Blog Moving

I decided to shut this blog down in favor of one that has the same name as my book. Please go to http://hauntedhistorycolumbus.blogspot.com/ from now on. I've already added a lot of new content there. Thanks!

Harrison House Bed & Breakfast

I had a wonderful interview with Lynn Varney, owner of the Harrison House B&B this week.

First of all, this house is gorgeous. If I had a need for accommodations in Columbus, I would choose this place hands down. The rooms are done up in various degrees of Victorian style, and some are jaw droppingly beautiful (assuming you like the Victorian style!). The dining room in particular looked straight out of the 1890's. You can check out their photo gallery here.

The house also lived up to its reputation for feeling homey. A friend of mine had to arrange rooms for visiting scholars for OSU, and she could not say enough good things about the place. She said the it was just like going to Grandma's house. She was right. OK, maybe not like my grandmas' houses, since they both lived in 1960's ranch houses, but the atmosphere there is very inviting.

I also appreciated Lynn's attitude towards the spirits in her home. She is very respectful and protective of them. Coming from the "ghosts are people, too" mindset myself, she gets a big thumbs up from me. She even corrected me when I referred to them as "ghosts", saying "We don't have ghosts here. We have spirits." Whoops! No offence was intended to the spirits. I use the term "ghosts" to differentiate earthbound spirits from the ones who have crossed over. What she had to say about the spirits themselves also went to confirm what I have believed for a long time about spirits just being like average folks only in a non-physical form. There is absolutely nothing to be scared of there.

I recorded the interview and will be transcribing it this afternoon. I'm kind of hoping to have picked up some evps of the spirits adding their commentary. Then next week, I'm off to do some heavy duty research on the history of the place and its inhabitants. Lynn has gotten the first names of a couple of them. It would be nice if I could help her figure out for sure who her invisible roommates are.

Web Games

And probably not the kind you were expecting!

OK, I'll admit it. Once my book is published, I want it to sell well. So, I am doing some things to get a little pre-publication publicity. As part of that, I have started a web page to advertise the book. I think in order to get the web crawlers to find it, I have to have it linked by another web page first, though. So, that is the whole purpose in writing today's blog. Yes, I am a shameless publicity hound.

To make up for it, I promise to be more entertaining in the next blog. I just got back from interviewing someone for one of the chapters in my book. I had the best time talking to this lady. Writing this book is already providing me with some fun adventures. More on that later. My bed is calling me. Sleeep, sleeeeeeep!

Columbus History Reference Books

One of the nice things about writing this book is that it has given me an excuse to invest in some good reference books on Columbus history. Sure, I could go to a library and read them for free, but it is invaluable to me to have my own copies. I work a full time job and a part time job, so any time I can work on the book from home while doing the laundry or whatever is a godsend.

In the past week and a half, I have purchased We Too Built Columbus by Ruth Young White, A Fragile Capital by Charles C. Cole, Jr., and a book of Victorian plat maps that was put out by the Franklin County Historical Society. I am particularly pleased about the first and the last.

We Too Built Columbus was written in the 1930's and tells about women's contributions to Columbus history. I've never found anything else that compares to it. Not only does it focus on a largely ignored segment of the population, it has all sort of quirky little stories about Columbus' early days that make for entertaining reading. That's the kind of history I love. I have been trying to get my own copy of this for years, but it is a fairly rare book and has always been up for sale at prices I could not begin to justify blowing my budget on. I finally came across a very reasonably priced copy and decided that I had better snatch it up while I had the chance.

The plat books are great. There are maps from 4 different decades, so you get a nice span of time to see how the city developed. Being able to see who lived where has already come in handy in my research. Thank you to the Franklin County Genealogical and History Society for making this available!

My enthusiasm for the other 2 books should not lead one to believe that A Fragile Capital is not up to snuff. I had read parts of it before I ordered my own copy and would not have spent the money on it if it was just so-so. It has a lot of very useful information. At this point, I am using it for spot reference - something to gives me background information and more primary source leads on certain topics. However, Cole's writing style is smooth and engaging. I would love to have time to sit down and read it from cover to cover. Time to read for fun is a rare luxury for me at this point, though. :-/

Progress

It's been a busy day on the book front. I managed to get started on the actual writing. Woohoo! I got my first half of a chapter written. It is the part of the chapter that concentrates on the historical background. I'm pretty pleased with how that turned out. I've noticed that a lot of writers of ghost story books struggle with presenting the historical background in a way that isn't dry and pedantic. Thankfully, the history behind the ghost story in this case is a doozy. It's kind of hard for it not to be interesting.

Now I'm working on finding images for the book. The Columbus Metropolitan Library has a treasure trove called Columbus in Photographs that they have on their website. I always loved looking through this just for fun before I started writing the book. Now that I have an actual need for them, the site has been a godsend. I may need to go to the library in person and rescan some of them in a higher dpi. Still, it's free, and so many of the images they have are absolutely perfect for this project. The Columbus Metropolitan Library never fails to amaze me at how much they have to offer their patrons. They have won awards for several years for being the best library system in the country. I believe it.

Maybe They Wanted to Celebrate

The fun thing about writing a book of ghost stories is that I am finding out about a bunch of hauntings that I had never heard of before. What's even better is when some new ghost stories occur while I'm in the process of collecting the other ones.

I was at a meeting last night at the Kelton House Museum and Garden. We had some time to kill before the meeting actually started, so I asked a friend of mine there to tell me a story about the haunted house that she grew up in. Halfway through her story, a bottle of champagne that we had on the table suddenly blew its cork with a very loud "POP"! I burst out laughing. It seems that the Kelton ghosts wanted to make sure that they weren't being ignored in favor of other spirits. I have to give them credit, too. Not one drop of champagne spilled in the process. The Keltons may expect the attention they think is due them, but they won't waste perfectly good champagne to get it.

BTW, before any of you decide to call up the Kelton House and ask to do an investigation there, please note that they have a policy against that. It doesn't matter how reputable or bonded your group is, there are no exceptions. They have good reasons for it, trust me. For a longer explanation about why museums have the policies they do, I have an article about that up at Haunted Voices Radio's website. If you are dying to see the place, you can always check out one of their tours. They are open for history tours every Sunday afternoon from 1-4 (get there by 3, since the tours are about an hour long). The place is very cool on the historic level, enough for me to fall in love with it even without the ghosts. They also are part of the Columbus Landmarks Foundation's yearly ghost tours in October.

2 Questions

I'm trying to get a better handle on what readers want in a book on hauntings.

One quandry I am in is that the sample book the publisher sent me has a big emphasis on hauntings where the identity of the spirit is known. The bulk of the hauntings I am considering are in very public buildings where they have no idea who the spirits are. I could include more with identified spirits, but then I would have to use stories that everyone has heard a million times before. When you read these books, do you find them less convincing or entertaining when they don't know who the spirit is, or does that really matter?

The other question is about quoting eyewitnesses. How important is it that you know who witnessed the phenomena versus generic "witnesses say" kind of reports?

Thanks!