HGB Ep. 192 - Penn State University

 
Moment in Oddity - Lord Tod Wadley
(Suggested by: Kelly Helter)

Lord Tod Wadley was a doll made by the Steiff Toy Company. The company was based in Germany and started by Margarete Steiff in 1880 and specialized in plush toys like teddy bears. Lord Tod Wadley was a male doll that stood over a foot tall. He was given to Marion Barbara 'Joe' Carstairs by her girlfriend, Ruth Baldwin. Joe Carstairs was a British eccentric heiress to the Standard Oil family who made a name for herself in power boat racing in the 1930s. In her day, she was known as the fastest female speed boat racer in the world. Before she got into that, she served during World War I in France with the American Red Cross, driving ambulances. She helped rebury the war dead after the war ended and later in Dublin, during the Irish War of Independence, she served with the Women's Legion Mechanical Transport Section. She was very different for her time. She tattooed her arms, dressed like a man and was openly gay. She had affairs with numerous famous women including Dolly Wilde - who was Oscar Wilde's niece - Greta Garbo, Tallulah Bankhead and Marlene Dietrich. She bought an island named Whale Cay to retire on and she ruled there like a queen. But what truly made her unique was Lord Tod Wadley. Joe was never without the doll, unless she was racing, because she feared losing him. She treated the doll as though it were a living child. And she spoiled it with gifts. She bought him cowboy outfits, dolls of his own, Italian made shoes, a small wristwatch, sailor suits, revolvers, a Bible and suits from Savile Row. Sculptures were made in his honor, along with portraits. One portrait featured Lord Tod Wadley before a mirror with his reflection that was titled "Narcissus." Joe talked to the doll and when she finally died in Florida at the age of 93, she had the doll cremated with her. Having dolls and toys as an adult is normal, but keeping a doll and caring for it as if it were a living child and as your only companion, certainly is odd!

This Month in History - Nazi General Rudolf Freiherr von Gersdorff Attempts to Assassinate Hitler

In the month of March, on the 21st day, in 1943, Nazi General Rudolf Freiherr von Gersdorff attempts to assassinate Hitler. Throughout World War II, there were many attempts to assassinate Adolph Hitler. Nazi General Gersdorff was one of those men who participated in an elaborate plan to assassinate Adolf Hitler. The Nazis had intercepted a bunch of Soviet weapons and they were stored at an armory in Berlin. Gersdorff was a weapons expert, so he was tasked with taking Hitler on a guided tour of the former Soviet arsenal. He realized that this was a great opportunity to try to kill the Nazi leader since he would be right there next to him. Gersdorff stuffed two bombs in his pockets and began the tour. This was going to be a suicide mission. The plan was to ignite the fuses, which would take ten minutes to detonate and before they exploded, Gersdorff was going to lock Hitler into an embrace. As it turned out, Hitler was in a big hurry when he arrived at the armory. He had no plans to stay for ten minutes and so there was not enough time to detonate the bombs. Gersdorff had to make a mad dash for the toilet where he secretly detonated the bombs and his plan remained unknown to Hitler, who would have had him killed. Gersdorff spent much of the rest of his service supervising the construction of mass graves following a series of mass executions of Poles perpetrated by the NKVD, which was a clandestine Soviet police organization.

Penn State University

Penn State University is a part of the Big Ten East and has 24 campuses across the state of Pennsylvania. Not bad for a school that had small beginnings and only 64 undergraduate students. Penn State was one of the first land grant universities in America and was founded as an agricultural school. The main campus is situated in the Nittany Valley between Nittany Mountain and Muncy Mountain. The university sits on a limestone shelf, which lends itself to capturing energy and it is said that this may be one of the most haunted universities in America. Matt Swayne, author of America's Haunted Universities, joins us to share stories of spirits that continue here in the afterlife. Join us as we explore the history and hauntings of Penn State!


Pennsylvania State University has meager beginnings as a farmer's college. A man named James Irvin was a prominent ironmaster and agriculturalist in the 1800s. He entered politics and was elected twice as a representative to Congress for the 14th congressional district in Pennsylvania. He ran for governor of Pennsylvania in 1847, but did not win. Irvin was also a landowner and had several acres in Centre County. He donated 200 acres for the founding of the Farmer's High School, which was chartered in 1855 by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It was one of the nation's first colleges of agricultural science. The land was located at the junction of Penns, and Nittany Valleys near the geographical centre of the State. Irvin was passionate about mixing agriculture and science and had a certain vision for the new school.

Irvin wrote to the Executive Committee of the Pennsylvania State Agricultural Society that "If we would add dignity to Manual labor, if we would have it held in honor by the Community; we must associate it with Science, and if we would lessen the expense of acquiring scientific knowledge, so as to bring the Cost within the means of the farming Community, we must connect its acquisition with manual labor – These as I understand are leading objects of the Farmers High School of Pennsylvania; and if, as has been suggested such an institution properly organized, with the aid of the Surplus funds of your Society and a reasonable appropriation from the State, can afford to the young men of Pennsylvania, able and willing to work, (when work is required of all, and esteemed honorable) a scientific practical education, at an expense of less that Seventy five dollars per annum, it will be productive of benefits to the community, the full extent of which time only can develop, and future generations only tell."

Evan Pugh was the founding president. He planned a curriculum based on the scientific education he had received in Europe. He joined other leaders in supporting the passage of the Morrill Land-Grant Act through Congress in 1862. The act enabled states to sell federal land, invest the proceeds, and use the income to support colleges "where the leading object shall be, without excluding scientific and classical studies ... to teach agriculture and the mechanic arts [engineering] ... in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in all the pursuits and professions of life." The Farmers High School would then become Pennsylvania's land-grant institute and the name was changed to Agricultural College of Pennsylvania. In 1874, the college would become Pennsylvania State College. The mission of Penn State has been research, teaching and public service and you will hear Matt talk about that a little later.

In the 1880s, Penn State expanded the curriculum to include far more than just agricultural science. Liberal arts were introduced, along with engineering. This was championed by then president George W. Atherton. He and his wife will come up again later when we get into talking about hauntings. The early 1900s brought cooperative extension and outreach programs, which grew into other campuses branching out across the state. This would give students a better chance of attending the university during the Great Depression. In the 1950s, research brought advances in building insulation, dairy science, diesel engines and other specialized fields. It was also in the 50s when Penn State would officially become a university under President Milton S. Eisenhower, who was the brother President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1967, the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center was established as a college of medicine with a hospital in Hershey.

In 2000, Penn State merged with the Dickinson School of Law and it also graduated its first students enrolled in the World Campus. The university has had a huge influence in the state. It is the largest school in the state and has the second-largest impact on the state economy, generating an economic effect of over $17 billion on a budget of $2.5 billion. A main outreach of the university is philanthropy as well. Its Grand Destiny campaign raised over $1.3 billion. Unfortunately, Penn State has a black mark in its recent history because of an assistant football coach employed by the university named Jerry Sandusky. As a time stamp on this episode, just this last week in March of 2017, former Penn State President Graham B. Spanier was found guilty of child endangerment related to Sandusky's crimes. Those crimes were sexual abuse on boys that he had groomed thorough a charity he started called The Second Mile. The scandal broke in 2011, but Sandusky's crimes went on for decades. And several university officials were implicated for covering up or not reporting the crimes. As was the case with the former President.

Now we are joined by Matt Swayne who works at the university and has documented the hauntings going on there:

The hauntings according to Matt Swayne:

"Penn State's haunted heritage goes way back—the whole way back to one of the oldest buildings on campus, in fact. Old Botany, the quaint, red brick cottage tucked off of Pollack Road, looks innocent enough, but masks, if you believe some ghost-hunting buffs, a range of supernatural phenomena. In one legend, Frances Atherton, the wife of George Atherton, uses the windows in the top floor of Old Botany to keep an eye on her husband’s grave, which rests across the street from Old Botany. As students trudge along Pollock Road—one of the busiest walkways through campus—they cast an eye on the upper-floor windows, half-expecting to see the worried gaze of Frances looking back at them.

One of the most haunted spots on the University Park campus is Schwab Auditorium, a theatre that seats a little more than 900 people with enough room left over for at least two or three ghosts. People have reported spotting a few apparitions—including the ghost of a janitor—in the auditorium over the years, according to Rachel Moeser, president of the 40-member Paranormal Research Society, one of the nation's first university clubs formed to study the paranormal. Her team has scoured the theatre looking for evidence of the haunting and who's behind it. She says that some speculate that Charles Schwab—the industrialist, not the stockbroker—is haunting the auditorium. A former Penn State trustee who funded the construction of the auditorium, Schwab loved supporting the arts and going to the theatre so much that he has stuck around long after his lifetime passes expired, or so the theory goes. The theatre isn’t haunted only by industrialist-sized theatre goers, though, according to Moeser. "I think Schwab [Auditorium] is active," says Moeser. "There seems to be the ghost of a janitor, and we think there is a female spirit in the theatre." Over the years, students, staff, and faculty claim to have heard strange noises echoing from the building’s upper floors. They say they hear footsteps, feel scratches, and see objects moving across the floor. When someone goes upstairs to check, there is no sign of a presence—at least a human presence. Because of the confusion about exactly who—or what—is doing the haunting in Schwab, students gave the auditorium’s paranormal presence a generic nickname, “Schwaboo.”

While ghost stories about university presidents, founders, and donors haunting the halls of campus buildings are not unique in higher education ghost-lore, Penn State has a spirit that separates it from the rest of its collegiate competition—the ghost of a mule.
 Born in 1855, the same year as Penn State’s traditionally observed founding, Old Coaly traveled from his native Kentucky to, among many other duties-as-assigned, labor tirelessly at lugging limestone blocks from a quarry at the corner of what is now the southeast corner of the Old Main lawn to the construction site of the original Old Main.The mule quickly became a favorite of the students at the Farm School—which was what most people called the University at the time—and almost became the school’s mascot. It’s true that, but for a twist here or there in campus history, we may be watching the Nittany Mule do pushups at Beaver Stadium during home football games. Old Coaly was so loved and appreciated by the entire University community that his bones were preserved once he shuffled off to the great pasture in the sky on New Year’s Day of 1893. But he wasn’t quite ready to retire. It seemed every place where Old Coaly’s bones were displayed—in Watts Hall, for example—ghost stories would follow. Students claimed to hear, usually during the dead of night, the sound of plodding hooves thudding down dark, empty halls and the occasional braying of a mule echoing through the silence. Most people suspected a prankster was behind the "paranor-mule" phenomenon. The spirit of Old Coaly, by the way, seems pretty content now in his current resting spot in the HUB-Robeson Center. At least, no one has reported seeing the ghost of a mule, or heard the rumble of hooves in the HUB so far."

Are there spirits wandering around Penn State, that include a donkey? Is Pennsylvania State University haunted? That is for you to decide.

HGB Ep. 186 - The Life and Afterlife of Patsy Cline

 
Moment in Oddity - Court of Mysteries
(Suggested by: Sasha Wolfe)

There was an abandoned home in Santa Cruz, California known as the "Court of Mysteries." It was built by Kenneth Kitchen and his brother Raymond. Kenneth was a bricklayer and Raymond was a mason and they built many homes together in the area. Kenneth was inspired by mysticism and occult spiritualism and he decided that he wanted to build himself a home on a goat farm he owned. He wanted to model it after a Hindu temple. He hauled all the bricks himself in his car. He built the home at night, which was peculiar. When it was finished, it had two towers with an archway in the front that was called the “Gate of Prophesy.” The gate arch has four square-tapered minarets that had windows bearing opaque, onyx- grained glass, that were picturesque when lit. What was really strange was the mysterious triangular relief atop the arch. It resembled an all-seeing-eye and reportedly is a celestial chart that portends a celestial alignment between the plaque and temple's chimney, signaling an apocalypse before the "Age of Peace." Everything was covered in abalone mosaics. The well house was made like a crypt and had four minarets. These odd accoutrements have awed craftsmen with the curving brickwork and bulbous granite domes. There was also a peculiar device in the front yard that was called a Submarine Stopping Machine. Apparently, it worked and caused issues for the US Navy during World War II. Kenneth moved out and just disappeared in 1957. For years, it was a place for teenagers to hang out and vandalize. Today, it is privately owned and under restoration to its former temple inspiration and that certainly is odd!

This Month in History - The Day the Music Died

In the month of February, in 1959, American rock stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson were killed in a plane crash. That day came to be known as "The Day the Music Died." Buddy Holly and his band the Crickets were headlining the Winter Dance Party Tour that included Valens and the Big Bopper. They had been traveling from city to city by bus, but they started having mechanical issues with the bus. Holly decided to charter a plane to fly his band to the next stop in Moorehead, Minnesota. There were not enough seats for everybody. The Big Bopper pleaded with Waylon Jennings, who was a member of Holly's band at that time, to give up his seat because the Big Bopper had the flu and was not feeling well. The last seat went to Richie Valens when he won a coin toss. The group boarded the Beechcraft Bonanza and took off from the airport in Mason City. A few minutes later, it crashed in Iowa. Investigators blamed the crash on pilot error and the snow and ice that had gathered on the wings. The Big Bopper was only 28 and had his hit "Chantilly Lace" in the Top 10. Holly was 22 and was becoming a major star with hits like “Peggy Sue,” “Oh, Boy!,” “Maybe Baby” and “Early in the Morning.” Valens was a mere 17 when he died in the crash and was just emerging onto the scene with his hits “Come On, Let’s Go,” “Donna” and “La Bamba.”

The Life and Afterlife of Patsy Cline

Patsy Cline grew to become one of country music's biggest stars and although she died young at the age of thirty, her influence has continued to our present day. She had a cowgirl image, but she was one of the first country stars to cross over to the pop charts. She also paved the way for women to be headliners at shows and she became the first female solo performer inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. She survived two horrible car accidents, but the third crash she would be involved in aboard a plane would finally take her life. Her spirit reputedly has continued on in the afterlife. From the field where she died to some of the music venues she performed at, the spirit of Cline has been making appearances. We are joined by author Matt Swayne to share the life and afterlife of Patsy Cline!

Virginia Patterson Hensley was born in Winchester, Virginia on September 8, 1932 to Samuel and Hilda Hensley. Samuel was forty-one when he married 16-year-old Hilda and he would abandon the family in 1947 when Ginny, which is what the family called Patsy, was only fifteen. Ginny started playing the piano when she was only eight and she was largely self taught. A few years later she would discover her voice and really enjoyed singing. Rheumatic fever brought a throat infection when she was thirteen and she claimed that after she recovered, she had a booming voice like Kate Smith. At sixteen, she dropped out of school, so she could work to help support the family. She had a younger brother and sister. Ginny worked at a poultry plant and as a soda jerk. Disc jockey Jimmy McCoy let Ginny sing on his local radio show at WINC. She also started singing at local clubs.

Bill Peer was a bandleader and he became Ginny's manager. She started performing with his group and he suggested that she change her name. He thought Patsy suited her better and he got this from her middle name Patterson. She began performing as Patsy Hensley in 1952. She met contractor Gerald Cline around this time and by 1953, the couple was married. And Patsy Cline would be the name that would stick for this legend. In 1954, Bill Peer shopped Cline to Four Star Records and got her a recording contract. A part of the contract restricted Cline to performing only songs written by Four Star Records song writers. Cline accepted the contract because she thought it was her only opportunity, but she regretted that decision later as she was not thrilled with the material provided to her for performing. She was free to perform what she wanted at the Grand Ole Opry and that helped her to feel a little less stifled.

These early songs did not receive much attention. Cline was afraid to go beyond the twang of country, but Owen Bradley, who was a producer at Decca Records approached Cline and said her vocal range suited pop perfectly and she should consider singing torch songs. Cline declined to go that route at the time. While her music career was hitting a wall, her marriage to Gerald was doing the same. Gerald wanted Cline to be the little housewife, but she wanted to continue to pursue her music career. They divorced on July 4, 1957. Her career then began its upward climb as more people heard her iconic vocal range. She remarried to Charles Dick in September of 1957, a few short months after her divorce. Cline would call him the love of her life. They met at an Armory dance where she was performing. Cline was still married at the time, but that wasn't her only relationship entanglement. Her manager Bill Peer was her on again/off again lover. Charles and Patsy started an affair regardless.

Arthur Godfrey hosted a program on CBS-TV called Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts. Cline auditioned to be on the show and she appeared in 1957. She wanted to sing "A Poor Man's Roses (Or a Rich Man's Gold), but the producers wanted her to sing a song written by Donn Hecht and Alan Block. It was called "Walkin' After Midnight." The producers also insisted that she wear a cocktail dress rather then one of her cowgirl get-ups. She was an absolute hit. Godfrey used to have this meter that measured applause and it went nuts while she sang. The song went on to rise up the country and pop charts and Cline was a star. In 1958, Patsy gave birth to a daughter named Julie. Reputedly, Charles started beating on Patsy and they had a tumultuous relationship. Patsy gave birth to a son in 1961.

Randy Hughes was a session guitarist and he became Patsy's new manager at this time. Decca Records offered her a contract and as you will recall, one of its producers wanted Patsy to use her voice for pop torch songs. This was really the opportunity Patsy had been looking for: freedom to record what she wanted. She joined the cast of the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee and started releasing her biggest hits with "I Fall to Pieces" hitting number one on the country charts in 1961. That song was a pop crossover as well and hit 12 on the pop chart. It was written by Hank Cochran and Harlan Howard. Willie Nelson wrote "Crazy" and it was an instant hit for Cline. She released it in 1961 as well and it became her signature song.

That same year, Cline survived a traumatic car crash in which she was thrown through the windshield of the car in which she was riding. Patsy had a huge gash in her forehead that would leave her with a permanent scar. She also had a dislocated hip and had to spend a month in the hospital. She rededicated her life to Christ. In 1962, things got even bigger for Cline. She recorded "She's Got You" and it hit number one also on the country charts. George Jones, Johnny Cash, June Carter and Loretta Lynn all performed with Patsy. As Matt shares, Cline mentored Loretta Lynn. She not only helped female artists out, she loved hanging with the boys and she could hold her own. Singer George Riddle said of her, "It wasn't unusual for her to sit down and have a beer and tell a joke, and she'd never be offended at the guys' jokes either, because most of the time she'd tell a joke dirtier than you! Patsy was full of life". She also told concert promoters, "No dough, no show" and made them pay her before she performed.

Cline seemed to know that her death was imminent. After recording her fourth and what would be her final album, Patsy held up her first album and then gestured at the recording booth and said, "Well, here it is...the first and the last." A month later, March 3, 1963, she was performing at a benefit at the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall in Kansas City. The benefit was to raise money for the family of a disc jockey named "Cactus" Jack Call. Ironically, he had died in an automobile crash. Patsy gave three performances even though she was ill with the flu. Her final song was "I'll Sail My Ship Alone".

Cline wanted to fly out the next day, but the thick fog in the area grounded all planes. Some friends asked Cline to ride home with them in their car, but she refused. She finally was able to fly out on March 5th and she did so on a Piper PA-24 Comanche plane, aircraft registration number N-7000P. The plane took off at 6:07pm. Winds were high and the pilot was not trained in instrument flying. The airfield manager suggested that the plane not leave. The pilot tried to use visual flight rules (VFR), but that didn't work because of the driving rain. The plane went down and Cline's stopped watch was found with the time of 6:20pm, so many believe that is when the plane crashed. It had been in the air less than 15 minutes. It went down in a forest and everyone on board was killed instantly. A man named Roger Miller searched for the wreckage in the morning. He said, "As fast as I could, I ran through the woods screaming their names -- through the brush and the trees -- and I came up over this little rise, oh, my God, there they were. It was ghastly. The plane had crashed nose down". Artifacts from the crash that are now at The Country Music Hall of Fame include Cline's studded belt, Cline's wristwatch, Confederate flag cigarette lighter and three pairs of gold lamé slippers.

Cline is buried at Shenandoah Memorial Park in her hometown of Winchester, Virginia. Her grave is marked with a bronze plaque, which reads: "Virginia H. (Patsy) Cline 'Death Cannot Kill What Never Dies: Love'". Dottie West and Loretta Lynn erected a bell tower at the cemetery in her memory. It plays hymns daily at 6:00 p.m., the hour of her death. Another memorial marks the exact place off Fire Tower Road in Fatty Bottom, Tennessee, where the plane crashed in the still-remote forest. That was not the end for Patsy though. Her legend continues, but so does her spirit in the afterlife. Matt Swayne shared the many hauntings and locations that have reports of Cline's ghost.

Is Patsy Cline's ghost still visiting some of her favorite places? That is for you to decide!

Show Notes:
Check out Matt Swayne here:  http://www.mattswayne.com/