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 there are 5
pieces of merchandise in this room---click HERE to see more
haunted US states |
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Missouri Ghosts, Joan Gilbert, 1997, art, index, 227 pp $14.95 |
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| A brisk compendium of Missouri ghostlore. Gilbert has done
her homework and summarizes nearly every Missouri tale that has seen print since before
the turn of the century. Phantom haymakers seen by real harvesters. Jim the Wonder Dog.
Patience Worth as channelled by Pearl Curran. The haunted Lemp Mansion. The real
Exorcist case. The lethal White Lady of Marcelline. Plenty of good stories, although many
of them are told more briefly than I would have liked. Gilbert, bless her, gives excellent
references so readers can check original sources.
One feature I found baffling was that every left page features quotations about ghosts
and hauntings which generally do not seem to fit with the stories on the right page. Small
quibble. A long-awaited and much-needed book!
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| Mo-kan Ghosts, The Casebook of a Kansas City Psychic
Investigator, 1999, photos, 116 pp. $14.95 |
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| A bizarre and fascinating casebook of a Kansas City
ghostbuster. Three decades of haunted hoses, poltergeists, demon summonings, ghostly
graveyards, bewitched buildings, strange photos, and uninvited “guests.” Many of
these locations are still in existence and the author gives addresses for them so would-be
ghost hunters can go visit. Some creepy, creepy stories here: The Phantom of the Organ
Loft at Epperson House, Univ. of Missouri, a young woman whose life may have been cut
short by a botched abortion who still haunts the music room she designed. St Mary’s
Episcopal Church, haunted by the colorful Father Jardine, who may have levitated and once
confronted ruffians at the altar with a pair of revolvers. The dome of the Capitol
Building in Topeka, haunted by a suicide, who jumped 150 feet to her death. |
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More Missouri Ghosts, Fact, Fiction, and Folklore, Joan Gilbert,
2000, art, index, 250 pp $14.95 |
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| Joan Gilbert, author of Missouri
Ghosts (1997), has another solid (if one can use that word about a ghost book) hit on
her hands with this sequel. Highlighted with super-atmospheric illustrations, the book
covers a whole spectral spectrum of topics: from folklore spooks to contemporary, observed
ghosts; from the anecdotal to the factual; and from the visible to the invisible…. There’s a creepy apparition at a dairy farm described
as "a person with a grey sheet draped over him" and "an outline of a human
figure, but filled in with black emptiness, space…" There’s the muttering
ghost whom Missouri psychic Bevy Jaegers walked through. There’s the TV
anchorman who shared a house with the lonely little ghost of a girl killed when she fell
into a pig sty. And a bizarre tale of a body-snatcher saved from a mob by his ghostly
mother. An exceptionally interesting feature is the stories of groups of
ghosts—quite an unusual occurrence: A whole troop of ghostly horsemen in what
appeared to be the remnants of blue Union uniforms. Ghostly men in Spanish armor with
their Indian guides, eating by their campfires—possibly Hernando DeSoto and his men.
Gilbert also revisits some haunt-spots from her
first book: Lemp House, Haden House, the Exorcist case. After reading this fine
book you’ll agree with William James who said that to dismiss such things is
"not good practice." |
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