78: Norman Baker & The Crescent Hotel
Kathryn (00:10)
Are you one of the people that's mad at me because I don't use a top sheet?
Gina (00:14)
No, you don't have to use a top sheet. I don't use a top sheet.
Kathryn (00:15)
In bed, okay.
Yeah, someone's all like, that's such a millennial thing. And I'm like, okay, Phil and I have a healthy marriage because we both have our own blanket in bed. And so we don't need a top sheet. ⁓ But so I got these new sheets and they're really cute. They're these little yellow flowers. They remind me of a set that my grandma used to have. So right off the bat, we're going full grandma, like Sicilian grandma situation over here.
Gina (00:27)
smart.
Nice.
Kathryn (00:44)
But I also was like, I don't want to like just throw away this top sheet that's so wasteful. So I put it on my corner chair to protect it from Cinnamon's fur. So I'm officially at an age where I've got my furniture covered with bed sheets. But it's adorable. Anyway.
Gina (00:55)
Smart.
I
think that's completely acceptable.
And
you're not at the stage where you're putting plastic on your cushions and stuff yet.
Kathryn (01:11)
No,
don't think I'll ever get there. That's a sensory thing for me. I can't do that. That's a step too far for me personally, but to each their own, not gonna judge those who do. ⁓ Anyway, hello. Hi everyone. Welcome to Ice Cream You Scream. We are your weekly scoop of the most chilling histories, mysteries, and paranormal perplexities. My name is Catherine.
Gina (01:15)
Me neither.
You
I'm Gina.
Kathryn (01:37)
And for the month of May, we are telling stories about haunted hotels and the flavor of ice cream we are enjoying is chocolate surprise. As a friendly reminder, this episode is sponsored by Clo-Bear Money Coach. If you're ready to start investing, but unsure how exactly to get started, visit GetLazyNow.com.
In the meantime, grab a spoon and let's dig in. I will say there is no chocolate in my ice cream this week. This whiskey ice cream is so good. I just wanted to have it naked, so that's what we're doing.
Gina (02:04)
Hell yeah.
Naked, naked ice cream. I also, technically have chocolate in mine, but it's an itty bitty little crumb so that I could say I technically did it.
Kathryn (02:17)
Yes.
Let's just not do chocolate anymore.
We were supposed to be eating chocolate ice cream. What flavor are you doing again? Sorry,
Gina (02:30)
free for all. And now we're not and we're... salted caramel.
We were supposed to do chocolate ice cream and now we're not doing chocolate ice cream and we're drinking. So it's going well.
Kathryn (02:41)
yeah, I'm having my whiskey ice
cream a whiskey and ginger ale in... ⁓ Speak of my grandma, in my grandma's old wine glasses.
Gina (02:49)
yum. I wish I had whiskey ginger. I'm just having a boring beer and a boring pint glass that belong to nobody. That's a lie. I got it at a thrift shop, so it did belong to someone.
Kathryn (03:01)
They belong to someone, we just don't know them. We can just share whatever story we want to about them.
Gina (03:05)
They stank so bad. They smelled really bad, but they could tell a mean limerick.
Kathryn (03:07)
They just make shit up. They don't know.
I will say
I thought I almost turned this whiskey ice cream into a float using ginger ale, but I was like, that's so far from the theme. I couldn't bring myself to do it. Literally, chocolate surprise, I'm drinking a whiskey ice cream. Yeah, surprise, there's no chocolate whatsoever, which is the case, but at least I'm eating a dish of ice cream.
Gina (03:24)
That sounds good.
⁓ I mean, surprise.
Kathryn (03:41)
But how good would this be? Like instead of a whiskey and ginger ale, it's just whiskey ice cream, ginger ale float. That sounds so good. I might do that later. Yeah.
Gina (03:49)
We have to do that someday. That
has you and me written all over it.
Kathryn (03:53)
Mm-hmm. we'll do it next month. Who's to say? Or maybe we'll forget and not do it ever.
Gina (03:56)
Who's to say?
I hope we
don't. We'll remember this at some point. When we're editing, we'll remember. Yes. Yes, and then we'll forget again. But it'll come back around. It'll come back around.
Kathryn (04:02)
Yeah, when we're editing and then we'll forget again.
Mm-hmm.
Gina (04:09)
I have something to tell you about something I learned. I found out that there is an ice cream award in the UK called the Golden Scoop Awards and it's put on by the Ice Cream Alliance.
Kathryn (04:11)
I believe you. Tell me.
believe all of that and I'm so sad I didn't know this earlier but also thrilled that you're telling me now. That's fantastic.
Gina (04:29)
There's an ice
cream alliance. I picture it like, you know, the magic circle, like the secret magicians alliance that's not actually a secret. That's how I picture it and I love it.
Kathryn (04:41)
I'm imagining like the Midnight Society. Phil and I have been watching a lot of Are You Afraid of the Dark? And that's what they call themselves. I didn't elaborate at all. I know, the look on your face, you're like, I'm not gonna ask, but are you gonna tell me? Just something like that, like they meet, not even like around a campfire, but they're, what's the one that Mike Flanagan did?
Gina (04:51)
I was gonna say, was like, what's the midnight society?
Kathryn (05:06)
was only on for a season and then it got canceled, which was such a bummer. But it was kind of a similar thing. all they were these kids that were in this like terminal hospice place. No, they were sent to this like hospice home and then they would all sneak down to the library and tell stories. It was kind of the same format as Are You Afraid of the Dark, but totally different. Let me look it up real quick because it was very good.
Gina (05:15)
Stranger Things. That's
⁓ shit, I know it, yeah.
to remember.
Kathryn (05:33)
If you know that there's only one season, it is worth a watch, but we were like raging because we didn't know and we were like ready for more and then there was just one season. Okay, hold on, mic, playing again.
Gina (05:43)
That would make me sad.
Kathryn (05:46)
is it just called the Midnight Club?
Yeah, it's just called the Midnight Club. It was cute. It was good. wasn't it's certainly not his best, but it's it's good. Anyway.
as a major aside. That's what I was imagining when you said, what are they called? The Ice Cream Alliance?
Gina (06:03)
The ice cream alliance!
Kathryn (06:05)
Just imagine the meeting over firelight with a scoop and like... I don't know.
Gina (06:13)
One
guy's got like one of the scoopers like in his man bun. Someone else has got like a scar on their face in the shape of an ice cream cone. you like to hear what the winning flavor was at the 2026 Golden Scoop?
Kathryn (06:22)
Yeah, yes.
I, yes,
I was gonna ask, is it like a, this is the best of the year kind of thing? Okay. Is it like a big thing?
Gina (06:34)
⁓ dude, yeah, and it's thorough too. There's
like, it's whole big thing. So they have like overall winner. They have overall like open flavor class winner and then a sorbet winner. But then there's also different like subclasses. So there's like the vanilla class, the pistachio class, the chocolate class, the like, and there's so many places. So the winning flavor was salted pistachio and chili. Right?
Kathryn (06:44)
my god. ⁓
This is so fun!
Yeah.
that sounds like something
that Phil would love. Yeah. No, but congratulations.
Gina (07:02)
That's what I thought too. That's what I thought too, yeah. And then the
winning sorbet, yes, yes, yes, congratulations. Winning sorbet was lemon basil, which sounds insanely good. Yeah.
Kathryn (07:11)
Ooh, that sounds so good. That sounds like I
want to have it poolside. Yeah. Ooh, that sounds good.
Gina (07:18)
Yes, yes, with like,
that could be a good float. Lemon basil in like a gin and tonic environment, that would be nice.
Kathryn (07:23)
That would be a good flow. Mm-hmm.
Ooh, that'd be good with Jen.
Gina (07:29)
And we're back to drinking.
Kathryn (07:31)
Hahaha!
We've got a lot of flavors to get through, but eventually we will be an ice cream cocktail podcast. Just give it time to stick with us for a few years. We'll get there. We're on our way. ⁓ God. Yeah, that's gonna be rough. I hope I'm still not doing things 40 years from now. I hope I'm just in bed.
Gina (07:42)
Yes.
I've got to 40 years from now. You wanna hear the story?
Yeah.
We can record it from our bed. That we'll have jointly when we're 40 years older.
Kathryn (08:02)
I guess that's true.
I read our bed are like, what are those like rooms? Those like
bed, like literal bed rooms where you just not. Yeah. Not to be confused with a padded cell, but it's like you just open the door and the whole thing's mattress. that'd be so cool.
Gina (08:13)
I've always wanted one of those, not the ones where you're in a... Yes.
Yes, yes, that's what I want.
Kathryn (08:23)
I just like being comfy cozy, that's
Speaking of comfy cozy, would you mind telling me a story so I can settle in?
Gina (08:30)
Ooh, I'll tell you a story, but it's not gonna be comfy cozy. ⁓ It is a story about a hotel with a very, very dark past with a content warning that I simply must give. ⁓ So heads up, the story I'm about to tell involves cancer and terminal illness, and also, unfortunately, medical fraud and the exploitation of vulnerable people. There will also be a fair amount of death.
in this episode. So, needless to say, today's gonna be really light-hearted. We can just take things as they come. And I will kick it off by taking you on a mental journey to the Crescent Hotel. Because I haven't done that for a while and I wanna bring that back.
Kathryn (09:05)
Yeah.
yeah, I love when you do that. feel like you
always do it a little bit. You always paint me a picture.
Gina (09:20)
But I want to paint you a more pretentious picture. I'm gonna put you around, pick you up and plop you down right there. Nestled among the Ozark Mountains in Northwest Arkansas, the Crescent Hotel looms over the city of Eureka Springs. Standing five stories tall in the late Victorian style with
Kathryn (09:22)
You're gonna put me there. Yes.
Gina (09:46)
Gothic revival accents, and we all know exactly what that means. This palatial resort is a modern day castle, complete with an on-site pool, spa, and a series of luxurious suites. And for its more discerning visitors, it also has ghost tours every single day, where staff walk you through the hotel's history, including its time as a fake hospital.
Kathryn (09:50)
Yes.
Gina (10:15)
But before all of that, the Crescent Hotel opened its doors in 1886 as the grandest resort west of the Mississippi. I love that phrase so much. West of the Mississippi. I do really like it. It could be the...
Kathryn (10:26)
I know, I could tell that you were just waiting for that one. We're finally like actually
west in this episode. Remember last week we were west in Wisconsin? We're actually crossing the river. Yeah.
Gina (10:33)
Yes!
the farthest west we've gone. Just Arkansas, but at least we're crossing the river.
The Crescent Hotel was purpose-built to act as kind of like a showpiece destination in Eureka Springs because the powers that be had like just built a new railroad line nearby and they wanted people to use it. So like they gave them a reason to basically is what the the origin story of the building of the Crescent Hotel is.
By the point that it opened, Eureka Springs had been marketed as like a healing destination because of its proximity to over 60 natural springs. And this was back when popular belief was that soaking in spring water could cure any malady and like miracle cure type stuff. Hence Eureka in Eureka Springs. Yes. Well, I did kind of actually make that bit up, but I'm pretty sure it's true. Like what?
Kathryn (11:24)
⁓ I didn't know that.
Gina (11:33)
You
Kathryn (11:34)
Eureka, I'm healed. I think that's the way it went.
Gina (11:37)
Well, okay, here's
my reasoning, because Eureka Springs had only been open for about a decade by this point, and it was like full on marketed as a spa town, and so I assume that's why they called it Eureka Springs. I think it's a fair bet. I think it's a fair bet. Why not? This is our podcast. The truth is what we make it. Yes, and...
Kathryn (11:44)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I don't know. Why not? It's our podcast. Yeah. Exactly. That is exactly what it was.
Gina (12:01)
The Crescent Hotel was built specifically for the rich folks who passed through. It was really similar to the Pfister Hotel from the last episode. It catered to the leisure class in the Gilded Age. It had numerous amenities when it opened, including electrical lighting. I did make sure to find that one out. So it did have electricity.
Kathryn (12:21)
Thank you. I was curious. I was
not going to ask, but I was going to look it up later if you didn't say anything.
Gina (12:26)
⁓
Yes, so it did have electric lighting. And it also it offered guided tours ⁓ or excursions to the springs. So it became a very popular destination for like well-to-dos who were looking for some spring water healing. But over the next decade or so, that interest in the healing powers of the springs kind of started to peter off a little bit.
Why, you ask? Well, because it turns out spring water doesn't actually cure anything. So people were paying a bunch of money to go to a spa town and leaving without anything to show for it. And also, germ theory started to become a really big thing right after the hotel opened. And when people figured out that they didn't need to like travel a zillion miles for clean air and spring water, they just needed to wash their hands, it had a really big impact on the tourism industry. And the Crescent fell victim to this.
Kathryn (13:07)
Mmm.
Gina (13:22)
which meant that by 1907, just 21 years after it opened, the hotel was really struggling financially. And so in 1908, it shifted purpose and it became a women's college. In 1908! Hell yeah!
Kathryn (13:38)
⁓ that's
very surprising. Hmm. ⁓ OK, will I be not surprised anymore in a second?
Gina (13:42)
I know. Well, let me tell you what they taught. ⁓
You won't be surprised by one of them. So it's, was called the Crescent College and Conservatory for Young Women and its students received an education in music, fine arts, and most importantly, the culture of a Christian home.
Kathryn (14:02)
Okay, yes, yes.
Gina (14:03)
Yes, which was my favorite class in school. But that
iteration of the Crescent also did not last long. By 1924, the college had shut down. And then it did briefly reopen as a junior college in 1930. But 1930 was not a good year for anyone to start a business. So it shut down once again in 1937 as a casualty of the Depression. And that is when it was bought by a guy named Norman Baker.
Kathryn (14:34)
⁓
Gina (14:34)
So let's
talk about this guy. First of all, he was an asshole. I want to be very clear about that upfront. I know sometimes we like let each other kind of figure out whether or not someone sucks through the course of a story. I'll tell you straight up this time, this dude sucks so bad because he was a scam artist.
Kathryn (14:45)
Yeah.
Yeah, you said Norman Baker and my brain went straight to Norman Bates from Psycho. So I love that you're clarifying right off the bat that that's an okay. I was like, do I feel bad about that word association? Okay, cool. Fuck that guy.
Gina (14:56)
Yup, fair, fair.
Mm-hmm. No, we hate him.
We hate him. And I do, I hate that ⁓ he sucks as much as he does because I do love the idea of a con man. At least when it's like in a, well like in like a Robin Hood steal from the rich kind of cons or like victimless kind of cons.
Kathryn (15:14)
You do. I was gonna say, you...
You love the idea of like the romantic version of a con man, which can exist. You love like a Bonnie and Clyde type of con man, except when they like her actual people.
Gina (15:25)
Yes, I do.
Or like an Ocean's Eleven, Danny Ocean con man. Like a smooth talker, not stealing things from anyone who's gonna miss it, that kind of thing. Right.
Kathryn (15:37)
Yeah. Yeah.
We're not trying to take advantage of anyone unless
they deserve it, yeah.
Gina (15:48)
Yes, and sadly that is not the kind of con man that Norman Baker was. He was a piece of shit. And he bought the Crescent Hotel after being chased out of his home state of Iowa.
Kathryn (15:59)
Okay.
Gina (16:00)
Yes. So I'll tell you his villain origin story. It starts in Muscatine, Iowa, where he grew up as the youngest of 10 kids, dropped out of high school around the age of 16, and then he kind of lived a bit of a drifter-y lifestyle for a little while, until one day in his early 20s, he went to a vaudeville show. And he fell in love with it. And he decided that he would become a performer.
Kathryn (16:27)
I love vaudeville. I love that vibe. my god. Yeah. my god. I love vaudeville so much. I want to like, you know, this is such an aside, but I'm like, I looked up vaudeville related, like crimes and stuff when we first started this podcast, because I really want to do a vaudeville. I couldn't find anything substantial, but we can figure it out. We can figure out a way.
Gina (16:30)
Me too. I love like a variety show. I'm a sucker for a variety show. Yeah.
100%.
That would be fun.
Oh my god, I think that would be so much fun. Because a lot of the stories I feel like would be hard to find because this is not a vaudeville story, but it all starts because he gets into vaudeville. Like this is the thing that sets all of the events that are about to happen next in motion and it's because he went to this one show when he was in his early 20s. It's crazy. All right, so he decided that he was gonna become a vaudeville performer and he started touring the Midwest as a mentalist act.
Kathryn (16:54)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Gina (17:19)
So he would pretend to read people's minds, that kind of thing. one thing that's really important to note about Norman is that he was insanely charismatic. And when he combined that charisma with stagecraft, he figured out that really quickly he was very, very good at holding an audience. And it's in this era of Norman's life that...
he learns the psychology of suggestion. And he also learned that if someone is hopeful, that means that they're vulnerable and he could exploit that. This is where he picks all that up. And like the techniques with which to do it, the whole, ⁓ you know, when someone's pretending to read someone's mind, they'll like lead you to the answer. He learns all of those psychological tricks. So he's building his arsenal and his confidence in himself very fast.
Kathryn (17:51)
Ugh, ugh, I hate that.
Mm-hmm.
Gina (18:09)
So this vaudeville mentalist career goes on for about a decade. And in 1914, he invented this thing called a tangly caliophone. I promise it's relevant. It's basically, it's like a little portable version of a steam organ, which I know does not answer any questions because I also didn't know what a steam organ was. But it's basically like...
Kathryn (18:22)
Okay.
Gina (18:36)
like picture like a fairground or a carnival organ. That's what a caleophone is. And he basically made a little safer portable version of it. And he made it so that he could strap it to the top of a car to promote his own vaudeville show. But he realized really quickly that other performers or carnivals or fairgrounds might also find it useful. And he was 100 % right. So when his version hit the market,
It was a really big success. And by the early 1920s, when he was in like his late 30s, early 40s, he became a millionaire off of this. This is where he made most of his money.
Kathryn (19:14)
Wow.
Gina (19:15)
Teeny little organs, not teeny, they're still big, but lightweight organs, I guess.
Kathryn (19:18)
relatively
relatively dinky little organs
Gina (19:22)
Right. Dinky little organs. One of the things I don't like about this story is that his story could have stopped right there. Like he could have been self-made stage performer, mentalist who invented a new type of organ, became a millionaire. That could have been the end of the story and it still would have been a great story. But instead, what this did is it kickstarted
Kathryn (19:28)
Mm-hmm.
Gina (19:44)
his transformation, all this new money turned him from someone who did whatever he wanted anyway into someone who was rich and did whatever they wanted. And those two things do not go hand in hand pleasantly most of the time. So once he got a taste of money, he of course wanted more. And he became one of those guys who would just sell anything and everything. He opened an art school.
He had a supply company, which was like kind of a general store. He also had a gas station. He had a cafe. And eventually in the mid-20s, he launched a radio station. It was called KTNT, which stood for Know the Naked Truth.
Kathryn (20:30)
boy.
Gina (20:31)
Yep, I'll let that one land.
And it was based out of his hometown in Iowa. It had music, it had advertisements, whatever. Norman was the primary voice on air. And he used this radio station to advertise and sell his own products, but also to promote his own political and social agendas.
Kathryn (20:55)
Of course.
Gina (20:57)
which included denouncing all sorts of medical treatments. He was an anti-vaxxer. He denounced fluoride in drinking water, and he railed against aluminum because he claimed that aluminum caused 50 % of all cancers. He had no evidence for any of this, but he was so charismatic that he could still sell his ideas and people would listen and believe him. And this is kind of when Norman's identity as a public figure started to take shape.
Kathryn (21:19)
Mm-hmm.
Gina (21:27)
⁓ One thing that's really weird about him is that in an effort to differentiate himself and build kind of his own personal brand, he started dressing in only purple.
Kathryn (21:38)
that you could have said a lot of different colors. I like, immediately, my head went to white, which is weird. feel like ordinarily it would go to black just cause that's a more common, like someone who dresses all in one color. It's usually black. Yeah. Would not have guessed purple. That was a hard color around then. Sorry, I'll let you, is, yeah.
Gina (21:42)
Hahaha
Mmm.
Easy to match with stuff, yeah. His was purple. And it was specifically,
specifically lavender too. And lavender's not easy to match with many things, yeah.
Kathryn (22:07)
my god.
Yeah, and that was not a cheap color to make. was not
Gina (22:13)
And he had
everything, his suits, his ties, his shirt, his car, everything he had was purple. So much so that he became known as the man in purple. And then also in terms of like his public image or like what people knew about his personality, he was known to be a very grandiose mindset kind of person. had big ideas about himself and his own abilities, but he was also known to be very thin skinned and super paranoid.
Kathryn (22:17)
Huh.
Interesting.
Hmm.
Gina (22:42)
So like very stereotypical agonizingly annoying rich guy is who he is.
Kathryn (22:43)
Yeah. Sorry.
Yeah,
this is literally just how they all are. yeah.
Gina (22:52)
Yeah, yeah.
So this is why I gave you a warning about how much rage was gonna be in this episode.
Kathryn (22:59)
I wasn't... I was anticipating rage, so thank you. I didn't think it was going to be this type of rage. It's very upsetting.
Gina (23:05)
It's a little bit on the nose. Yeah.
So Norman sucked, which of course meant that he was also very litigious. He loved suing people and he loved having beef with people, especially big corporations. Fun fact about Norman, he had mega beef with AT &T.
Kathryn (23:26)
Okay, I mean me
too. Can you guys stop knocking on my door? You're upsetting my dog
Gina (23:34)
You and Norman Baker, anti-AT &T. But he hated them because they were really deep into the radio game back then and he was convinced that they were part of some like big conspiracy against him. That's one of his whole things is like it's all a conspiracy against Norman. And he would spout all of this on air on the radio. Like he used the radio as a his literal microphone to air grievances against big whatever, big radio, big blah blah blah.
Kathryn (23:43)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Gina (24:03)
And people ate it up.
predictably, Norman was not content to simply have tons of money and a million businesses and a radio station. No, he eventually got an idea for a whole new money-making venture, which was to offer a cure for cancer.
Kathryn (24:20)
Ugh. Yikes.
Gina (24:21)
Yeah,
this is where it starts to a little bit really very much dark. He opened his own quote, Baker Hospital in Iowa. So we're not at the Crescent Hotel yet. And he started advertising it by saying he could cure cancer without surgery or painful procedures. And he used his radio station to get this message out there. at the time,
The idea of a painless, non-invasive or surgical treatment for cancer was very appealing. It still is today. But back then, the primary cancer treatments available were very, very invasive and painful. And a lot of the time, it included radium treatment, which would leave the patient with pretty severe burns from the lasers. Rays? Radiation. That's the word I was looking for. Not lasers. Sorry.
Kathryn (25:02)
you
You
Gina (25:15)
Wrong time to slip up.
Kathryn (25:15)
Sorry, I sorry, I just,
I saw your face go like, nope, that's not it, nope, that's not it either. Sorry.
Gina (25:21)
That's not it, nope. No, it's okay.
Yes, they would get very bad burns. And so when people heard that there was a cure available that didn't involve agonizing pain, of course they wanted to believe that it was real. And so people flocked to Norman. What they didn't know is that his cure was complete bullshit. It consisted of injections where the ingredients were
as follows. Watermelon seed extract, brown corn silk, carboic acid, and in certain batches, traces of clover blossoms.
Kathryn (26:01)
What the F?
Gina (26:02)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, which made it medically useless against cancer, to put it lightly, but we have to say it.
Kathryn (26:10)
This is like, he's like an essential oils girly.
Gina (26:14)
Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the cure, quote unquote, did kind of fool people, especially because of the carbolic acid component to it. Because carbolic acid, when you inject it directly into a tumor, it causes some of that tissue to die. And so a cancerous tumor could seem like it was getting smaller after one of Norman's injections, when in reality,
It was just like a cosmetic thing and the cancer was still very much progressing. And for the privilege of this treatment, Norman's fees started at $1,500 back then, which today is around $28,000 or 21,000 pounds.
Kathryn (26:55)
Whoa.
Gina (26:56)
for shots that don't fucking work. Now, of course, this really pissed off actual doctors not only was Norman giving out bullshit cures to vulnerable people, but he was also impersonating a medical professional. He was claiming to practice medicine while he had no training or certification to do so. And he was causing people to go broke paying for a cure that did not exist. So the American Medical Association got involved and they did everything that they could
to expose Norman as a quack. And Norman responded by using the radio as a mouthpiece to call the AMA the Amateur Meat Cutters Association and ranting and raving about them on air. He also opened multiple libel and defamation cases against them. He lost every single one because the things that the AMA were saying about Norman were true.
Kathryn (27:38)
Whoa.
Gina (27:51)
He was practicing medicine without a license and he had no clue what he was doing when it came to medical care. But that didn't stop Norman from being like, these idiots don't know what they're talking about. Like, we all know exactly the kind of guy Norman was. And the things that are still working now also worked back then. And that's what Norman was doing.
Kathryn (28:04)
This is so triggering. Yeah.
Gross. Just simply gross.
Gina (28:12)
I know, I didn't expect this many
like parallels and it's scary and not great.
Kathryn (28:19)
Yeah.
Like, I would to difference in the way people go crazy after a full century has passed.
Gina (28:25)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, not at all.
Kathryn (28:35)
⁓
That's upsetting.
Gina (28:38)
It is. And the people still flocked to Norman even after the AMA went public with this whole, like, he doesn't know what he's doing thing. And Norman started conducting these huge open air events in Muscatine, the town where he's from. And thousands and thousands of people would gather for, like, mass curing events. Like, I picture, like, a very evangelical church style healing where it's, everyone in the crowd.
Kathryn (29:04)
Yeah.
Gina (29:06)
And that naturally fed even more attention to this bullshit hospital of his, which by this point was making as much as 100K a month back then, which is now $1.9 million a month or 1.4 million pounds. And this is within like two years of him opening the doors.
Kathryn (29:25)
Yikes.
Gina (29:26)
I know. Of course, Norman was breaking many, many laws in doing this. And in 1931, the Iowa Supreme Court basically ordered him to stop. And in that same year, he also lost his radio station's broadcasting license because he was committing medical fraud on air. So yeah, grounds for dismissal, I would say. Norman did wind up doing time for this. And do you want to guess how much time he served?
Kathryn (29:48)
Mm-hmm.
I really don't, Gina, I really don't.
don't what you say, but I don't want to know.
gonna guess like a day and a half.
Gina (30:00)
Yeah, nope. ⁓
well, even that was too generous. He served one day.
Kathryn (30:07)
I'm gonna fucking throw myself out the window, sorry.
Gina (30:09)
He served one day and he had to pay a $50 fine, which today is like a thousand bucks less than a thousand pounds.
Cheers.
Kathryn (30:18)
Cheers. I'm so sad. I'm so sad right now.
Gina (30:21)
⁓ I know, it sucks. It sucks
so bad, I'm so sorry. And we're, yeah, we're only about halfway through, sorry.
Kathryn (30:28)
Doing
Gina (31:32)
By 1937, Norman was looking for a new business venture far, far away from the oppressive laws of Iowa. And that is when he found out about the Crescent Hotel, which by this point had been sitting empty for about three years. And he thought, OK, Eureka Springs already kind of has a history as a medical sort of healing town. And it's super out of the way, so the likelihood of drop-by inspections is really low.
And there's a giant castle sitting right there for sale for a bargain. So he bought the castle and he opened another bullshit hospital. He bought the Crescent Hotel for around $50,000. And the exact figures like vary a little bit depending on who you ask. But no matter what, it was an absolute steal of a purchase. For context today, that would be $1.1 million or 800,000 pounds.
Kathryn (32:21)
Mm-hmm.
Gina (32:26)
for a resort in a vacation town. And this is not a small place. This place is massive. It literally looks like a castle. So he snapped it up and he rebranded it as the Baker Hospital and Health Resort. And then he redecorated the absolute shit out of it. All of its gilded age beauty was scraped out and he replaced it with things more suited to his personal style, which meant
Kathryn (32:34)
Mm-hmm.
Gina (32:55)
purple everywhere, also yellows and reds and just colors that did not go together at all and were very garish and he of course also claimed one of the finest suites as his own personal office and living space, complete with his signature lavender decor, lots and lots of gold, and a six-sided desk for his six businesses.
Kathryn (33:20)
fuck, six-edit, what? Like a, what? Like a hexagon?
Gina (33:21)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
I know, I had trouble picturing it too. So if you picture like, you know, normal desk, just straight line, it like, it's not a full hexagon where you have to move around the outside. It's like you're in the inside moving around the sides. Does that make sense? It's hard to explain. I'll add a picture of it to the video, because we still, they still have the desk at the hotel. Like you can still see it. Yes, I know. Yeah. Just like, fuck off. You need one desk.
Kathryn (33:29)
Mm-hmm.
I guess.
Interesting. ⁓ okay. Ew.
Gina (33:51)
It's so performative.
Kathryn (33:51)
That's why I'm confused
like what you got so much going on you can't just get like file folders the fuck
Gina (33:57)
But
that was like his whole thing. Like he's just a busy business guy who can't be bothered to, you know. Yeah, agreed. Agreed.
Kathryn (34:02)
Wah wah wah. Yeah.
Gina (34:07)
And once his hospital, quote unquote, was ready, he started advertising like crazy. He put out radio ads, he published his own magazine, and he also sent brochures directly to people's houses saying that he could cure cancer, but also that he could cure pretty much anything. And just like they did in Muscatine, people started to pour in.
were way too many patients for this to be a one-man operation. So he did hire actual licensed doctors to help out. And when the doctors figured out what was going on, like the whole cancer cure thing was bullshit, they did quit. So like staff turnover was really high, but not as high as you would expect because this was also happening during the Great Depression when people didn't really have many choices about where they worked or how they worked. And so for a lot of them,
Kathryn (34:50)
Mm-mm.
Yeah.
Gina (34:59)
They were in a situation where they had to choose between their integrity and their and their family's survival. And the latter won out a lot of the time. Like, it's very sad. Fuck Norman Baker. This guy absolutely sucks. And once the patients were in, they got trapped. It was like a cult, very, very cult ⁓ archetype here. So he would gather the patients in the hotel lobby every day.
Kathryn (35:12)
Yeah.
Gina (35:26)
and he would lecture them about how he was the only one that could help them. All of the doctors outside of here are liars and fakes and are, you you've been had by all of medicine, basically. So there was a lot of psychological manipulation and abuse going on, but he also trapped his patients financially because the hospital would promise people that if their cancer wasn't cured within three to six weeks, the rest of their treatment would be free.
except of course for room and board, which you would still have to pay for. And just like his last scam, that was outrageously overpriced and expensive. And so individuals and families would go broke paying for this place because they believed their loved ones stood a chance there. It was like the only place they thought that they could get treatment that would actually help them. Meanwhile, patients were wasting away without any real treatment. And the treatment they did receive
Kathryn (35:59)
boy.
Gina (36:24)
was horrifying. There were those same useless injections that we talked about earlier, but there were also reports of patients being beaten and physically abused. And as patients drew closer and closer to death, they would be brought to a section of the hotel slash hospital known as the pain ward. And it was called that because people who were in pain were brought there and left there to die where no one could hear them.
Kathryn (36:53)
my goodness. What the F?
Gina (36:55)
Mm-hmm.
Dude, Norman Baker's the devil. Horrifying. Unconscionably, ⁓ my god, so bad. So of course, death was rampant at this hospital. And when a patient died, Norman would bring them to the hotel's morgue, the hospital's morgue, sorry, that was in the basement. And once he got them down there, he would cut them open.
Kathryn (36:58)
Ew. That's awful.
Gina (37:21)
remove the cancerous tissue, and sometimes he would remove other things too, and he would keep this preserved in jars. And we know this because in 2019, a landscaper at the hotel was doing routine maintenance and they accidentally dug up some of these jars and we found human tissue in them.
Kathryn (37:42)
Whoa.
Gina (37:43)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (37:44)
Yikes. 2019?
Gina (37:45)
I know.
2019, and I will say we don't think it was Norman that buried them. We think that it was an exercise they went through in the 60s after the hotel had a different owner. And it was like a, we'll just out of sight, out of mind, we'll just bury them. So it wasn't like Norman was trying to hide the evidence. On the contrary, he was very flagrant and open about the horrible things he was doing. But yes, we did find human tissue in jars. And even more horrifyingly,
we still don't really know what Norman did with the bodies. There are rumors of bodies being sent down to the morgue in laundry shoots. There are also rumors of mass graves on the grounds or the body count being so high that they hid them in the walls. I'd like to think that the bodies were returned to their families, but I don't know. Like, I'm sure they were in some cases, but when there wasn't a family to return the body to, no idea what he did with them.
Kathryn (38:43)
I also, mean, I don't know how funeral planning worked back then, but like that shit's not cheap either. Like, I wonder.
Gina (38:52)
Yeah, and if they're already
spending all of their money just for treatment.
Kathryn (38:57)
I wonder how many like wanted those bodies backed but like couldn't afford to do anything with them. I don't know. I don't know what the laws were for like family grave sites at that point. don't know if they could just, I don't know.
Gina (39:04)
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't either. even, you
know, regardless of what the laws were, when you're in that state of mind, navigating legal complexity like that could be very unattainable. And doing it when the person on the other end is Norman, like that just, the whole thing was a hellish nightmare situation. And when I was researching this, the part that chilled me the most is a letter that I read.
Kathryn (39:20)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Gina (39:37)
that a patient at the hospital sent home to his family. Because it gives a really, it gives a picture of what life was like there. He was a man named Luther Baggett who wrote, and this is just a snippet of the letter, but you can find the full thing online. It's on the hotel's website. Quote, Saturday morning, 10th. Have been pretty busy up to now. Castor oil at six, tonic at seven, shaved, went to breakfast.
Kathryn (39:41)
boy.
Gina (40:06)
took needle treatment back to room on bed with hot pack, have just got back from a little walk and some air, yes, and had carrot juice at nine. They say that all the medicines and food used here are made from vegetables, herbs, roots, and bark. Can't tell yet what they're going to do with my main trouble, they sure seem to work over your blood and system.
Some people come here and they find several ailments that they didn't know that they had. That makes it more expensive. One man came just ahead of me with several ailments and they charged him $500 flat rate for five weeks treatment without room. Some are saving money rooming out, but they wanted me here in the hospital. It seems that most of them has to stay as much as five weeks and some longer.
Since the mail seems so slow, you had better let me know soon how you think we're going to get along financially.
Kathryn (41:02)
Jesus.
Gina (41:03)
Yeah. So if you think stick out to me in this snippet of his letter, the first thing is that quote, all the medicines and food are made from vegetables, herbs, roots and bark.
seems like not enough nutrients for the human body to be given by a quote doctor. Also the bit that like actually made my heart drop into my butt was finding ailments they never knew they had.
Kathryn (41:17)
Yeah. Yeah.
That was the one that fucked me up.
Gina (41:29)
Yeah.
Kathryn (41:31)
Because that, I'm sure, was presented as, aren't you lucky that you're at such a world-class hospital that we found these things and no one else did, when they didn't actually have any of those things.
Gina (41:37)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (41:44)
Gross.
Gina (41:45)
Yep.
And it was just for purely for profit. And there's also like the, you can sense the financial desperation as well. Like, I don't know how we're going to afford this, but we need to be able to afford it. And one thing that, ⁓ exactly, yes, yes. One thing that I didn't include in this snippet that I just read, but he mentions it a few times, like throughout the contents of the letter itself, is because Eureka Springs and the Crescent Hotel were so far out of the way,
Kathryn (41:53)
for sure.
Let me know ASAP. Yeah.
Gina (42:14)
the mail was very, very slow getting to the hotel. So a lot of these patients would go for a really long time without being able to talk to their families, which I can imagine just got them deeper entrenched in this kind of cult function of the hospital. They have literally nowhere else to go and no one else to talk to. And so it becomes just a prison. It sounds horrifying.
Kathryn (42:31)
Mm-hmm.
Well, when you're sick and in pain, don't understand, you're not thinking as logically as you would be if you weren't suffering. So that also, I'm sure, added to it where it's like, you're not just alone, but you're unbearably vulnerable. You have no choice but to just trust the people who are supposed to know what they're doing.
Gina (42:48)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Absolutely, absolutely.
we are at the part where he's about to die, so it will get better, I promise. Okay.
Kathryn (43:11)
Okay. Great.
Gina (43:14)
Okay, all in all, Norman wound up having the hospital in Eureka Springs for about three years. We do not know how many people died there because of him. We know the number is at least 42, but right before he was eventually arrested, he had his assistants burn all of the hospital's records. So we'll never know the full scope. Yeah, we'll never know the full scope of what he did.
Kathryn (43:35)
my god. Ew.
What's fucked up?
Gina (43:41)
interestingly, when he was arrested, it was for male fraud.
Kathryn (43:46)
They're never arrested for what they should be arrested for, ever, in the history of all time and all countries.
Gina (43:49)
No, mm-mm.
So apparently the US Post Office inspection service had been building a case against Norman for years by this point and they wound up getting him because of those brochures he would send to people's houses, the ones where he claimed he could cure cancer, because it is illegal to use the mail to commit fraud and that's what he was doing. So in 1940,
Kathryn (43:53)
money.
Mmm.
Gina (44:17)
Norman was indicted on seven counts of mail fraud and he was ultimately convicted and sentenced to just four years of federal prison and a fine of $4,000, which is like just under 100k today and like 70k in pounds.
He wound up dying in 1958 on a fucking yacht in Miami and he died of cirrhosis of the liver.
Kathryn (44:45)
Gag.
Gina (44:46)
I know, I know, I'm so sorry.
Kathryn (44:50)
Awful.
Gina (44:51)
But we can go back to talking about the Crescent Hotel. Now we don't have to talk about Norman anymore. As for the Crescent, with the hospital shut down, it once again became vacant. It reopened as a hotel in 1946, but about 30 years later, there was a really bad fire that was caused by faulty wiring. Seems like every haunted hotel we talk about has a fire at some point. And there was one at the Crescent. ⁓ This one caused extensive damage to the fourth floor. And so the hotel
kind of like it still existed in the 70s and 80s, but it was kind of limping through those decades until 1997 when a couple named Marty and Elise, I think it's Roenick, I'm not sure how to pronounce it, I do apologize, but they bought the hotel and they invested heavily in restoring it to its original glory, which included refurbishing the hotel with Victorian era color schemes, so no more disgusting
Kathryn (45:28)
Mm-hmm.
Gina (45:51)
lavender and yellows and reds. They returned it to its former glory, including historically themed furniture.
And the hotel now really embraces the paranormal rumors about it because as you can imagine, this place is haunted as hell and they actively market it as a haunted destination. So I am finally going to tell you about the ghosts of the Crescent Hotel.
⁓ Many of which of course come from the Norman Baker era of the hotel, which is why it was important to know the whole fake hospital story. And perhaps the best known spirit here is a woman named Theodora. She tends to hang out in room 419. And it's said that she was a cancer patient back in the hospital days of the hotel. ⁓ She's a very gentle ghost, but she's also very strict, like...
kind of motherly. doesn't like it when guests are too messy or too loud, but she dislikes it in like a reprimanding you and cleaning up after you way, not in a like, make the walls bleed kind of way. You know what I mean? ⁓ When people do see her, she's often described as like, she's looking for her keys. Like she's trying to get into the room, but like can't remember where she left her keys.
Kathryn (47:02)
I do know what you mean.
Gina (47:15)
And there's a story about one encounter with her that I love where a couple were staying in room 419, which is her room, and they were arguing with each other a lot. And after a while, the couple both decided to like, OK, we need to take a break from this fight. Let's both step out of the room, both separately get some air, and then we'll come back later. And when they calmed down and came back to the room, they found both of their suitcases fully packed and sitting by the door.
Kathryn (47:46)
my God, really?
Gina (47:47)
Yeah, and the thought is that Theodora was like, take your crappy energy elsewhere. Like, I'm not hearing this all weekend. Get out. Yeah. But like so politely, like, I'll pack your things for you, but you do have to go. I love it. People also report seeing a nurse pushing a gurney down third floor hallways before disappearing around a corner. So this again, we think is from like the hospital era.
Kathryn (47:51)
Yeah. You gotta go. Yeah.
Yeah. That's fantastic.
Gina (48:15)
And of course, lots of people report seeing Norman himself hanging out by the hotel's main staircase. And he's most often identified because he's wearing purple clothes, like Norman always was. But not all of the ghosts at the Crescent Hotel come from its days as a fake hospital. Another very famous presence is named Michael. And it's said that he was one of the original stonemasons that helped build the Crescent.
The story goes that he was working on the fourth floor when he slipped and fell and he eventually landed in what is now room I think it was like the hotel wasn't fully built yet And so like it was you could fall from floor to floor into like other rooms and stuff. I Know yeah, and guests who do stay in that room often report their bedsheets being pulled off of them Which is a big that made me think of the
Kathryn (48:55)
Mm-hmm.
No, thank you.
Gina (49:10)
Cause that was the bell witch, wasn't it? With like the sheep pulling.
Kathryn (49:13)
yeah, that did happen.
Gina (49:15)
That freaked me out so bad.
Kathryn (49:17)
Yeah, I forgot about that.
Gina (49:18)
And they also report, if getting your sheets pulled off your bed was not bad enough, they also hear a pounding coming from inside the walls and also seeing, you're gonna hate this one, I'm sorry, seeing a, you do not wanna hear it, I could just, I could tell the people listening, I don't have to tell you. A hand come out of the bathroom mirror. I know, I know, I'm sorry, yeah, you're not a, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.
Kathryn (49:30)
Mm-mm. I don't wanna.
No, you can tell me. I should know.
I knew you were gonna say the mirror. Fuck. Gross. A hand? Eugh.
Gina (49:49)
Yep. But the ghost party does not stop there, Catherine. There are at least five other ghosts seen on the property, including a young woman who allegedly fell from a balcony when the hotel was a college. She now is a big fan of appearing outside the hotel on misty days. She's like the girl in the mist or the woman in the mist is how she's referred to. There's also a young boy whose name is Breckenridge, AKA Brecky and
Kathryn (50:08)
Okay.
Sure, why not?
Gina (50:18)
There's like competing rumors about this kid. ⁓ It seems to be the most common rumor is that he was the like Dean of the college's son. And he very much likes, you know, like bouncing balls around the hallways and lobby and stuff. So like if you see or hear someone playing, but no one is there, it's like probably Brecky. And there's also a cat ghost.
Kathryn (50:33)
⁓
Thank
Cinnamon, did you hear that? Morris, aw.
Gina (50:42)
His name is Morris. Morris
the cat ghost. He lived on the grounds for years before passing away in 1994. And guests and staff both report feeling like the brush of a cat against their legs in the lobby. So it's like he's greeting people as they come into his home.
Kathryn (51:02)
Wait, that's so sweet! ⁓ I love that. Aww.
Gina (51:05)
I know, I love it. Yeah, me too.
And that's kind of it. That's the Crescent Hotel.
Kathryn (51:12)
Well damn, knew was a hospital of some sort. I didn't know it was like such a corrupt...
⁓ fraudulent thing. I thought they were just hospital that didn't do very well. I didn't think it was like straight fraud. That's upsetting.
Gina (51:25)
Mm.
It is deeply upsetting. And I do want to learn more about the actual doctors who worked there. people weren't just going there for cancer. They were also going there for appendicitis or hemorrhoids or any other random thing. And I do wonder about ⁓ the treatments that they were receiving. Because as far as Norman was concerned, it was the same like.
Kathryn (51:38)
Me too.
Mm-hmm.
Gina (51:55)
bullshit injection for everyone no matter what they had, I do wonder if like doctors were giving under the table actual treatment to people?
Kathryn (52:03)
Yeah, I don't know because it would depend on how much he was actually involved with the day to day, because they would need to like order that type of stuff. You know what I mean? Like they would have to like actually get shipments of real medicine onto the premises in order to do that.
Gina (52:05)
don't know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
very good point. didn't actually think about that.
Kathryn (52:22)
I don't know, because now it's like
maybe they did have some of that stuff just as like a ruse.
Gina (52:28)
I know they did have medical equipment because one of the things that they found in 2019 when they dug up all those jars, and there were hundreds of these jars, by the way. I didn't mention that. There were so many of them. ⁓ They also found like bone saws and things like that.
Kathryn (52:29)
You know?
Yikes.
my God.
Gina (52:46)
Yeah, doesn't make it better, but mm-hmm. Yeah, it does make it worse, doesn't it? But I...
Kathryn (52:46)
bone saws? that makes it so much worse maybe not worse but like i thought you were gonna
say like something actually useful in like a day-to-day capacity a bone saw? why did they have
I'm upset right now. A bone saw, she says to me.
Gina (53:06)
If
someone needed an amputation, know.
Kathryn (53:12)
We don't have vaccines, but
we have a bone saw? Oh my God. What the hell? I just like, part of what is messing me up right now is I don't know what medical care looked like in 1920 and 1930, whatever the hell. Like, I don't know how they knew people had tumors. Like, I don't know any of that. Like, I don't understand how any of that worked without imaging and all that kind of crap.
So like.
I'm so bothered by this just in general, even if they were doing real medical work, I'm still horrified by it. I'm sure it was still not a great experience. So to add on the fraudulent, we're just gonna give you like fucking clover leaves or whatever the hell it was, blossoms or whatever. It's just extra. I'm too unfamiliar with that to like be comfortable in any capacity with any of this.
Gina (53:48)
Yeah.
Yeah, no, it's deeply unsettling. And it's weird because, well, the whole, like, he didn't get got for this for so long. Like, he got, and even when he did finally get, quote, brought to justice, no, he wasn't. And the whole, like, reason why, like, there's still kind of Norman Baker apologists to this day who say, like, well, the reason why he wasn't, mm-hmm, one of the reasons they give is...
Kathryn (54:26)
He still didn't. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, I bet there are.
Gina (54:38)
Because Eureka Springs was kind of on like an economic downturn when Norman Baker came in because of the whole germ theory thing and it was the 30s and no one was traveling and blah, blah. He revitalized the area is like one of their big things.
Kathryn (54:45)
Don't tell me he brought commerce.
Gina (54:51)
So it's unsettling on so many different levels that I wish we couldn't still relate to, but we can.
Kathryn (54:54)
Yeah, that's gross. I know,
I'm trying so hard not to say so many
Gina (55:00)
I know, I'm sorry. I didn't realize that's what this was gonna be. All I knew was that con man plus hotel and I was like, yes, that's a Gina story. And then I started researching it and just, right? I was misled. I was bamboozled. I was conned. I was lied to. Yeah, so I'm sorry.
Kathryn (55:09)
That sounds like a vibe, yeah.
Yeah. You were lied to! Yes.
yeah, well, I mean, that was... I wish I could say love to that story.
Gina (55:24)
Yeah, no.
Kathryn (55:27)
⁓ that's horrendous. I've always been fascinated with the Crescent Hotel. I know that it is pretty unanimously discussed as like an incredibly deeply haunted hotel, but I didn't know the background of it. And I've always wanted to stay there and now I kind of don't. This is one where I'm like, I don't know if I ever want to go there. Would you go, would you stay there? Would you want to?
Gina (55:48)
I
would go there with you because I feel safe with you. couldn't go, I wouldn't want to go ⁓ with someone who wasn't in tune with their intuition and the paranormal side of the world. You know what I mean? I wouldn't want to have to go through any of that alone.
Kathryn (55:52)
Okay.
Yeah. ⁓ never. Yeah.
You know what's so funny is my reaction's kind of the opposite. I feel like the only way I'd be comfortable is if I went by myself and like had space to just like...
Gina (56:15)
⁓ gosh, wow, no.
Kathryn (56:20)
mostly leave if I wanted to, but I don't know. feel like I would get too overwhelmed if I was with people in an environment like that.
Gina (56:22)
so brave.
See, I'm coming at it from a...
Kathryn (56:31)
So therefore
I just don't want to go at all because I wouldn't want to go alone. You know what I mean? That's kind of where I'm
Gina (56:35)
Yeah, yep, yeah, well,
how about we just don't go? We don't have to go to this one.
Kathryn (56:41)
Nobody's making us go. just, I'm surprised that I, this isn't, there are very few places we've talked about that I've been like, ooh, I have no interest in going there. I think the only other one was the Cecil, which mostly had to do with the mold. Like that place definitely has a bad mold problem.
Gina (56:43)
We don't need to.
Mmmmm
Yeah, I don't think the Crescent does. I will not say the Crescent has a mold problem. It's considered a luxury hotel. It's very nice.
Kathryn (57:09)
Yeah.
I also don't think I realized that was so many other things. I thought it had been a hotel for just, you know, it was just the hospital and then. ⁓ wait, did I hear that correctly or am I thinking of the old his original location?
Gina (57:25)
It was a college. was a hotel and then a college and then a hospital. Yeah. And then a hotel again. ⁓
Kathryn (57:28)
That's what it was, yes. And then hotel again. Yeah, I didn't realize it was that other
stuff. I thought it was just, it was built to be a hospital that closed and then was a hotel. I didn't know there were other things too. So that's a lot of different energy.
Gina (57:41)
Yeah, well I get...
That's a creepy thing to... Like hospitals I find very unsettling and so any kind of haunted hospital I'm not really... I'm not there. I wouldn't want to be alone.
Kathryn (57:51)
Yeah, I know
that that's definitely one I definitely don't... people being like... I know people are very afraid of hospitals just even present day up and running. They can sometimes have very negative connotations. Especially in that era of pre... wherever we are now, where we like... there's still a lot to discover and figure out, but like we can...
Gina (58:13)
Yeah.
Kathryn (58:16)
see things and do things that we never could before it was just like man you got a hack job and then like went on your way.
Gina (58:24)
Mm-hmm. Actually, I just remembered something that I do want to say about the whole, they receiving actual treatment thing. I completely forgot about this. So I watched an interview with the, believe he was a pathologist who did the analysis of the stuff they found in the bottles where they found it was human tissue. It's like the guy who actually ran those tests on that tissue stuff in 2019 or immediately after. And he said that based on what they found in the bottles,
Kathryn (58:25)
Yeah, that's rough.
Gina (58:53)
did, he gave a longer explanation that I'm going to be able to, but essentially there's evidence that they were receiving real actual treatment that we would still use to this day because what they found, there wasn't medicine in the tissue, but it was the way the tissue was. was, well, the tissue was from a bedsore and it had traces of like, it wasn't medicine, but it was like antiseptic, which I guess is medicine, like kind of a
Kathryn (59:03)
is medicine like in the tissue.
Mm.
Gina (59:22)
cleaner
Kathryn (59:22)
Yeah.
Gina (59:23)
stuff in it that suggested that it was like a very routine, this is something a doctor would do and this is like how even today we would handle and treat this kind of wound. So I just want to say that because I totally forgot about it and it's an important point.
Kathryn (59:37)
Yeah. I do want to give a quick rebuttal and say, why the fuck were they leaving these patients to get bedsores? Like, yeah. Yeah.
Gina (59:46)
well, that's another thing. Yeah, no, it's not good. No, but like
today, for example, we have ⁓ like all of this was before and I'm not defending it, but this is just like what he said is like back then they literally did not have like a lot of the technology that we do now to remind us when patients need to be turned. And they also didn't have a lot of the understanding of like how to do it and like ways to prevent these things from happening. So it was like his whole thing was like they were giving them
Kathryn (59:57)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Gina (1:00:15)
the best treatment for this specific thing that was available at the time. So there's a lot of caveats within that, but they were still receiving some form of actual treatment. It's just that the treatment was like...
Kathryn (1:00:20)
Okay. Yeah.
Gina (1:00:26)
I'll put some like alcohol on your wound so it doesn't get infected, you know, it's not, no actual cures were being given.
Kathryn (1:00:30)
Right. Yeah.
That's the thing, yeah, treating something versus curing something and actually taking care of someone, because that's also one of those things that could have been as simple as it's gonna cost us more money if we don't put this quick band-aid on this little problem while we're pretending to, you know what I mean? So maybe they were...
Gina (1:00:39)
Yeah.
huh.
Yeah.
Kathryn (1:01:00)
Maybe they were actually treating things and maybe they were just like...
Well, the whole operation was shitty. I don't, that's, I was gonna say maybe they were just shitty, but it definitely was bad. regardless, still a question mark on whether or not these patients were actually getting any type of care. And even if it was, it's like gross. Yeah, sorry, this was a dark one. Don't you hate the dark ones when you don't know how dark they're gonna be?
Gina (1:01:07)
Bad.
So apologies for... Agreed. Yeah, sorry!
And when you get too far into the research process to back out and you're like, committed to it now, yeah. I'm sorry for putting that in your brain. Do you have something to put in my brain? Okay.
Kathryn (1:01:29)
Yeah, you can't change it. Yeah.
I do. I have a really
gentle
Gina (1:01:40)
Perfect. That sounds like exactly what we need.
Kathryn (1:01:42)
light thing that
we're going to do real quick. It's a quick one. I figured we'd do it. So I was going to do what you did last time. And I really love the idea of getting, you know, Reddit stories with ghosts and hotel ghosts and stuff and Kimmy can on theme. But I decided not to because you did warn me that this was a dark one. And I already knew this was a little bit of a dark one. So was like, all right, if she's warning me, then I need to come prepared for something else. So we're going to do another telepathy test. And what we're going to do
Gina (1:02:08)
gosh, okay. We're so historically good
at this.
Kathryn (1:02:12)
Yes,
I want to redeem myself from that horrendous display I presented when we played medium. So I'm going to give you some options. we, I have this tarot deck that you so selflessly gifted me and I'm going to draw a tarot card and you're going to guess which one I draw. I'm going to give you the option of just
Gina (1:02:15)
Hehehehe. Hehehehe.
Nice.
Kathryn (1:02:39)
Major Arcana if you want to, or we can do the full deck, it's up to you. You just have to give me an amount of time to separate out the Major Arcana, because I did not do that.
Gina (1:02:49)
Well, how about
if you pull a card, just tell me if it's major or minor arcana. Okay, sweet, I'm more comfortable with that. Okay.
Kathryn (1:02:53)
Okay, okay, yeah, let's do it that way, okay.
Okay, I'm going to shuffle. Don't be scared.
Gina (1:03:03)
I definitely am.
Kathryn (1:03:07)
Me too. This is a friendship test.
Do you wanna tell me when to stop or do you want me to just stop when I stop?
Gina (1:03:18)
Stop when you stop. Do what feels right.
Kathryn (1:03:21)
Okay. Okay. It is minor arcana. It is not major arcana.
Gina (1:03:28)
Is it the four of pentacles?
Kathryn (1:03:31)
It is not. It is the ace of pentacles. That's very close!
Gina (1:03:33)
What is it? Damn! Okay, I was gonna say cups,
Ha ha.
Kathryn (1:03:38)
In the entire Minor
Arcana, you got very close. You were only a few away. So in this deck, Ace of Pentacles is Lavinia Fisher. ⁓ So yeah. So for those not watching, the deck is Magicians, Martyrs, and Madmen. And they have the art on each card is like a different.
Gina (1:03:49)
Peace.
Kathryn (1:04:02)
magician, martyr, or madman throughout history. ⁓ And this one, Aesopentacles live in the official. That was very close. I'm very proud of you. I'm counting that one as a win. Good work.
Gina (1:04:08)
Hell yeah.
you I would
I yes I'm a genius and also very good and I win I win
Kathryn (1:04:18)
You win! Woohoo! Alright! Well, that was lovely. do you want to do it too? You can. Is your deck close by? Yeah. I didn't want to stress you out. well, guess I should be the one that's stressed because this is my test now. Alright.
Gina (1:04:24)
Is it your turn?
I have the same deck, we have to, yeah.
Me stressed, come on. Yeah, you're in the hot seat.
All right, let me get my deck out.
Kathryn (1:04:40)
Okay.
Gina (1:04:43)
Sorry.
Kathryn (1:04:45)
Gina. We are marked as explicit, so it's okay.
Gina (1:04:47)
You know what I meant.
This is an explicit podcast for explicit people.
All
Kathryn (1:04:59)
You
Gina (1:05:00)
right, do you want to tell me when to stop shuffling or should I just stop shuffling when it feels right?
Kathryn (1:05:04)
Just, just that.
Gina (1:05:06)
Stop! Sorry, I'm gonna focus.
Kathryn (1:05:06)
just knock it off.
yeah focus sorry. If I do poorly it's because we're not focusing.
Gina (1:05:13)
Ooh, one popped out. Ooh, Major Arcana.
Kathryn (1:05:19)
Okay.
I don't think this is right, but I'm going to say the Empress.
Gina (1:05:24)
The chariot. Not dissimilar.
Kathryn (1:05:26)
Okay.
Okay.
Do you think? Yeah, okay. ⁓
Gina (1:05:32)
in that they're both in the major arcana.
Kathryn (1:05:40)
like how would she go to spin this one? Alright, so not quite as close as yours was, but...
Gina (1:05:47)
And
it was Pedro de Alvarado. I don't know who that is, but I will learn.
Kathryn (1:05:52)
I don't either.
Yeah, I don't know that one.
Gina (1:05:55)
I did have it a bit easier with minor arcana. We should try yours again with minor at some point.
Kathryn (1:05:59)
Yeah, I feel like it's, ⁓
both easier and harder because there are fewer major arcana, but you can feel like, I feel like you can get closer with minor. Because of the suits, yeah. But that's okay. ⁓ This was our scary on top. If anyone listening has a scary on top, if you have any ghost stories or anything you would like us to try, if you have a telepathy test you want us to give a try. Did I say that right? You want us to try?
Gina (1:06:11)
As in the suits,
Kathryn (1:06:31)
Let us know. iscreamyouscreampod@gmail.com. Also, just a reminder that we do have Patreon. Go on and join us over there. If you don't want to join us, feel free to give us a rating and review. That will also help us out. But until next time, little spoons, keep it cool.
Gina (1:06:48)
Keep it creepy.
