Across the Great Divide
R. Wolf Baldassarro October, 2011
Harvests and Hauntings- Autumn in Michigan
It’s autumn again. Breathe it in. The cool air rushes in; and a patchwork of colors dot the landscape, making the world look like an open box of crayons ready to be played with. The pungent smell of dried leaves and wood fires fill the air; and our memories are pulled back to childhood images of candy corn and apples.
With the changing season also comes that carefree holiday that brings excitement and chills to child and adult alike.
Call it what you will- All Hallows Eve, Samhain, Halloween- it is nevertheless a magickal time of year when the veil between worlds is thinnest. That isn’t just a philosophical point, but one of natural science; the Autumnal Equinox that ushers in the arrival of fall is marked by an equal 12 hours of day and night as the fruits of the summer harvest give way to the slumber of winter. This is the halfway point wherein we can look out across the great divide between the world of nature and the world of the paranormal.
Let’s grab our hiking boots and gather our senses as we walk together through the bustling piles of leaves on a journey among Michigan’s most haunted places.
Starting off in Detroit, the General Motors plant is said to be haunted by the spirit of a man who was crushed to death in 1944; one incident recalls a worker who was saved from a similar fate by unseen forces.
Meanwhile, over at the Detroit Coca-Cola plant, a hard lined supervisor, shot by a disgruntled worker in the 1950’s, is sometimes seen or heard yelling to keep the line running when no one from management is around. So much for the mice playing when the cat’s away.
Downriver from there, in Wyandotte, sits the Fifteenth Street House, where reports center on the apparition of a young girl who appears in the front window. As the story goes, there was a man who would leave for work at the same time every day, and so every day his daughter would eagerly wave to him from that window. But one day she was not there, and thinking she just overslept, he went to leave. Upon backing his car out of the driveway he heard a scream. In an unfortunate tragedy, she was running his lunch out to him and was struck by the car.
The Randall’s of Grand Rapids met their end through a series of incidents in 1910 that culminated in a famous murder-suicide. The home immediately played host to unexplained events before being abandoned a few years later. It was eventually torn down and the Michigan Bell phone company built their office on the land in 1924. Workers would soon share tales of apparitions, noises, and doors opening and closing. The residents of Grand Rapids have endured decades of odd late-night phone calls that, when traced, were found to originate from inside the Michigan Bell building.
In Flint, the Cornwall family’s home is now an office but they continue to walk the halls of the building that still carries the family’s name. Witnesses have seen them in the old office window facing 3rd Street.
What’s a story about haunted places without at least one psychiatric facility on the list?
So the next stop is the Southwest Michigan Tuberculosis Sanitarium in Kalamazoo, which has benefited from a long history of stories associated with it. The abandoned hospital had tales of red lights seen filling the hallways; unexplained noises; and even writing on the walls appearing in empty rooms. Locals claim that different things happen every night including various apparitions in the windows and report hearing muffled screams and cries coming from the buildings at night. All that remains now of the sprawling $2.5-million complex is one building, with its 1895 Queen Anne water tower serving as a 175-foot tombstone for the souls who roam the grounds.
The Battenfield House in Fife Lake was the residence of one of Michigan’s most well-known mass murderers. She loved to attend social events; and to that end she poisoned several family members, using the funerals as a means of providing the social contact she so craved. The reported paranormal goings-on include burning flames seen on a stairwell post, but no burn marks or heat result from the activity.
In a little-known place located at the northeastern tip of the Upper Peninsula, a few miles north of Paradise, Michigan is the town of Sheldrake. It is a ghost town today, figuratively and literally. It’s so small you won’t even find it on a map, and the few people who still reside there do not discuss the hauntings.
The town has suffered an inordinate amount of unexplained fires and boating accidents since being founded in the 1800’s. The last one, in 1926, destroyed the town and today only a few buildings remain.
A visit to here wields results before one even arrives. An old sea captain, wearing a cape and holding a pipe, allegedly appears on the dock when boats pass by. He is first seen from the lake and as boats approach the shore, he slowly fades from the view of passengers.
The Palmer House reportedly has lights that turn on independently and shades open in empty rooms. The Hopkins House involves a glowing apparition walking through at night. A logger with heavy beard and overalls is sometimes seen on the furniture or in the doorways of the Smith House.
The most active building is the Biehl House, the people who owned the main manufacturing plant and most of Sheldrake. Voices are heard and many different apparitions have been sighted on the property, most notably a woman in a blue veil who has been known to walk beside visitors. Pictures will fall off walls, and faucets will turn on by themselves but these can be easily explained in houses so old.
Every State, and nearly every town across America, has similar stories; the locations and events are as numerous as the fallen leaves that speckle the landscape. So as you return from our journey to your quiet, comfortable home town, ask around. It, too, has its own stories to share of forgotten, unseen residents.
As you or your children head out to enjoy hayrides at cider mills and take in the serene settings of the season, look behind you and in between the shedding trees. That chill going down your spine might not be a cool autumn wind, but the hint that you just might not be alone.
© 2011 R. Wolf Baldassarro/Deep Forest Productions
