances and she would speak to people that her family could not see and she described them as angels. She'd call them spirits, her friends, family from heaven. Like was very angelic and very, yes, like the vibe was good. Her parents, despite how good the vibes were, were understandably terrified and confused, and were like, what the fuck is going on? So they took her to the doctor. doctors predictably said she was insane, she was crazy, she needs to be institutionalized.
But her parents were really hesitant. It is possible that they had heard stories of what happened to Mary Roff all those years prior. A lot of people tried to suggest that the Roffs and Vennums had no knowledge of each other whatsoever, which could be true. ⁓ I suspect that they likely at least heard of each other in some capacity, only because Watseka is an extremely small town, was an extremely small town at the time, and they were both spiritualist families. So like, it's very unlikely, in my opinion, that a spiritualist family would not know at least know of another spiritualist family in such a small community. like, you know of your fellow, like, church practitioners in small towns like this, you know? So I do wonder if part of their hesitancy was they recognize the similarities between Laurency and Mary's story and, you know, all they know is Mary...
Gina (17:47)
Yeah.
Kathryn (18:02)
died when she was institutionalized and they were hesitant about it, you know what I mean? Like it could have been something. I'm not saying they for sure knew them, but I just have a little bit of skepticism toward the fact that they had no idea who each other were. You know, that just feels very unlikely to me.
Gina (18:08)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
The Roffs meet the Vennums
Kathryn (18:18)
One of the reason I suspect that the Vennum family knew of the Roff's story is Asa got wind of Lurancy's story. Somehow I suspect through the spiritualist community they're part of. When he heard about what she was going through, he was like, oh, fuck. This is way too familiar, like, you know, I've been through this, let me help you. You know, so he really wanted to get involved and offer them advice and support. And like, he was, I don't want to say anti-institution, because again, they didn't regret getting their daughter help. It's just they realized that they weren't getting her the help that she actually needed. So he wanted to at least talk to the Vennums about their options.
Gina (19:06)
Is it like venom, like poison venom?
Kathryn (19:10)
So it's pronounced that way, it's spelled, I think, V-E-N-N-U-M. But yes, it is pronounced venom, yeah. It's not so metal, I know. Yeah.
Gina (19:16)
Okay. Still cool as fuck. That's so cool. When you said it at first, I thought maybe I misheard you and you were saying, I don't know, something that rhymes with venom. Sick. Nice. That was a great name. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was great too.
Kathryn (19:25)
Mm-mm. No, it's very cool. Very, it's a great name. Also, like, Lurancy was that. I don't know. That's awesome. Very cool name.
Yeah. So the families ended up meeting. And the Venoms liked what Asa and Anne, but I think mostly Asa, had to say. And they agreed that they wanted to do their best to keep her out of the institution.
So they made a plan for Asa and Ann to come over so that they could talk through like whatever alternative care plan they wanted to come up with or whatever, however you want to think about it. And while they were there discussing Laurence's potential care, she went into one of her trances and
They thought that she was channeling. And who would come forth? None other than Mary Roff. Yeah, yes. Except she did not leave. She, it turns out, she was not channeling Mary. She was straight up just full on possessed by her because she did not go away.
Gina (20:20)
⁓ shit. Okay. Cool.
Lurancy channels Mary Roff
Kathryn (20:36)
They were a little confused by it. They didn't know if maybe she was having some kind of like mental break or like what was going on. But they noticed, you know, during this discussion, she seemed to almost like carry herself like Mary did. She used phrases that Mary had used, her mannerisms were very similar to Mary. She was referring to Asa and Anne as father and mother and like kind of not really acknowledging Lurancy's parents much at all, just like the polite way that you would a guest, if you will. And it got to the point where everyone was like, holy fuck, this is really Mary because remember
Laurence was a baby when Mary died, if she was born at all, so she could not have known the way Mary would have acted. So everyone was real quick to be like, holy fuck, that's like actually Mary.
So the Roffs of course, were like overjoyed. They were like, oh my God, yes, our daughter is back. She's okay. You know, she's safe on the other side. Blah, blah, blah, blah, Venoms are like, what is happening? But at the same time, they also were like, okay, she's not having fits. She doesn't seem depressed. This is kind of the most normal she's acted in a very long time.
Gina (21:44)
Yeah, that's fair.
Kathryn (22:02)
if this is helping her okay, I guess, like maybe this is what she needs, like, you know, if this is really Mary and Mary can help her get better, great, let's do this. They kind of had an alarming amount of faith. And I say alarming not because it was necessarily bad, but just like, I'm trying to imagine myself in that situation. I'm just like, holy fuck,
So at this point, we're all believing that Mary is in Laurencey's body. Mary is telling them thatknow, she has been through this before, she knows now on the other side what she needed at this time, she wants to help Laurency. So she, as her spirit, is going to live in Laurency's body for an amount of time and like help to heal her.
A says, like, this is wild, but hear me out. Since this is Mary, like, she wants to go home, we will take care of Lurancy as Mary. And the Vennums agreed. They agreed. They were, everyone was reacting very similar to what you just did. But like, Mary.
Gina (23:07)
Okay, alright.
Ahem.
Lurancy moves in with the Roffs
Kathryn (23:17)
slash Laurency, if you don't believe Mary was in her body, was like all on board and she is like, yes, this is what I need. Like they have experience doing this. They know what mistakes they made and what they would have done differently. know, Asa's like, we are prepared. We have the supplies. We have this, we have that. We have the connections to the doctors, blah, blah, blah, blah. And from Mary's perspective slash Laurency, she doesn't know these people.
She is alleging that and you know, she doesn't know the Vennums, she wants to go home to be with Asa and Anne. So the Vennums agreed. They're, you know, they kind of just were like, this is again, the happiest we've seen her in a while. If you can help, we don't know else to do. Go ahead.
So shortly thereafter, now, fully identifying as Mary, Lurancy moved into the Roff House. And she would stay there for three months. She did not need a tour of the house upon moving in. She walked straight to what was once Mary's room. She knew where things belonged. She knew where to find everything. She asked about neighbors that had previously lived close by that had since moved and that Lurancy would never have known because she was a baby. She knew where the family jewels were kept despite, yeah, despite her mother never having, you know, unlocked them or warned them or told anyone this like a family secret type stuff. And they just, from the jump, had no reason not to believe this wasn't Mary. So.
Gina (24:35)
Okay.
Kathryn (24:54)
The Roffs treated her very well. To them, it was the equivalent of their daughter coming home with the additional knowledge that the goal was for Lurancy to be better and come back. So it wasn't like a creepy like, this is our daughter now. It was like, thank you for coming back to help this child , Mary You know what I mean? Like they were very respectful of what the end goal was, but also just super happy to quote unquote have Mary back.
The Vennums visited often, and Laurency slash Mary, I don't know what to call her, Mary, was always very polite to them and welcoming, but never affectionate in the way you would expect a young child to be toward their parents that they hadn't seen in a little while. Like, she was acting as Mary who was entertaining guests who were visiting.
And as the days and weeks and months passed, they did notice a notable physical improvement in her. Like she was walking later, she was healthy, she was happy. They saw improvement, so they, you know, continued with this arrangement.
Then one evening in May, Mary told the Roff family that it was time for her to leave, that she had completed her work, her work there was done, and Lurancy would be returning, and not to be sad because this was the goal and everything would be okay. She then immediately thereafter went into a trance and Lurancy returned. She apparently had no memory of the last three months.
She didn't really recognize Asa or Anne. Like, she technically had met them that one afternoon. But then when Mary took over, that was really it. You know, she recognized them as people she had seen before, but she was, like, kind of scared. She was like, who are you and where am I? Like, I want to go home. You know? So Roffs were like, all right, this is it. Like, our job here is done. So Lurancy went back to her home.
Gina (26:52)
Yeah.
Kathryn (27:03)
And from that point forward, for all intents and purposes, she was basically normal. She was healthy. Her fits got better. She didn't really experience any seizures or anything from that point forward. She had a normal, healthy childhood, and she just went on to live a normal and happy life, eventually marrying, moving out. I think she moved out to California, had kids of her own, and...
That was that. she was essentially healed. Yeah.
Gina (27:34)
No.
Kathryn (27:37)
There are, of course, skeptics. Many people state this could be an early case of dissociative identity disorder, potentially mixed with suggestion. We don't know for sure that no one hinted at where those family jewels were, maybe even without knowing that they were doing it. There are a lot of things that we just simply don't know. But all of the things that we do know for sure are kind of unexplainable. And it is hard to, it's hard to debunk just because we don't know. You know what I mean? And there was so much influence from the spiritualism community. And I'm not saying that in a negative way, it just...this was accepted as truth just because that is part of their belief system. So there wasn't any real reason to question it, especially since people were also getting both of these girls medical care. If they had just been like, it's God, it's spirits, it's whatever, then it'd be a little fishy. But it did really seem like people were genuinely trying to cover all the stops, basically.
Regardless of what it was, possession, psychology, or other weird things, the story has never really gone away. It's cited in a lot of parapsychology and folklore circles. People in the town still talk about it quite a lot. It's like what Watseka is known for. And the Roff House is still standing and used as an Airbnb, which I had the honor of staying in in April with the TWATS. Which I am going to talk about as briefly as possible, but it's going to be very long. But before we do that, I want to hear your thoughts on this story.
Gina (29:18)
Well, okay, because I know you're about to share your experience staying there, I'm so, because I know parts of it, because we've talked about it just because we're friends. ⁓ But I'm excited to like, re-hear about it with the context of Mary Roff and the Roff family and you know, the venoms and all of that. I think I was, I'm gonna be honest, I was ready to call bullshit on the Mary possessing her thing.
Kathryn (29:25)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Gina (29:46)
But how the fuck would she have known all that? The family jewels in particular. Because I was like, okay, like maybe she heard rumors about like who their neighbors were or maybe someone somewhere described the house. But family jewels, don't tell people, you don't tell anyone where you keep that shit. That's fascinating. And I'm also really intrigued by the medical element of it. Like you said, there were people treating her and psychologists trying to help and studying the case.
Kathryn (29:50)
Yeah.
No. Mm-hmm. Right.
Mm-hmm.
Gina (30:16)
which I find it would be fascinating to read some of those reports.
Kathryn (30:20)
There is a book. I believe the man who wrote it was part of the spiritualism community, but he also was, I think he was a psychologist. We'll put this in the show notes for sure. I'll fact check myself. But this is where this story got the name. The book is called The Watseka Wonder.
There are other reports to look into, but this is probably the most famous one. And again, I'm adding the caveat that it is told through a spiritualist lens, so grain of salt. But it's a good place to get started. That's a good place to get the full documented everything that actually happened from start to finish. Because this is obviously a very abridged version of everything. Because I will say, I felt very similar to you. The first time I, two things. I grew up.
just about an hour from this place, so I was familiar with this story. But the first time I ever heard the story told from start to finish, was on... I think it was an episode of lore. I just remember thinking at the time, I remember thinking this is the most bizarre... This cannot be true. Like, it was the most bizarre story, like, paranormal related that I had ever heard. But I will say, I mean, not to jump right in.
Gina (31:20)
⁓ wow.
Kathryn (31:35)
I was still real skeptical about it until I went to the house and I'm not skeptical anymore, like genuinely. So I'll just, I don't want to steamroll. Do you have other questions or anything? Okay. Okay.
Gina (31:42)
Okay.
That was a great transition. Let's do it.
What is the Roff house like?
Kathryn (31:49)
First and foremost, I'm gonna steamroll the story immediately and say the decor of this house is just stunning. I mean, the current owners did an absolutely incredible job restoring it and they really cared about keeping the original charm and all that kind of stuff. So A plus to the current owners. But beyond that, one step in the door and you can feel that this place is haunted. mean, you can just, the energy is like butter. Like it is just, I can't explain it, but it is one of those places where it just, the energy is thick and it's there and you can just feel it the moment you walked in.
What's interesting about this house is it's not bad. It's, it almost, it was like cozy. You walk in and it felt like, it felt like upon entering the door, someone just like laid a big down comforter like around my shoulders. was like lush and comfy and cozy and inviting.
While we were getting ready to, again, I went with the TWATS. I just want to let everyone know you can hear more about them in our Windy City ParaFest episode back in April. ⁓ So yeah, they invited me to go slash us, but you're all the way over there. Sorry. So.
Gina (32:45)
Ooh, I love that.
Kathryn (33:08)
you know, the first few hours we were all just like hanging around, getting to know each other, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then when we started getting ready for the evening, the best way I can describe it, and everyone was saying they felt the same thing, it felt like people were like watching us, but not in a creepy way. It felt like people were like hanging out, like around the house, just kind of like peeking in to see what we were doing. We were being observed. Our intentions were being monitored. That's what it felt like. felt very, it felt like they were being protective of each other almost. Who are these people? Why are they here? That kind of vibe.
So night one, we get settled in the living room. We introduce ourselves to our, I almost said to our house, my God. We introduce ourselves to the house as is tradition with the TWATS, which I love and I wanna do that everywhere I go paranormal or otherwise. ⁓ And we had set out like cat balls and flashlights to use as tools for like motion activation. ⁓
For anyone who has been on paranormal investigations, ignore all these descriptions, but I know a lot of our listeners have not, so I'm going to be very deeply describing everything we were doing. So we were using the flashlights as yes-no tools. Christina turned it on, and then you kind of unscrew it a little bit. So the theory is if you tap it, it'll turn on and off. And then a cat ball, obviously, if you knock it, it'll make light, it'll make sounds and light up and all that kind of stuff. So we had those sprinkled around and it was really quiet at first when we first got there and started trying to communicate. ⁓
Crazy, but really, yeah, we got a few interactions, but there wasn't really anything notable until Christina asked if the spirits would prefer if we talk to them using a spirit board and all of the stuff that we had designated as a yes, like immediately went off and it was like the brightest it had been. So we were like, okay, that actually makes sense because if this was a spiritualist household, that would be a way that spirits would be comfortable communicating with. That was such a popular way to communicate with spirits back then. So we moved into the dining room and we were doing the spirit board and Christina was one of the people who had her hands on the planchette, but she wasn't asking questions. She was kind of just focusing on the board as we were all asking questions around her.
And at one point, we started getting answers, but everything was so nonsensical. It was like you could tell that they were trying to communicate, but it was like, I can't think of an exact example, but we would say something like, this is just an example, I don't remember, but we would say, who are we talking to? And it would say like M-E-R-E or something. And we wonder, okay, is this trying to say Mary or is this someone else? just was, you could tell it was trying, but nothing was really happening.
And finally, Christina kind of smirked a little bit and just goes, who is the older woman who is preventing you from speaking? And the planchette immediately moves straight to goodbye. So I know. So we're like, shit. We're like, what the fuck? ⁓ It was just wild. So we immediately start.
Gina (36:41)
⁓ god.
Kathryn (36:50)
like searching property records, know, newspapers.com, all this stuff. And we kept coming across the name Katherina Clifton.
Katherine Clifton
So who the fuck is Katherine Clifton? Plot twist, has nothing to do with the Roffs whatsoever.
Katherine Clifton was born in 1893 and she inherited the house in 1939 from her stepfather who had owned it since He had been a federal judge down in Oklahoma and the people he worked with considered him a bit eccentric, which I love because I feel like you always hear women describe that way, so it was kind of fun hearing him describe that way.
Gina (37:30)
Great.
Kathryn (37:33)
The example that I found, which I think is very fun, is after a particularly controversial vote that he made. I don't remember what it was and it doesn't matter to the story. He faked his own death and smuggled himself into a freight train where he fled to Illinois, which is why he was in Watseka.
Gina (37:52)
Okay, well, fleeing to Illinois is not on my top list, but you know what? Great job, that's fucking cool.
Kathryn (37:54)
He had to flee and he had to go somewhere. Yeah. I know.
I know. So Katherine's mother, meanwhile, raised her as kind of a nomad. I don't know how her mother and her stepfather met. It doesn't matter to the story. But she and her mother traveled around the world in steamer ships all throughout her childhood so that Katherine could experience kind of different cultures and get more than just a Midwestern education.
you know, experience life across the world. And fun fact, some of the trunks that they traveled with are still in the home as decor. Yeah. There's also grotto in the backyard that was built using rocks that they collected on their travels, which my lifelong dream that I didn't know I had. Literally, that we like have the same name. So.
Gina (38:33)
⁓ that's cool.
Huh. Right, that has Katherine written all over it.
Hahaha!
Kathryn (38:52)
I will say that was very confusing while I was there. we kept, anytime someone would like talk to her, they'd be like, Katherine, and I'd be like, yes. Before Katherine inherited the home, she lived in New York City where she learned to play the violin and she would play on street corners to raise money for war bonds. And she kind of just floated around. She was like a woman of the world. And when she eventually settled in Watseka,
Gina (38:59)
Hehehehehe
Kathryn (39:20)
She had a huge impact on the community. She inherited a ton of money from her stepfather. At the time, the land had, I think, roughly 1,000 acres of farmland, which is ginormous. And she bought a plane and learned to fly. And that was how she monitored the farm. Instead of taking a car or a tractor out, she'd
Gina (39:34)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Kathryn (39:47)
get up in the plane and like fly around and see how everyone was doing, if there were any issues, what the progress was. It was like a little crop duster. And someone is going to be like, yeah, that was normal. That's what crop dusters were used for. To which I say, shh, stop talking because it's not normal for a woman to do that. It's not normal for, you know, whether inherited or not, she owned the farm.
Gina (39:53)
Mmm.
Kathryn (40:14)
and she took it upon herself to like learn these things, go these places and fly this fucking plane. like, not up for discussion. Very, very cool. So learning all the shit about Katherine Clifton and once we named her, once we called her out by name, the energy completely changed. The answers were clear. The yes, no responses were immediate.
⁓ We had an EMF reader, so for those who don't know, it's one of those things. We'll pop pictures into the YouTube for anyone who's curious. It's the one that has the lights that go from green to red, theoretically the more energy it's picking up on, it'll go all the way. It spits out a reading saying that there's a lot of energy to be felt or whatever.
So it's supposed to tell you whether or not there's like quote unquote a spirit trying to communicate. And it had not done anything all night until after we started talking to her, communicating with her. It was kind of fun because every time we would like say something funny or like joke around, it would like spike. It like kind of felt like she was like laughing along with us. Like it was very like good. Yeah, it was good energy.
Really communicative and really active. At one point, you called us or we called you. I don't know. You were up for the day and it was like the dead of night there. I have no idea what time it was. Around 2 30, I would say. right after we got off the phone with you, energy like completely spiked. So much shit happened all at once.
Gina (41:45)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (41:58)
A couple of us heard someone say hello you know, when you walk into a party and you're trying to figure out where everyone is, you're like, hello, that's what it was. And then shortly thereafter, we all heard this big bang sound come from the kitchen.
So I don't remember who it was. I think it was Frankie got up to go inspect and the door had opened. ⁓ The door was, it opened to this like attached shed situation. So it wasn't outside. So there was no like draft or anything. And the reason it caused such a big bang is because that shit was shut tight. It was like a heavy door. So it like needed to be like shoved open and closed. So that's what the big noise was.
And it just was like, we could hear people walking around upstairs. It felt like someone was moving around in the living room. Just so much was happening all at once. And then all of a sudden, it just kind of stopped. It got to be around 3 o'clock, and it just ended. It was super weird. was like someone hit a switch, and that was it. They were done for the night.
That was night one.
Gina (43:13)
I'm so, because I remember when you were telling me about this way back in the day when it was like, you know, it had just happened or like, I think it was when we were on the call with the Twats when like I had just woken up or whatever. ⁓ I'm so curious. Cause I remember at the time you described it like the spirits or you know, these, presences that were in the house. was like they were having a party and the party was happening in the living room.
Kathryn (43:18)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Gina (43:39)
And I want to know
Kathryn (43:40)
Yeah.
Gina (43:40)
who was coming to the party. Like, who was there?
Kathryn (43:44)
Yeah, that's a good point because so much activity was happening in the living room. But it was kind of, I don't know what room it would have originally been. It was like the parlor. It was like the welcome space, you know, because there was the living room and then another living room. So that would have been the parlor area.
Gina (44:00)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (44:07)
There was a weird mix between, you know, kind of the spiritualism vibe. I do think that the fact that this was a house of spiritualists originally.
had a lot to do with that because everyone felt very open, it felt very celebratory, but it also felt very spiritual, you know? Like it felt kind of reverent a little bit, but it also did feel like a party. And Katherine was very, I don't want to say popular, she was kind of, she was popular, you know? So she probably did entertain a lot of people, but in the way that she also was kind of judged because she was not.
Your standard woman, like she did weird things and had kind of a strange life,
it was almost like these people spent their life judging Katherine. And then once they were on the other side, they were like, actually we were just dying to get invited to this rager. You know what I mean? And like, we're happy to be here now.
Gina (45:02)
Mm-hmm. Okay.
Kathryn (45:04)
That is, it was kind of a complex feeling. I'm not doing a great job describing it, but that is kind of a good summary of what the experience there was because it was just not anything I had ever experienced before, you know, but it did. It felt like there was never a moment where we were.
Gina (45:19)
Yeah.
Kathryn (45:23)
Confident who exactly we were talking to because there was never a moment where you just felt one thing like there was so much Energy and it felt like there were so many people there at any given moment Like I would believe that that house was a portal to somewhere because there was so much energy. I've never felt that much energy in my life
Gina (45:34)
Mm-hmm.
So do we, is the prevailing theory that when you guys were first using the spirit board and Christina said who's the older woman preventing you from speaking do we think that it was Katherine was just being drowned out by the number of people trying to talk?
Kathryn (45:50)
Mm-hmm.
⁓
Interestingly, no, I think it was the opposite. think Katherine was like, this is my fucking house and you all will do what I say. Yeah, yeah, it was definitely Katherine 100%. And it wasn't, she was not being drowned out. She was like controlling what was happening for sure. That is something that I am just absolutely confident about. She definitely had the strongest energy and everyone else was there with her. That was kind of the vibe.
Gina (46:01)
Yeah, okay. Nice. Okay, sick.
Okay, okay.
Kathryn (46:24)
⁓ Yeah, yes, absolutely. So moving into day two, first and foremost, I just have to say the bed I slept in was comfy as hell. I've literally never slept that soundly ever in my adult life. My head hit the pillow and I was out cold. Next thing I knew, I woke up like sun streaming in the window on my face. I was well rested.
Gina (46:24)
Love it. Main character.
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (46:53)
It was just beautiful. And I woke up to the sound of Big Mouth Billy Bass. Let me explain myself. So one of the people that was there, they brought Big Mouth Billy Bass as one of our motion sensors. And we had had him on the grand piano in the parlor, living room area, whatever. Because like you were mentioning, we felt that that was like kind of
big energy area, so that's where we kept him. And he was kind of sporadic all night, the night one, but never consistent. He wasn't one that we were really relying on. But after we all went to bed, I sleep with earplugs, so I didn't know, but everyone said they could hear him going off all night long, all night long. And so I woke up and I, again,
I didn't hear him. I my earplugs in, so once I took them out, I heard him going. So I assumed that I was late to the party, that everyone was up, like having coffee, getting ready to go, blah, blah, blah. So I get ready and I go downstairs and no one's awake except Christina, who is in the kitchen, and she was making coffee. so we went into the dining room and we commented on the fact that Big Mouth Billy Bass had been going off.
despite no one being down there and no one walking by. And finally, Christina said, I wonder if it's running out of batteries and it's doing, it's like glitching out, how things kind of run sporadically and weirdly if they're running out of battery. It immediately stopped after she said that. And then we thought the battery had died. And then when each of the twats woke up and came down the stairs,
Gina (48:26)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (48:39)
it went off when they walked past it. So it was not dead. Yeah, it just like heard her and they were like, no, no, that's not the situation.
Gina (48:42)
So fucking cool.
Kathryn (48:48)
the second night was wild. That was the most notable night. And I'm not going to go into too much detail about everything because I'm still like, sounds fake to me and I was there. so I won't go into everything.
Gina (49:01)
you
Kathryn (49:04)
we started the night with some spell work, which was super exciting. I've never done a spell with anyone else before. So Christina was guiding us in the spell that was meant to make us more open, communicative, make it basically easier for us to connect with the spirit world, whatever you want to call it.
So the twats have this tool. I don't remember what it's called. I'm sorry. They got it, I don't think it was custom made, but whoever made it only made like,
10 or something like that. I don't remember the whole story. And it's essentially made to be like the Estes method. And for those who don't know, when you do the Estes method, you listen to a spirit box through sound blocking headphones. spirit box is basically just this electric box that creates a bunch of static. It's meant to mimic
It's like a radio frequency, if you will, and the theory is it gives spirits a frequency through which they can communicate and it like picks up on the frequency of their voice or blah blah blah blah blah and you are able to hear them speak through is a spirit box.
you do the estes method, have the sound blockers on and you're also blindfolded. So you're completely sensory deaf and there's no outside influence whatsoever. And the people that you're with ask questions. Then you speak out loud whatever you're hearing in your headphones.
goal is that there is an intelligent conversation. You're erasing the influence of, I know what the question is. Therefore, I can hear what I want to hear. You don't know what the question is. So that's the point of the Estes method.
Gina (50:53)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (50:56)
so their version of the Estes method is basically the same thing, but in addition to this, you wear these, I'm call them sunglasses, that have a bunch of shit hooked up to it, and it's got this weird blinking red light, and I don't know, I will have Christina or Frankie or someone come describe it because like, I don't know how to describe this mechanism. But basically you have the headphones and the sunglasses, and the theory is,
All the stuff that's attached to the glasses create this electromagnetic field around you. So anything that you're experiencing is heightened. I'm not describing it well, but that's the best I can do. I don't know the actual science behind any of this. If anyone does and wants to let us know, icecreamuscreenpot.gmail.com.
Gina (51:35)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (51:47)
I was really skeptical about it because I've wanted to try the Essence Method my whole life. I've seen it my whole life. Like, I knew what was happening when I was like five years old. But ever since I saw it used on some paranormal investigation show, I've always wanted to try it, but I've never really had the opportunity. So when they pulled it out and asked if anyone wanted to try it, I was like, ⁓ my God, this is my shot. So.
Gina (51:57)
You
Kathryn (52:12)
Like I said, I was a little skeptical about it just because I had no idea what to expect. as far as all of the ghost hunting tools are concerned, I am really skeptical about all of them. I enjoy using them, and I think they're fun. But I also am just like, I don't understand any of this enough to know whether or not this is legit. I just don't know.
Gina (52:16)
you
Kathryn (52:39)
So it's not that I don't believe, it's just that I don't know how to understand any of it. I don't totally know how to describe everything I experience, but I will say that after doing it, I am like a 100 % believer it was genuinely the most bizarre experience of my entire life. I'm not gonna share all the details with everyone, because you know this, but I am still processing everything.
six, whatever, seven months later. I was only in there for three minutes, like barely over three minutes. I felt like I was in there for like five and a half hours. It was just wild. ⁓ The things that I will share are the first thing I noticed like moments after I put the headphones on and put the glasses on and I said, okay, I'm ready to communicate or whatever it was. It felt like someone just went whoosh.
and like slander their hands on the table right in front of me. I was like immediately startled. And felt like people were like stomping on the floor, banging on the table. At one point it felt like someone had put their hands on the back of my chair and just started shaking it. It was just wild. Like the movement was insane to the point where I got a little self-conscious. Cause I was like, my God, I just met all of these people. What if they're fucking with me? Like I didn't know what to think, you know?
Gina (53:49)
Hmm.
Kathryn (54:03)
For anyone who is thinking the same thing, there is a video of me while doing this and nobody was moving. Everyone was whispering. Nobody got up from their seat or anything. There is one part of this video where someone says that they just felt a stomp on the floor and everyone was like, yeah, I felt that too. Which I kept feeling it, but I felt like people were like...
stomping repeatedly around me. So everything that they mentioned experiencing in the video outside of whatever I was doing, I was experiencing like a million times magnified basically. It was super weird, super mind boggling. I am still processing. Like I said, it was a wild experience and if anyone ever has the
opportunity to do so, I highly recommend it. It was so fun and confusing. The very last thing that happened before I came out was it felt on my left side. I was wearing my giant rainbow fuzzy sweater. It felt like someone... The best way I could describe it is it felt like someone took a popsicle and just like dragged it down my arm.
Gina (55:21)
Eugh.
Kathryn (55:22)
That's the best way I can describe it. You can see me in the video. I was like shaking it off and I like real quick came out of the headphones and everyone was like, you know, that wasn't us. You're OK. But I was like, I know that wasn't you. That was wild. a few other things happen. A few other people went in and did the Estes method. I'm not going to share their experiences. This will be a four hour episode if I shared everyone's experiences.
Gina (55:47)
you
Kathryn (55:49)
You can hear Frankie describe his experience on Total Conundrum when we went on that show to talk about our experiences at the Roff House because the Total Conundrum crew went as well. So he talks a little bit more about it on there. So go check that out if you want to hear about it. But yeah, it was cool. throughout the rest of the night as people
were in there and we were asking questions. We got a lot of intelligent answers, like kind of alarmingly so to the point where we kind of, I should say, I kind of forgot that this was a spirit thing. Like it kind of just felt like we were talking to the person who was in there. ⁓ We could hear people walking around upstairs. It kept sounding like someone was walking up and down the stairs and we kept hearing someone whistling like
Gina (56:38)
Hmm.
Kathryn (56:39)
in the stairwell and upstairs. It was just a, you know, not like whistling a tune, but just a whistle. no, it wasn't the train. It wasn't a train whistle. It was very, like, just to clarify, because there is a train that goes by, and I think I just heard our train go by. So if anyone heard a whistle on the recording, it's not a ghost. We have a train track near us. yeah, it was cool. The last several hours of the night, we were just hanging in the parlor.
Gina (56:49)
You
Ha
Kathryn (57:05)
in our own like the actual real physical fuzzy blankets, not just like house vibe fuzzy blanket. And that's where we were hearing a lot of people walking around and whistles and all the things. Just again, to kind of confirm that there was so much activity over in that parlor area. And yeah, I mean, that's pretty much it.
the best way I can describe the whole weekend was just, I almost feel like...
investigating is kind of ruined for me now because I'm like the way people have described investigations, this sounds like a top tier experience. I'm like, I kind of just don't ever want to go anywhere else. But it was cool. So much activity, a lot of interaction. the house has a lot of history as we learned more so than just the Roff story. I think by the end of the weekend, it was we kind of forgot we were even at
the Roff house, you know, it wasn't, I don't even know if we connected with anyone from the Roff story at all, but in the way that that's not really a bad thing, like we got so much interaction. And I think the fact that we were open to other spirits is the reason that we got so much interaction because I've heard stories of people having very negative experiences at that house. And a lot of people think it's like evil or demonic or whatever, because there are a lot of people that come in to investigate.
and just have a really bad negative experience. And I wonder if it's because they're just trying to connect with the Roffs and just ignoring everybody else because we didn't have a great experience until we started acknowledging it could be someone else. And it very much feels like Katherine Clifton's house. You know what I mean? And I can imagine she would be the type of person if a bunch of like ghost bros come in and start demanding things and
Gina (58:35)
you
Kathryn (58:55)
being negative and demanding, she'd just be like, well, you can fuck off because that's not how we're gonna do things. So I would imagine they'd get like a negative experience. if you do have intention of going to the Roff House ⁓ for the purpose of communicating with spirits, you can just go there as an Airbnb. If you wanna visit Watseka, Illinois, you don't have to investigate. It's just a standard Airbnb. ⁓
But if you do want to communicate with the spirit realm, definitely recommend trying to connect with Katherine instead of just the And have one more thing to say that I totally forgot about. may have gotten the ghost picture. I totally forgot to include that. Real quick, I'll just tack it on to the end here. Before we got started on night one,
I was going around the house taking pictures of the house, admittedly mostly for like design inspo because I loved the way this house looked so much. I was just trying to get a bunch of pictures of it. And I took a picture the front door. And what's interesting is when I'm looking at the photo and when I showed you, I see what looks like a green face.
then I've been showing it to other people. And there are two things I want to say. One, I was kind of skeptical about the face just because I do know that there were bushes outside. And I tried to see other photos taken from a similar angle. And I couldn't see the bushes in those other photos. But I am still skeptical that that could have been just like the trees and bushes outside. But what's interesting is even if that green
face isn't a face. I've been showing it to other people and other people are seeing other faces in this picture. Yeah, so I'm going... We'll share in the YouTube, we'll share what I am seeing and what I pointed out to you and then I'll share what other people are seeing.
we'll share it in the YouTube. Let us know what you see. We're going to share all of the other ones I have on our Patreon. And I do have a couple of
audio recordings of when the night got started and when we started the investigation. So we'll share all of that on Patreon. And if you see or hear anything, please let me know because I love finding stuff. And there are just so many photos. I don't think I went through all of them. So I suspect and hope that I got something else. So we'll let you all decide in our Patreon. But yeah, that's it. That's my story.
about the Roff House.
Gina (1:01:40)
It's
so interesting that you didn't, I mean to our knowledge, actually interact with any of the Roffs
Kathryn (1:01:48)
That's thing to our knowledge, but it didn't feel like it. And I do wonder if it's just because like they've moved on or something. You know what I mean? Like that's perfectly possible. It definitely felt like Katherine's house. 100%.
Gina (1:01:49)
It's so cool. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
And I wonder too, like, how many other famous, quote, haunted houses people go there and then have a negative experience because they're expecting to speak to one specific spirit when in reality it might be, like, I just, that's fascinating. I'm also, I'm so glad that you, that for your first paranormal investigation that you went with the Twats, because like you were saying, so much of it is the energy that you put into it and the Twats are the fucking best.
Kathryn (1:02:16)
Mm-hmm. Yup.
Me too.
Me too.
And I think that a big part of our positive experience was due to their process and the fact that they start all investigations with an introduction, who we are, what our intentions are, we mean no harm, blah, blah, blah, blah, just, cause that's what you would do if you're a guest in someone's home, you're gonna be like kind and, you know.
Gina (1:02:40)
Yeah.
Kathryn (1:02:59)
accommodating and you're not going to just bust in and start demanding interactions. It's rude, you know? So yeah, I definitely think that had a big part in that. Also, for anyone who hasn't listened to older episodes, TWATS stands for the Wisconsin Apparition Tracking Society, just to be clear, just in case we have new people that
Gina (1:03:15)
Hahaha! ⁓
Kathryn (1:03:26)
are not familiar with them. yeah, Friend of the Pod. Yeah. Yeah, we should put that in the show notes just in case. But yes, it was such a good experience. And I've thought of that because now there are so many ghost shows and paranormal investigation shows. And I've seen so many where people will be like, is this so-and-so? Are we talking to so-and-so?
Gina (1:03:28)
Yeah, we haven't been ⁓ casually shit talking them this whole time. We all just twat. Yeah, we probably should. Agreed.
Kathryn (1:03:55)
And the responses are very clearly not that person, but they're trying so hard to talk to this one infamous story character that's like... You're kind of just setting yourself up for failure. You could be talking to someone else that is just as interesting, but you're so focused on getting this content and getting in contact with this one specific person that you're kind of blocking yourself off to a whole other experience, so...
Gina (1:03:59)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Kathryn (1:04:19)
I do suspect that that happens in most places that have been deemed demonic or evil or whatever, and it's like, it's probably not, it's probably just a frustrated ghost that wants you to shut the fuck up.
Gina (1:04:19)
Yeah.
Right? I would be
like, if I was in the ghost shoes, I'd be fucking pissed. Like, what am I, good enough for you?
Kathryn (1:04:34)
If I, right?
If someone came into my home that I have been at for eternity and they just start demanding to talk to whoever the hell and I'm like, hello, talk to me and they are just being rude to me, I would be very aggressive and very demonic. Absolutely, yes.
Gina (1:04:40)
Yeah.
Same. I'd be very rude. Yeah.
Okay.
Kathryn (1:04:55)
Cool.
Gina (1:04:57)
Well, we've solved all the world's negative paranormal experience problems. Just be nice. None. Yeah. Well...
Kathryn (1:05:00)
Absolutely. Yes. We just proved there are no demons. Or evil spirits. Everyone's nice.
That's all folks.
Goodnight everybody! Alright, do you have something for me? Speaking of ghosts...
Gina (1:05:19)
I do have something for you,
I do. And it is a little ghosty story.
So this comes from our friends at T Tales and Talks. So thank you so much for passing this over to us. And I will begin reading it now. It's titled ⁓ Kids Are Creepy Slash Basement Ghost. Just to set the scene.
Kathryn (1:05:30)
Yay.
Love it.
Gina (1:05:39)
Okay,
so this one involves me and my little cousin. I was around 13 at this time and he was probably around six. So we're both going down to the basement at my aunt's house one day to grab one of his toys or games or something like that. He didn't want to go downstairs by himself, which is understandable. So I go with him. And because we're just grabbing something quick, we don't turn the basement lights on.
Kathryn (1:06:08)
Okay, well, I'm sorry, but I just don't... I don't blame whatever happened to you for happening to you. Like... Not to victim blame, but... I am a little bit though, I'm not gonna lie. Okay.
Gina (1:06:08)
Hehehehehe
It smells of self-fulfilling prophecy. It smells of tempted fate. No, no. No, no.
They do clarify though, they say that ⁓
the light from the stairwell is enough and it was light outside and there are large windows down there.
Kathryn (1:06:38)
Okay, alright, that's fair, I take back all of the emotional violence I just shared. Immediate reaction is valid, yes. Anyway, continue, sorry.
Gina (1:06:44)
But the immediate reaction, mine was the same. Yeah, I was like, why? my gosh. ⁓ But
yes, so they explain a little bit more about what the layout's like. So they say, the stairs to the basement are open from the main level and at the bottom, there is a door that leads to the basement. Also, the basement is unfinished and there were a lot of boxes down there at this time. So we find what we need and my cousin is eager to just get out of there.
As we're on our way back up, he stops me just at the bottom of the stairs with my hand on the handle of the open door, and he whispers to me.
Kathryn (1:07:23)
⁓
Gina (1:07:25)
I was like, what? And he said, sorry. It is. ⁓ I'm sure that they said it. What? I don't know. They asked for clarification. And the cousin said, saw someone look at us from behind the boxes like this. And then he proceeded to show me how someone leaned out from behind the boxes to look at us.
Kathryn (1:07:30)
That is 100 % how you would react. What?
⁓ what?
Gina (1:07:54)
He looked very freaked out, and when he said that, cold chills went up my back. I just said, it's okay, let's just go back upstairs, and he didn't miss a beat before running back up those stairs, leaving me there alone with the basement door still open. I remember thinking, okay, I'm really freaked out right now, and I suddenly got that feeling that you get when you become aware that something is behind you.
in my head, I'm like, well, I don't wanna scare him. He lives here, LOL. And I think the he is referring to like whatever creepy thing is in there. So I closed the door and walked slowly and normally up the stairs. That was one of the creepiest things that has happened to me and just reiterates the idea that children can see a lot.
more than we realize.
Kathryn (1:08:47)
for sure. That's wild though, that reminds me of my basement ghost. With them like peeking around. Yeah. that's wild. That's very spooky. They have some, we need you all to send us more because they've got a lot of stories.
Gina (1:08:52)
Mm-hmm. I was thinking about that too. Yeah, just being shy.
No.
Yeah, if you have a story that you would like to hear on the podcast or you just want us to know about, send it to iscreamyouscreampod@gmail.com because we love them.
Kathryn (1:09:14)
Yeah,
very spooky.
Gina (1:09:18)
Also, as a reminder, because we haven't mentioned this for a while, you leave us a five-star review and take a screenshot and email it to us, we'll give you a sticker. So that's another fun thing. Our email is good for all sorts of shit. Whatever you want.
Kathryn (1:09:23)
yeah. Yeah. You can send us whatever you want within reason
and even if it's without reason, we're flexible. So. ⁓
Gina (1:09:34)
Yeah, yeah, we're reasonable, we're rational every other Tuesday.
Kathryn (1:09:41)
Excellent.
Gina (1:09:43)
Yes, but I think that's it for today, huh my friend? Alright, well, we have one more Small Town episode, two more Small Town episodes!
Kathryn (1:09:47)
Yeah, two more. my gosh. Time's not real
Gina (1:09:55)
Two more, which I'm looking forward to, yes. So that'll be fun, make sure to join us for those. Until next time, little spoons, keep it cool.
Kathryn (1:10:04)
and keep it creepy.
