...Summerwind
Ginger had never told her parents about just what happened at Summerwind, and she was certain they wouldn't believe her if she spoke up now. She tried her best to dissuade her parents, without success. Later, Bober said that he knew the place was haunted when he bought it, and revealed that he had previously spent some time at the house and knew the identity of the ghost there. Raymond Bober bought Summerwind from his daughter in the 1970s, and set to work to turn the mansion into a successful restaurant and inn.
Shortly after buying Summerwind, Raymond Bober asked his son Karl, and Ginger and George, to spend the day helping him check the building over in preparation for renovating it. As George was checking out a drawer built into the back wall of a bedroom closet, Ginger became distraught, pleading with him to leave it closed. She then told everyone about the corpse that her father had discovered. Karl grabbed a flashlight and squeezed through the opening behind the drawer. What he found was only an empty space! Where was the corpse? Was it ever really there to begin with?
Karl returned alone to the house near the end of summer, planning to get a repair estimate, hire someone to get rid of the bats that had inhabited the old house, and do some yard chores. When it began to rain, he went indoors to shut the windows. While upstairs, he heard someone call his name. Going back downstairs to see who was there, he heard what sounded like two gun shots coming from the kitchen. Karl ran into the kitchen, finding the room filled with smoke and the smell of gunpowder -- but no one was there! Karl checked the building, but the doors were all still locked, and no one had come in. Confused, Karl walked back to the kitchen, and that was when he noticed two very old bullet holes in the basement door. According to legend, the holes were put there when the original owner, Robert P. Lamont, had fired his gun at a ghost, believing it was an intruder. Was it possible that this moment in history, when Lamont shot at the ghost, kept replaying, over and over? That was enough for Karl, and he left that afternoon.
Raymond and Marie Bober encountered a number of peculiar incidents as they worked to turn the house into a restaurant. Workers would quit shortly after being hired, complaining that
their tools kept disappearing and they felt as if they were being watched. Marie Bober stated that she felt as if she were being followed wherever she went in the building. Perhaps the
strangest thing of all was that the size of rooms inexplicably seemed to keep changing. They would be one size one day, and when measured the next, would be a different size. Photos of
rooms, taken with the same camera, only seconds apart, also showed this strange quality.
After Arnold was institutionalized, and after Ginger had recovered from her suicide attempt, she and her children moved out of Summerwind for good. Ginger had taken all the curtains with her. Later, when Raymond was assessing the condition of Summerwind, and the work that would need to be done, the pictures he took included photos of the bare windows. Later, when
looking through the developed photos, he was shocked to find that, somehow, the curtains were on the windows in these pictures!
In 1979, Bober wrote and published a book about his experiences at Summerwind, under the name of Wolffgang von Bober, called The Carver Effect, in which he details his experiences at Summerwind communicating with the ghost of Jonathan Carver, an eighteenth century British explorer. According to Bober's account, the Souix Indians had given Carver a deed to the northern third of Wisconsin. This deed was then put into a box and sealed into the foundation of Summerwind.*
Although some believe that Bober fabricated his claims of paranormal activity in hopes of attracting customers, stories about the haunted mansion actually began with the original owner, Robert P. Lamont, who claimed to have encountered a ghost.
...Addie Hoyt Fargo
Medical Examiner's Conclusion
The determination made by the medical examiner is, "Inconclusive." 110 years have passed since Addie was buried, and the remains were in poor condition. As the medical examiner carefully tried to reconstruct the skull, and found that the upper jaw and teeth, and the face bones, were missing. Most of the ribs were broken, probably after burial. Diphtheria has been ruled out for a number of reasons. Finding traces of arsenic wouldn't establish that Addie had been poisoned, since traces of arsenic are present in the soil and groundwater in Lake Mills. There actually is a bullet-sized hole in the skull, but it can't be concluded from the bone fragments that she had been shot. No bullet was found in the grave. One would have been found if the bullet had become lodged in the body, but not if it had passed through it.
All we know at this point is that, contrary to some rumors, Addie really had been buried in this grave. But how did Addie, a healthy young woman, really die? So many elements of this story remain unresolved that this is not likely to be the end of the story.
Ginger had never told her parents about just what happened at Summerwind, and she was certain they wouldn't believe her if she spoke up now. She tried her best to dissuade her parents, without success. Later, Bober said that he knew the place was haunted when he bought it, and revealed that he had previously spent some time at the house and knew the identity of the ghost there. Raymond Bober bought Summerwind from his daughter in the 1970s, and set to work to turn the mansion into a successful restaurant and inn.
Shortly after buying Summerwind, Raymond Bober asked his son Karl, and Ginger and George, to spend the day helping him check the building over in preparation for renovating it. As George was checking out a drawer built into the back wall of a bedroom closet, Ginger became distraught, pleading with him to leave it closed. She then told everyone about the corpse that her father had discovered. Karl grabbed a flashlight and squeezed through the opening behind the drawer. What he found was only an empty space! Where was the corpse? Was it ever really there to begin with?
Karl returned alone to the house near the end of summer, planning to get a repair estimate, hire someone to get rid of the bats that had inhabited the old house, and do some yard chores. When it began to rain, he went indoors to shut the windows. While upstairs, he heard someone call his name. Going back downstairs to see who was there, he heard what sounded like two gun shots coming from the kitchen. Karl ran into the kitchen, finding the room filled with smoke and the smell of gunpowder -- but no one was there! Karl checked the building, but the doors were all still locked, and no one had come in. Confused, Karl walked back to the kitchen, and that was when he noticed two very old bullet holes in the basement door. According to legend, the holes were put there when the original owner, Robert P. Lamont, had fired his gun at a ghost, believing it was an intruder. Was it possible that this moment in history, when Lamont shot at the ghost, kept replaying, over and over? That was enough for Karl, and he left that afternoon.
Raymond and Marie Bober encountered a number of peculiar incidents as they worked to turn the house into a restaurant. Workers would quit shortly after being hired, complaining that
their tools kept disappearing and they felt as if they were being watched. Marie Bober stated that she felt as if she were being followed wherever she went in the building. Perhaps the
strangest thing of all was that the size of rooms inexplicably seemed to keep changing. They would be one size one day, and when measured the next, would be a different size. Photos of
rooms, taken with the same camera, only seconds apart, also showed this strange quality.
After Arnold was institutionalized, and after Ginger had recovered from her suicide attempt, she and her children moved out of Summerwind for good. Ginger had taken all the curtains with her. Later, when Raymond was assessing the condition of Summerwind, and the work that would need to be done, the pictures he took included photos of the bare windows. Later, when
looking through the developed photos, he was shocked to find that, somehow, the curtains were on the windows in these pictures!
In 1979, Bober wrote and published a book about his experiences at Summerwind, under the name of Wolffgang von Bober, called The Carver Effect, in which he details his experiences at Summerwind communicating with the ghost of Jonathan Carver, an eighteenth century British explorer. According to Bober's account, the Souix Indians had given Carver a deed to the northern third of Wisconsin. This deed was then put into a box and sealed into the foundation of Summerwind.*
Although some believe that Bober fabricated his claims of paranormal activity in hopes of attracting customers, stories about the haunted mansion actually began with the original owner, Robert P. Lamont, who claimed to have encountered a ghost.
...Addie Hoyt Fargo
Medical Examiner's Conclusion The determination made by the medical examiner is, "Inconclusive." 110 years have passed since Addie was buried, and the remains were in poor condition. As the medical examiner carefully tried to reconstruct the skull, and found that the upper jaw and teeth, and the face bones, were missing. Most of the ribs were broken, probably after burial. Diphtheria has been ruled out for a number of reasons. Finding traces of arsenic wouldn't establish that Addie had been poisoned, since traces of arsenic are present in the soil and groundwater in Lake Mills. There actually is a bullet-sized hole in the skull, but it can't be concluded from the bone fragments that she had been shot. No bullet was found in the grave. One would have been found if the bullet had become lodged in the body, but not if it had passed through it.
All we know at this point is that, contrary to some rumors, Addie really had been buried in this grave. But how did Addie, a healthy young woman, really die? So many elements of this story remain unresolved that this is not likely to be the end of the story.
(Note on photos: The photo of Addie Hoyt Fargo is from Ms. Thornton's blog, which includes a number of excellent photos of the Fargos and the mansion. The photo of the exhumation was taken by Gary Porter, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.)
~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~
(...Have you seen Marie?)
The men kept a Siberian huskie with them while working on the renovations. One evening, while working in the basement, Paul heard the clinking of dog tags. He looked for the huskie, but the dog wasn't there. Later, as Paul was reading in bed, he noticed that his cat was cowering under a chair in fear. When he reached down to comfort her, he came face to face with a dog -- but it wasn't their huskie! It was a bull terrier, which promptly disappeared.
A few weeks after this, the men began working on the basement, which had been divided up into small cubicles. They came across old furniture, jars and other artifacts, and decided to stop working until they could meet with an urban archeologist from the university. Marie appeared to Donald again, asking why the work on the basement had stopped. As he tried to explain, Marie led him to a wall in the basement, simply pointed at it, and vanished. The next day, Donald, Paul and Jeff took a closer look at the wall, and saw that it didn't quite match the other walls. It appeared to be newer. They dug into the wall crawl space and found some broken pottery, jewelry, and the skeleton of a dog.
The renovations were completed, and the ghosts of Marie and the bull terrier appear to have settled down, but there is one more story connected with the house in the 1600 block of National Avenue. Now and then, there are reports of a woman seen in this area, apparently in some distress, usually trying to get a ride. She fits the description of Marie, but is wearing a jacket and dark slacks. One report comes from a man named Gerry, who stopped one evening to give her a ride. She jumped into the van, and appeared to be quite agitated, but said nothing. When Gerry asked where she was headed, she grunted and pointed forward, up National Avenue. The woman then began gesturing, indicating that she wanted to turn off on 26th Street. When they reached Mineral Street, she motioned to Gerry to stop at a spot that was quite dark, away from any street lights. The woman then jumped out, but didn't close the door all the way, so that the dome light remained on. Concerned that the woman might have fallen, Gerry got out of the van and hurried around to the passenger side. No one was there. The woman seemed to have simply vanished.
Gerry told his wife, Audrey, about his strange experience. About a year later, Audrey bought a book for Gerry, Haunted Wisconsin (1980) by Michael Norman and Beth Scott. One of the photos in the book was from a photo of a young woman found by Paul and Jeff when they were renovating the house. It appears to have been taken in the 1920s. Gerry wasn't entirely surprised to find that the photo looked like the strange woman to whom he had given a ride.
If you're driving in the 1600 block of National Avenue one quiet evening, and see a brown-haired woman gesturing for a ride, you might (or might not) want to stop to give her a ride.
If you're driving in the 1600 block of National Avenue one quiet evening, and see a brown-haired woman gesturing for a ride, you might (or might not) want to stop to give her a ride.
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