Ghost Upon the Floor

 

 This October night, something different. Now, is the time when ghosts are present. We have some new ghosts being wrought across the floor. The ghost of Halloweens yet to come? What a ghost, what a trio of ghosts, indeed. 

 Boo! 

 

 Last night I visited with what is without question one of the modern era’s greatest contributions to scary movies: Alejandro Amenebar’s 2001 Nicole Kidman led ghost story “The Others.”

 This is a great film, and I don’t think you can set the mood for October better than you can with this film. The desolate mansions in the Welsh countryside, the lone graves, what lies in weight in that creepy old house, the music—all incredible. The script is fantastic, and so smart, and led by a cast of brilliant actors, with the great Nicole Kidman delivering one of her best performances as a woman trying to keep her children safe on her own after the war. The young actress Alakina Mann is also incredible beyond her years as Kidman’s daughter Anne, who’s performance has such wicked sass, and biting comedic timing.

Like other films we’ve visited this October, “The Others” has plot developments that stand on their own—and even deepen—upon repeated viewings. This script is so tight, with not a word or scene or dark corner wasted. Rounding out the great cast is Fionnula Flanagan as Bertha Mills, one of the new old servants who come to the aid of the house. The character work her between Kidman, her children, and the servants who show up one day to help is so good on, on so many levels.

Good ghost stories are hard to come by. They have been told for time immemorial, and rarely does a great modern work like “The Others,” come along. This film is absolutely one I have watched countless Octobers, and will watch countless more.

 Sacred grounds, cursed. The final resting place of American Revolutionary, Civil War veterans. A dismembering, elusive serial killer. An early 1900's abortion doctor, disposing of bodies in a nearby cemetery. In secluded, small-town America. And why, yes, there is a very good possibility it is the site of an ancient Native American burial ground. Also, evidence of satanic or otherwise dark rituals and vandalism have happened and been reported on the grounds.

 All these things make up the myth, legend and truth that surrounds Goodleberg Cemetery, in Wales, NY. About a half hour from my home, the legend of what happened and continues to occur around the small cemetery continually tops lists of the most haunted places in Western New York. For years I read local supernatural researcher and author Mason Winfield's writing on the subject, and, of course, grew up with bits and pieces of the legend. Naturally, Goodleberg was the perfect destination for an October cemetery this past month.

 Here is what I knew about Goodleberg going in. Sometime in the early 1900s, a doctor who performed abortions disposed of the bodies/fetuses and, on occasion, the body of a mother who did not survive the procedure, in and near a small, rural cemetery and its pond. Decades later, when serial killings took place throughout Western New York, pieces of the victims had turned up around the infamous doctor's cemetery-- and, of course, the land which housed the graves gained the reputation of being haunted, cursed, by the women and children the doctor had buried there.

 All this sounds like the elements of a decent, if not stellar, horror film. For, the stuff of local legends, while hardly ever true, makes great fiction. But. Most of Goodleberg's legend is true.

 Thankfully, we have Winfield's writing and research on the subject to confirm this, as even Goodleberg's Wikipedia page is quite sparse and uninformative, at best. And, quite perfectly, when my partner, friend and I made the trip to Goodleberg this past October, we ran into Winfield at a nearby coffee shop afterwards.

 The facts are among the following. Loosely translated, Goodlberg can mean "Hill of Ghouls." According to the website Dark Destinations, the term "ghoul" is an Arabic one, and it is argued that the name originates more from simply the surname "Goodle," as there is an early woman with the name interred there (although the website is lacking any proper citations.)

 Goodleberg's doctor was named Albert Speaker. According to Mason Winfield's research, Dr. Speaker (1880?-1948) appears to have been a "medical examiner," who acted as more of a coroner. Dr. Speaker had an office in Buffalo (not too far from my house) and a residence in South Wales, on Hunter's Creek Road, very close to Goodleberg. On our trip to the cemetery, we had thought the foundation of a house which can be seen from among the graves may have been Dr. Speaker's-- however, the home he lived in is still standing. It is apparently common knowledge among locals that Dr. Speaker performed abortions, most likely in his home. Whether this alone was enough to spring urban legends of disposed bodies in the nearby cemetery in pond, or whether these locals who have given life to the story are telling the truth-- it is not certain. No police evidence exists of any found bodies-- but, as with so many things about Goodleberg, so many macabre possible coincidences have come together over one, small, country-side cemetery. In his reasearch, Winfield has found the possibility that Dr. Speaker was connected to "crime elements," which may factor into his demise or some of the other, more grisly happenings around Goodleberg.


In October 1948, local papers reported that Dr. Speaker had died of a heart attack. Again, locals disagree, stating that his death was most likely a suicide (of hanging, by some reports, in a nearby tree) to avoid the shame of a trial. Whether this trial may have been connected to performing abortions or missing women, though, remains to be seen. Interestingly enough, Speaker is not buried in Goodleberg, but is interred in a New York City cemetery, by his surviving siblings. There does appear to be a documented connection between Dr. Speaker, the cemetery and at least one of the missing women who did turn up murdered. In August of that same year, Speaker's home was searched by police in connection with the disappearance of Helen Lindeman.

The pond, directly behind the cemetery.

 Some back story on Mrs. Lindeman. The wife of a prosperous dentist (who would have been involved in the same professional and social circles as Dr. Speaker), Helen disappeared while running errands in a small village suburb of Buffalo, NY. Body parts began to be discovered on Hunter's Creek Road five weeks later. Two weeks after that, a torso and head were discovered in remote areas of nearby Cattaraugus County. Dental records were used to identify the remains as that of Helen Lindeman. On Halloween of the same year, after the murder and death of Speaker, fire was set to Dr. Speaker's home. By who, we may never know. Someone trying to conceal evidence? A husband? Locals who knew or presumed to know more of the story?

Other murders in later years came to be linked with the Lideman murder, although no tangible connection ever surfaced aside from being discovered close to Goodleberg Cemetery.

Apparitions of all kinds continue to be reported around Goodleberg. There are reports of those who return to their cars and find small, children's handprints on their windows. Some have reported seeing a woman in black, who many connect to Helen Lindeman, as there were reports of people who thought they had seen her in the Goodleberg area after her disappearance and before her murder, hitch-hiking and wearing all black. Some have reported seeing the legendary large black dogs, or hell hounds. Though no homes stand on the side of the road the cemetery is on, houses are on the opposite both before and after the cemetery. Some locals have reported hearing strange chants in the cemetery at night, and finding strange, burnt markings in the ground and vandalism to the cemetery in the morning. And there are those who suggest that all this may be merely kids horsing around-- drinking, singing, smoking and desecrating the sacred grounds. While we absolutely found evidence of such vandalism, I, surely, still wonder. There simply seems to be something dark about the grounds which attracts other dark energy.


On a superficial level, I felt no such darkness walking through the cemetery. I felt a sadness, after having walked the road to the cemetery (after a car struck and killed someone walking on the road in more recent years, parking is not allowed directly by the cemetery), and saw the stones of these long-ago people turned over; cracked, smashed, vandalized and possibly lost to time. However, I would love to return to the cemetery-- perhaps at nighttime, if cemetery hours allow. I'm sure this won't be my last post on Goodleberg.




View my Photo Album of Goodleberg here: 

Goodleberg Cemetery

Read some of Mason's more in-depth writings on the history of the Cemetery HERE. 

Watch Mason discuss Goodlberg on a local program televised several years ago around Halloween:

Looking to buy a new home? You may be in luck.

The "Amityville Horror House" has gone on sale in New York state. Brought to fame by the 1975 crime in which Ronald DeFeo Jr. murdered members of his family, and the family which later moved in and the novel and numerous film adaptations they inspired, the house will set you back a mere $1.15 million. The five-bedroom Dutch Colonial went on the market Monday.

Whether or not you believe (or have even followed) the saga of controversy over the experiences of the Lutz family when they lived in the home after the murders, the story of the Amityville haunting remains one of the most enduring accounts of a haunting in modern American folklore.

The book, which catapulted the story to fame, began after George and Kathy Lutz, the alleged victims of the haunting, were introduced by a book editor to Jay Anson, the book's author. Since it's publication, the story of the Lutzes has received harsh criticism, including a debunking of several claims of damage made by a couple who bought the house in 1977 on the television show "That's Incredible." Local Native American leaders have also denied claims made in the book that the local Shinnecock tribe once abandoned the mentally ill and dying on the land which would late become the house.

However, even in the face of these criticisms, though it was proven there was no snow on the date in which the Lutzes claimed to find cloven foot prints outside their home, the legend lives on. Most recently, The History Channel broadcast "Amityville- The Haunting and Amityville- Horror or Hoax?" in October 2000. In the documentary, George Lutz is quoted six years before his death as saying, "I believe this has stayed alive for 25 years because it's a true story. It doesn't mean that everything that has been said about it is true. It's certainly not a hoax. It's real easy to call something a hoax. I wish it was. It's not."

And now, for a little vintage paranormal TV, going back to 1979 "In Search... of The Amityville Horror."



YouTube User: FriendshipTown

Photo: Daily Mail

One of my favorite things about Christmas is Charles Dickens' novella "A Christmas Carol" and the countless artistic expressions it has produced. Not only does it give me an excuse to leave the window gels of ghosts up around the bathroom mirror-- "They're the ghosts of Christmas past," I tell my family and guests-- but the story masterfully blends the meaning of this season with a superb ghost story.

Last night in Borders, I came across this picture book version of "A Christmas Carol." Brett Helquist is the illustrator, who is famous for his illustrations of the "Lemony Snickett" books. I did not buy a copy, but sorely want to, if only for the image of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come: the classic, faceless grim reaper, with old Christmas lights and dead wreaths robed about him. The illustration of the Ghost which most affected me, in the graveyard with Scrooge, is not on Helquist's blog, but a later piece of art with the ghost is.

I find this piece depicting the ghost of Christmas Past to be particularly striking. The fading ghost of memory leaving; bright and fading, never able to be touched again.


All images from Brett Helquist's blog.