HGB Ep. 524 - St. Ignatius Hospital

Moment in Oddity - Exploding Casket Syndrome (Suggested by: Kim Gasiorowski)

Many of our listeners are taphophiles and enjoy the peace and tranquility of a beautiful cemetery. Walking along, admiring various headstones and often times extravagant mausoleums. We would imagine a sudden BOOM from an explosion of a mausoleum would scare and shock most people. If the explosion didn't scare you the noxious fumes assaulting your nasal passages would certainly disgust you. This phenomenon typically happens in above ground crypts. You see, when bodies are in a state of decomposition, they release gases as they begin to liquify. If there is no way for those gases to be released from a mausoleum coffin, Ka-BAM! You end up with a putrid mess and possibly a cracked mausoleum wall or two. The solution to this ghastly issue is to be certain that the casket itself has a burper installed. Yes, you heard that correctly, a burper valve allows the gases to be released and oxygen to enter the casket so that the dehydration process can occur. Sounds similar to some Tupperware containers, doesn't it? Now, we read some articles that indicated that this whole story may just be an urban legend, however, the thought of experiencing the malodorous discharge of decomposition gases from a mausoleum explosion due to lacking a casket burper valve, certainly is odd.

This Month in History - The Introduction of Alka Seltzer

In the month of February, on the 21st, in 1931, Alka Seltzer was first sold in the United States. It's origin can be followed back to the flu epidemic that hit the states back in 1928. The president of Miles Laboratory, Hub Beardsley, had heard a rumor that the employees of the local newspaper were all healthy and working. Meanwhile, the majority of the townsfolk were suffering quite badly with flu symptoms. Upon visiting the newspaper, Beardsley found the staff working like normal. Inquiring about any illnesses within the company, Hub was told that any time the employees were feeling any flu like symptom, they would drink a mixture of aspirin and baking soda which eliminated any signs of illness. When Beardsley returned to the laboratory, he conferred with his head chemist who developed a mixture of aspirin, sodium bicarbonate and anhydrous citric acid. The antacid would become effervescent when added to water. To test the new product, Beardsley took 100 pills on a cruise and supplied free samples to anyone who was feeling ill. The results were that every person who took the novel medication received some form of relief. Due to this test, Miles Laboratory introduced Alka Seltzer to their line-up of medications. Although there are variations of the original formulation, one constant that remains is the "plop, plop, fizz, fizz, Oh what a relief it is" jingle that we are all familiar with.

St. Ignatius Hospital (Suggested by listener: Nate)

St. Ignatius Hospital dates back to the 1890s and was started by a group of nuns from Montreal. For over seventy years it served as a healthcare facility and then reopened as an assisted living facility that shuttered in 2003. The building was left to decay for many years, but was taken under the wing of the Colfax Chamber of Commerce and the Whitman County Historical Society in 2015. Tours have been hosted since then and some of them include talk of ghosts. Join us and our guest Valoree Gregory as we explore the history and hauntings of St. Ignatius Hospital. 

St. Ignatius was designed and built by Mother Joseph. Mother Joseph was born as Esther Pariseau in 1823 in Quebec, Canada. She entered the Sisters of Charity of Providence convent in 1843. She led her congregation to the Pacific Northwest of the United States and they established a network of schools and healthcare facilities. Mother Joseph was the first female architect in British Columbia and she built 11 hospitals, seven academies, five schools for Native American children and two orphanages. These were spread through four states. She died of a brain tumor in 1902.

In early 2021, the hospital was purchased by Laura and Austin Storm. They have been doing a ton of renovation that started with repairing a large hole in the roof that had allowed extensive damage to the interior for over 20 years. Decades of neglect had left the building in poor condition so that it has appeared on the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation’s “Most Endangered Watch List” every year since 2015. Funding of the renovations is provided by historic and ghost tours and ghost hunts. There does seem to be a lot of activity here. Paranormal Lockdown visited in 2017 and Ghost Adventures visited in 2019. The GA Crew caught an anomaly in a photo from one of their full-spectrum cameras. It appeared to show “a white misty apparition.”

The first patient that died at the hospital was a local railroad employee who tragically was crushed between two railroad cars. Some people believe his spirit is the one that is described as a large, angry black mass that tries to attack people. 

Nuture Your Soul visited in December of 2023 and wrote of the experience on Facebook, "What I experienced there personally - were communications of love & excitement that I could see / hear. I saw 4 small children following us & peering out the windows at us as we passed by - which was delightful to them & to me. I felt palpable whimsey & delight that so many people still choose to visit there & I felt nothing terrified, stuck, angry or regretful. In fact, quite the opposite!"

Valoree shared the experiences that she has had in the hospital. 

St. Ignatius Hospital is a building in need of a lot of love and it seems that it has people who want to honor it and rehab it now. There seem to be many souls that have not passed on and decided to stay within the confines of that building. Is St. Ignatius Hospital haunted? That is for you to decide!