This is the first of several cassettes found in the collection on the hauntings that took place in Sextonville, Wisconsin. The recording was produced Walter and Mary Jo Uphoff, two parapsychologists who not only have conducted investigations into these hauntings but have been featured in other materials found in the collection. The front of this cassette is labeled “Side 1—3/2/80; Sextonville Haunting.” The cassette’s case had a piece of paper included with it, which provides some context behind the tape:
Uphoff unedited recording
March 2, 1980 Sextonville, Wisconsin“Nothing happened until we opened up the attic..” (Pat M)
group discussion with Catholic family at center of a haunted house/poltergeist experience in rural Wisconsin
featuring (primarily) first-hand account by young mother of two (Pat M) giving, first, history of the house; local history; recollections of the activity (table-shaking, cups falling from the table, etc); anecdotes of response (disbelief, fear — “I prayed“); speculation/theories (ghost of a lost-little-girl, perhaps? – the same as her young son (Mark)’s apparitional playmate?).
“Julie”, young next-door-neighbor, drops by and (briefly) recalls events — as does “Becky”, local librarian-historian
Occasional other voices are heard (unidentified) (notably, Pat’s grandmother? bemoaning seeming indifference by local clergy – leading to discussion of exorcisms, etc) – and, always sympathetic and open-minded, and trying to clarify things visiting investigators Walter and Mary Jo Uphoff
Below is a transcript of the audio included on this site. Content note: This material contains discussions of suicide.
[Pat’s Grandmother(?)] Then they put the house up for sale, and she bought it.
[Pat M] Right. Now there is some kind of circumstance too, like, with… I don’t know if this has anything to do with it, but I lived in, and so did the Reinharts, in the red big building.
[Pat’s Grandmother(?)] The one on the corner?
[Pat M] Mhmm.
[Pat’s Grandmother(?)] There. That’s… strange.
[Pat M] When Marquie-
[Walter Uphoff] That house over there?
[Pat’s Grandmother(?)] Yeah.
[Pat M] Right in that corner. Yeah. Right there. I had lived there before I had bought the house, and so did the Reinharts. Now there’s- I don’t know. By the post office is where the kids used to be let off school all the time.
Now that house was left vacant for the longest- the big brick house- was left vacant for the longest time. And as far as stories go… I don’t know if it’s true or not, but there was a man that was supposed to have hung himself in the house.
[Pat’s Grandmother(?)] But no one was living in there.
[Pat M] Okay. It was a vacant building at the time. Now before I had moved into this house, Marky had, like, this experience. He was in this front bedroom. My youngest boy.
[Pat’s Grandmother(?)] The little boy that was here.
[Pat M] Yeah. And you know how kids talk themselves? And most of the time, they’re looking at something at the at the same time. But he was looking right at the wall.
And I said, “Marky, who are you talking to?” And he said, “the little girl.” And I said, “what little girl? He said, “my friend.” And I says- I’m looking. “Okay?” [laughs] So I just went back and washed the dishes. You know? You think one of the kids got imagination. Right? Okay.
[Walter Uphoff] It may not be.
[Pat’s Grandmother(?)] Well, now we don’t think it was so much imagination.
[Pat M] Well, then I turned around and, you know, maybe a couple weeks later, I don’t remember. He came back, and he was talking, saying his friend said this to him and his friend said that to him. I said, yeah. Okay. You know, that’s nice.
So one day, I was sitting on the bed in his room, and he was talking to his friend. And I’m just kinda watching him, you know, thinking what an imagination of a child here. And I says, “what does she look like?” And he says, “well, she’s got dark, long hair like you, mommy, and she got a white dress with flowers. A long white dress with flowers.” And I says, well, okay, you know? That’s what you want your friend to look like well that’s fine.
Well, in the all of a sudden, you know, I don’t remember when it was, but I never put the pieces together until I came across this here situation if it could be the same little girl. Because he turned around, and then all of a sudden, my kid would be flown kind of out of the bed. And he’d look back up at the bed and say, “cut it out!” And I’m like, okay. You know? And I says, “who are you talking to?” “My little friend up here on my bed.” You know?
And I think- I don’t remember what her name was. But he had mentioned the name. I had asked him yesterday who the name was. He doesn’t remember now. Because that was over a year ago.
[Walter Uphoff] Yeah.
[Pat M] And, but there was a couple situations, you know, where he’d be knocked out of his bed.
[Walter Uphoff] That’s even more interesting and more important or significant rather than [incomprehensible]
[Pat M] And, you know okay. Like, they said that there was a gentleman that hung himself in that basement. And then I’m thinking if that was a vacant building, they did get let off of the post office. Could this little girl have walked-
[crosstalk]
[Pat’s Grandmother(?)] Maybe he did to the building. Maybe he was afraid, you know, disposed of or somehow. He was afraid he was going to be found out and hung himself.
[Walter Uphoff] Put her in dug her in and then committed suicide?
[Pat’s Grandmother(?)] Is it a possibility?
[Pat M] I don’t know.
[Pat’s Grandmother(?)] We don’t know.
[Pat M] The only thing that I’ve gotten dug up. You know?
[Walter Uphoff] Checking it. That’s subjective(?).
[Pat’s Grandmother(?)] If, yeah. On the girl’s name, but I don’t know about, you know, about the name. After that.
[Mary Jo Uphoff] Well, I’m just testing this is off the top of my head, but I would guess- My feeling is that there are it’s more than one around here.
[Pat’s Grandmother(?)] That’s what your husband mentioned. It’s not and you know, when here-
[Mary Jo Uphoff] The little girl was quite harmless.
[Pat’s Grandmother(?)] I’m sure.
[Pat M] As he just said, I don’t think why she would do that. Because if she had been in that house, she was just more or less playing games with Mark.
[crosstalk]
[Pat M] When all this started happening, we’re in the house, and Joey decided he was gonna go upstairs to investigate. Mark, he didn’t care. He didn’t have he didn’t have, like, the rest of the bed that everybody else had. You know? So if it was a little girl, he wasn’t afraid of her.
[Mary Jo Uphoff] The little girl isn’t showing up everywhere, right?
[Pat’s Grandmother(?)] Not at my house, no.
[Pat M] No. I was living there.
[Pat’s Grandmother(?)] She was renting-
[Pat M] The same house that Reinhart said.
[Walter Uphoff] Before you bought?
[Pat M] Right. Yeah. Well, Reinhart’s were in that house too. Right. Yeah.
They they lived there somewhat one time too. Yeah.
[Walter Uphoff] Does anybody know the name of the man that hung himself?
[Pat M] See, I couldn’t. See, around here, a lot of things and…
[Pat’s Grandmother(?)] Lot of things happening but people- They don’t wanna talk about it.
[Mary Jo Uphoff] Oh, they either talk about a lot or they won’t talk about it at all.
[Pat’s Grandmother(?)] Right.
[Pat M] Well, that’s just it. If something did happen…
[Walter Uphoff] They’ll tell you either too much or too little. [laughs]
[Pat’s Grandmother(?)] Yeah.
[Walter Uphoff] Get that involved then really-
[Pat’s Grandmother(?)] Well, you know, the first thumping that she got now, she called him over. He lives across the street that way, kitty corner. She lives kitty corner this way from me. We’re right here.
[Walter Uphoff] And you heard the thumping outside your house?
[Pat’s Grandmother(?)] Yeah. He got it up. When she came over that night after the kitchen table was acting up, well, then he said she she came here about quarter to 12 with the kids and we got them to bed and we had some tea and she told me what had happened. 12 o’clock, starts thumping at his house on the outside of his house until 4 o’clock in the morning!
[Mary Jo Uphoff] You said today, I think. What happened to the kitchen table?
[Pat M] Well, that that night when I came over here, now-
[Walter Uphoff] Cups [incomprehensible]
[Pat M] Right. Okay. I more or less figured, you know okay. I more or less figured when [???] had called over his wife’s house and said, “well, they jacked up the house pretty good.” So that could be what the noise is. And I thought, sounds good to me. You know? It really did.
[Walter Uphoff] Because you said, that’s a safe explanation.
[Pat M] Yeah! Well, you know, I more or less really did in my head think, well, that’s what it was.
[Mary Jo Uphoff] Of course.
“SEXTONVILLE HAUNTING 1,” Cassette Tape, March 2, 1980, Box 14, Eileen J. Garrett Parapsychology Foundation Collection, Collection 331, Special Collections, University of Maryland Baltimore County (Baltimore, MD).