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The Watseka Wonder · Boozy Banter with Friends

• 0:08
  Leyla Zmeskal: Hello and welcome to boozy better with friends.
• 0:12
  Trisha Smith: Join us this week as we explore the supernatural,
• 0:16
  Leyla Zmeskal: With the little sass,
• 0:17
  Trisha Smith: The unexplained,
• 0:19
  Leyla Zmeskal: And a side of snark,
• 0:20
  Trisha Smith: And tales of other worldly shenanigans,
• 0:23
  Leyla Zmeskal: Grab your favorite spirit and join me, Leyla
• 0:26
  Trisha Smith: And me, Trisha, and meet us on the other side.
• 0:37
  Leyla Zmeskal: Hello,
• 0:40
  Trisha Smith: Hey, welcome back.
• 0:43
  Leyla Zmeskal: Thank you.
• 0:43
  Leyla Zmeskal: Welcome back to you. Yeah, it seems like it's been forever since we've done this.
• 0:49
  Trisha Smith: Well, it's like a whole new year.
• 0:52
  Leyla Zmeskal: Oh, maybe that's what a whole new
• 1:00
  Trisha Smith: The last time we got together was lunch. That's true. isn't like the oldest joke in the book? The next year?
• 1:14
  Leyla Zmeskal: See you since last year. Oh,
• 1:18
  Trisha Smith: My gosh. So yeah, the days leading up to the new year, every time you go to the store, people would say like, oh, we'll see you back next year. And by the 31st I was ready to punch somebody in the face. said that to me. People say that. Were that last couple days. Every store I went into people were saying that then my kids started saying it to me because they knew it was getting on my nerves. I'm like, Y'all just better shut it back.
• 1:53
  Leyla Zmeskal: Leave it to your kid. I'm so proud of them.
• 1:59
  Trisha Smith: Yeah, I'm sure I'm sure you are.
• 2:04
  Leyla Zmeskal: Because I was thinking of Valerie yesterday, because I came across this question. I was like someone said Do you know the difference between an enzyme and a hormone?
• 2:17
  Trisha Smith: Oh, no, I don't but yeah. You can't wait. What did you
• 2:29
  Leyla Zmeskal: You can't hear it enzyme.
• 2:32
  Trisha Smith: But you can hear it shut up.
• 2:35
  Leyla Zmeskal: I think you're gonna see what
• 2:43
  Trisha Smith: I'm sure everybody can figure it out themselves.
• 2:47
  Trisha Smith: That was a good
• 2:51
  Leyla Zmeskal: You need to tell that to
• 2:53
  Trisha Smith: Bala. And now everybody's saying hormone in their heads. You can't hear hormone Oh, my goodness. I got you're being serious. Like usual. Oh, no.
• 3:14
  Leyla Zmeskal: No, not at all.
• 3:14
  Leyla Zmeskal: You can count on that.
• 3:17
  Trisha Smith: Great. So today for drinks. I made a good one. I made us a classic Manhattan.
• 3:27
  Leyla Zmeskal: Doesn't love a classic Manhattan
• 3:30
  Trisha Smith: Seriously. And then when we went we went to a distillery where they told us that most Manhattan's and old fashions are made with rye bourbon. And because the spices in it makes it taste super yummy. And they're not wrong.
• 3:49
  Leyla Zmeskal: No, this is really good. And I'm traditionally not like a big right person but right I will say that a good ride. Yeah, to find a good rap
• 4:00
  Trisha Smith: Right? For this one. I just I use bullet bourbon, bro. Bullet right and still quite stiff. So my super simple recipe will be up on our Instagram. So look for that and try it out because it's delish.
• 4:15
  Trisha Smith: And like I said, it's the secrets in the lie. That secret
• 4:21
  Leyla Zmeskal: Is in the belly.
• 4:21
  Leyla Zmeskal: How do you watch anything?
• 4:26
  Trisha Smith: No, I'm really not. I caught up on the Witcher.
• 4:29
  Leyla Zmeskal: Did you? Yeah, I kind of fell behind on the Witcher but I started watching Cobra Kai.
• 4:37
  Trisha Smith: I started watching that during the year when we were all locked down and I got through I didn't quite get through the first season. It was so cheesy Sochi haze it is. Well I did make it to the second seasons that I made it to the second season, but I didn't start it. But every person I know is raving about the fourth season so we're
• 5:03
  Leyla Zmeskal: Not there yet.
• 5:03
  Leyla Zmeskal: I'm in the third season, man.
• 5:07
  Leyla Zmeskal: It's got so many 80s references and I just love that. Like all the music like Woody Schneider I'm like, It's fucking he's coming out with a zebra shirt on. Oh my god, man, this is good stuff. I know in season four, though, they have an exodus reference. Oh, which I am really looking forward to. So I can't wait to get to
• 5:35
  Trisha Smith: Just binge watching to get to season four.
• 5:38
  Leyla Zmeskal: So I can see like, you know, the Exodus reference. Yeah, Exodus if you don't know it's a band. It's been around for a while. Gary holds the guitar player. He's pretty cool suck for Slayer for a little bit. So anyway.
• 5:56
  Trisha Smith: That was her, you know, useless knowledge for the day just out my useless music knowledge useful to you useless to me. Because like, I don't know what you're saying.
• 6:10
  Leyla Zmeskal: Talking Greek. So as soon as as soon as I'm done with that, I'll get backed up on I feel like I needed to watch like season one of The Witcher again, because it was so long. I did I started watching season two that I'm like, I don't remember a lot. I know. So I kind of put it off to the backburner. So I can watch season one. Yeah, we and then go Ryan. So we started
• 6:33
  Trisha Smith: Watching season two and realize the same thing and we had to go, we had to stop it and start all over again. Let me tell you was like watching it for the first time. And it was just so enjoyable. And then I was bummed that I was starting season two, because that means meant that as soon as that was over, I had nothing to watch. So
• 6:54
  Leyla Zmeskal: I really like the Witcher that is so yeah, yeah, good scenery right there. Right?
• 7:00
  Leyla Zmeskal: And very,
• 7:04
  Trisha Smith: Very easy to watch, for sure. Sometimes I'm watching and then I have to pause and say, What happened again? Why did he just say, cuz?
• 7:16
  Trisha Smith: I'm not really listening. But you know. So I am reading a book called, I don't know what it's called. I already forgot the title because it was so good that I'm on to Book Three. It started with Oh, yeah, they're just the quick, easy that same, you know, easy read, but the author is Eva, polar. And the first book in the series is called Secrets of the Greek revival. Oh, yeah. And it's these three friends and they buy this old house to flip it and find out that it's haunted. Oh, that's kind of it's cool. It's cute, because it talks about your architecture. And, and then, you know, of course, the haunting. And then these three friends that are, you know, our age, and they'll have lives, but now they're in that part of their life where they're like, I need something else, you know, I need something to keep me busy, because I am bored. And so they do this. And so each house is a new book. And they flip, okay, so they flip this house and they move on. They move on to another house. And then that's a new book, but they're not standalones. Like each book references something in the book before, like they find the next house because of the house before them or because of something that happened before them. So it's really kind of cool. And it got me super interested in haunted houses. So I wanted to find a story for this week about a haunted house.
• 8:55
  Trisha Smith: Oh, yeah. Oh, no. And there are tons of them out there. And I'm like, You know what, I think I found a good one. And I started looking into it. And it's so not but the story.
• 9:12
  Leyla Zmeskal: So good. I can't
• 9:18
  Trisha Smith: Remember how we were talking about urban legends and things like that, how like stories spread and that's kind of that's kind of what happened with this. So it's got a reputation for being haunted, but in reality, it's probably not haunted. Okay. Have you ever heard of the Watseka Wonder?
• 9:39
  Leyla Zmeskal: No.
• 9:40
  Trisha Smith: Okay. I hadn't either. The Watseka Wonder References The first documented case of spirit possession in the United States. Oh, really? Yeah.
• 9:50
  Trisha Smith: I did not know that. There actually was like a list somewhere, you know, and this was number One but evidently it is. So the story begins in 1878, in the small town of what Sica, Illinois, which is 90 miles south of Chicago. So this story about this possession gained nationwide attention. And while many versions of the story have been told and retold over the years, I tried to narrow it down to just what was back documented. But there's still quite a bit of fiction. The beginning of the story starts with a young girl named learn See, Venom Leard see venom. I know right? It's such an odd name, but
• 10:46
  Leyla Zmeskal: Venom like is in snake venom, ah,
• 10:49
  Trisha Smith: V A N U. M, but yeah, pronounced the same way.
• 10:53
  Trisha Smith: So in 1878, when she was just 13 years old, she suddenly began to feel sick, and start behaving strangely telling her mother she couldn't sleep each night she would wake up to someone calling her name, even though no one was
• 11:10
  Leyla Zmeskal: There. Oh, that's a little strange. Yeah, happen.
• 11:14
  Leyla Zmeskal: Sounds like somebody I know.
• 11:16
  Trisha Smith: It's to me, I don't know what's going on here.
• 11:20
  Trisha Smith: A little earlier. She was also experiencing severe stomach pains that were soon accompany by seizures and spells that caused her to lose consciousness for hours and even days at a time. Oh, wow. That's weird, right? And during these spells, She claimed she could see and communicate with spirits learn See, was examined by a number of doctors. And since nothing physic was wrong with her, it was suggested she'd be sent away to an insane asylum horse and you know, this is 1878. So you know, when they say insane asylum, whether that mean certain death place? Yeah, right. Right. With rumors spreading throughout their community. Everyone had their own opinions, and while many agreed that she just needed to be locked up. Others believed the family needed to find an expert who could deal with the spirits that were haunting their daughter. And one of these people was a man named a Seraph, a seraphs daughter Mary had suffered from the same symptoms, as Lauren see more than a decade prior. Mary's trances began when she was a baby, like how do you know if, like, yeah, babies in a trance? I don't know. Maybe they mean like when she was one or something. But it got worse as she got older, and doctors could never find a reason for them.
• 12:47
  Trisha Smith: When she was old enough to speak, Mary told her parents the trances allowed her to speak to spirits. And as a teenager, she gained the ability to read any book blindfolded. That's a little weird, right? It was during this time that she would also have hours long fits, that took several men to hold her down. She also began cutting herself trying to bleed off a pressure she claimed to feel in her head. Oh, yeah. So the hail right. And still doctors can't find anything, you know, medically wrong with her. So she also began speaking in different languages, she had no way of knowing. Unable to find a cure for her symptoms, her family and doctors decided she would be better off at an insane asylum in Peoria for a water treatment of Good lord. I don't even know what that is, but it can't be good. Is that the one where they like put you in the cold bath and then put you in the hot bath? Or maybe? I don't know.
• 13:53
  Trisha Smith: But after sending her there, she died in 1865 at the age of 19 Shocking riots. I know is that terrible? I mean, I just feel like if you feel like your only choice is to send your child or a family member to an insane asylum in the 1800s you basically have just written them off.
• 14:18
  Leyla Zmeskal: Oh, absolutely.
• 14:18
  Leyla Zmeskal: You know, because nothing's good is gonna come out by going to an insane asylum. Right in that time period. Exactly. Especially and coupled with you being that young. There's nothing good gonna happen. Exactly. You could just say, We're gonna die, right? We're gonna die. Me and my voices in my head are good.
• 14:43
  Trisha Smith: After after his daughter's death, I can't even I can't even go on. After his daughter's death, a Seraph became a devout believer of spiritual ism, and began to feel that marriage wasn't insane, but a miss understood gifted medium.
• 15:05
  Trisha Smith: So when he visited the Venom's, he convinced them to reach out to renowned spiritualist Dr. E Winchester Stevens to see if he could help Lauren see, during visits with Dr. Stevens learns to introduce herself as other people, including an elderly German woman named Katrina and a little boy, but then she entered a trance and became possessed by a young woman who claimed to be able to help her and claim she would inhabit her body until her soul was healed.
• 15:39
  Leyla Zmeskal: Okay, what's wrong with her soul?
• 15:41
  Trisha Smith: I don't know, I guess. Mine. When Lauren see regained consciousness, she seemed different. And when Dr.
• 15:57
  Trisha Smith: Stevens asked her who she was, she introduced herself as Mary Roth. Oh, that's interesting, and she asked when she could go home. So Mary Roth was the girl who died at age 19 and 12 years prior. So news of this possession spreads through the town and the ROVs go to visit the Venom's to see what's going on. And as soon as she sees them, Lauren C, or Mary frantically demands to go home with them seeing the stress this is causing the venom family, the ROVs agree to allow Lauren C to return home with them. Okay, I know like they're just like, okay, she can come home with us because she's demanding she get to go home. Because evidently, she doesn't remember her life as Lauren see Venom at this point.
• 16:55
  Trisha Smith: She doesn't recognize her parents. She doesn't recognize the people around her. She doesn't remember any thing about being learned see venom, okay.
• 17:07
  Trisha Smith: So they take her home. And for the next five months, she lives her life as Mary Roth. She recognizes people, Mary knew, she identifies things that Mary owned. Her father pulled out a velvet headband that she used to wear when she was younger. And she said that's what I wore when my hair was short. And, and it was and she knew the details of when they lived in Texas before moving to Watseka and even new family secrets that learned C couldn't have known. Oh, that's a little odd, right? She knew all the people that Mary knew anybody that Mary knew it when she was younger, she knew who they were and remembered family members, friends, you know, as if it was really her. Then one day Mary announced that Lawrence's heeled soul would soon be returning to her body in two weeks. And as promised, Lawrence he served soon returned to her body and her life as a normal happy and healthy woman without any resurgence and strange behavior. So is like just said one day okay, all right, she's healed I'm out. And that's
• 18:29
  Leyla Zmeskal: That's to her souls grown back though.
• 18:33
  Leyla Zmeskal: Exactly.
• 18:34
  Trisha Smith: So Dr. C. Stevens would claim Mary inhabited Lawrence yet other times in her life even though there was no proof of it. But that was his claim because he wrote a book about it and but he said they were during times that would have caused Lauren see difficulty such as during childbirth which resulted in painless Labor's for Lauren.
• 18:57
  Trisha Smith: See, she had 11 children what the white right. So if Mary's coming into her body while she's in labor, no wonder she's like, one more. So
• 19:11
  Leyla Zmeskal: By that time, they're just falling right out, aren't they? Like, oh shit, could you pick that up? To Mother's Day?
• 19:25
  Trisha Smith: She Yeah, loving kids. She died at the age of 88 in 1952 in Los Angeles, California. So she looked really long life and from all you know, facts I could find about her. It was a good life, you know, with her husband in 11 children.
• 19:43
  Trisha Smith: Yeah, this Dr. Stevens wrote a book about learnz. He called the Watseka wonder a startling and instructive chapter in the history of spiritualism, and her story became one of the best documented paranormal events in American history. Story. Wow, right? It's a little strange it is it is because, you know, she said she could talk to spirits, but to have one particular spirit inhabit her body, not for its own purposes like Mary Roth wasn't like I want my life back.
• 20:17
  Trisha Smith: I'm going to live in her body.
• 20:21
  Trisha Smith: She said she did it to help her, which she evidently did, because she never was inhabited by any other spirits is just
• 20:29
  Leyla Zmeskal: So weird to me.
• 20:29
  Leyla Zmeskal: Like, how can somebody? I don't know, I just don't understand it, I guess I know.
• 20:35
  Trisha Smith: And it's kind of a bummer, because this, this is exactly one of those topics that Diane would have been all over.
• 20:43
  Trisha Smith: So I'm gonna wait for her feedback when she listens. So she can tell me what happened.
• 20:47
  Trisha Smith: Because it wasn't like a past life regression. It was just, she was helping her.
• 20:56
  Leyla Zmeskal: And Mary knew that she was dead. She just like inhabiting this body just to kind of help out
• 21:05
  Trisha Smith: Another person that nobody could understand.
• 21:08
  Trisha Smith: Maybe she realized, you know, nobody could help me because they didn't know. So I'm going to try and help her so because I mean, they are getting ready to send her to an asylum and certain death. Right, right. So this story was also the subject of a documentary style movie from 2000 2009 called the possess and is the subject of numerous books. I looked for the movie, I couldn't find it. It might be on YouTube, but it's not like on Amazon or Netflix or anything like that. But one of the people that they consulted or interviewed for the movie, wrote a book called The Watseka wonder and his name is Troy Taylor. And I got quite a bit of information from his book. He had a lot of information. So I'm not surprised that they, you know, consulted with him or interviewed him for their their movie, but I wasn't able to watch it. So I have no idea what it's about. It says it's a documentary style, and I couldn't find like actors listed it just listed like the director and and things like that. So I don't know. Okay, so here's how I found out about it being supposedly haunted, a haunted story. It's been on various paranormal shows because of the Roth house. It's supposedly haunted, which I am like, you know, I don't understand why it would be haunted, you know, but according to a couple shows on the Travel Channel, you can figure them out from there. It's it's so according to one show, the hauntings have turned dark and aggressive throughout the last 100 years, telling investigators to get out. But the ROVs only own the home until 1912. And then a judge who owned it, who was kind of shady, he was like a politician, Judge, and he did some stuff and he had to leave town and so he ended up leaving the house to a stepdaughter, who was named Katherine Clifton. And she was a world traveler, like an AV aviation, AV. Aviatrix, Amy, is that what's called
• 23:23
  Leyla Zmeskal: Avi-a-tricks.
• 23:23
  Leyla Zmeskal: That's all it aviation 786
• 23:34
  Trisha Smith: Know what you call a female part, like, you know, Amelia Earhart, she's one of aviator Yeah, aviator, but I thought they had like a special word.
• 23:45
  Leyla Zmeskal: I like Avi-a- tricks.
• 23:48
  Trisha Smith: Well, there wasn't a word it is now
• 23:51
  Leyla Zmeskal: Avi-a-tricks.
• 23:51
  Leyla Zmeskal: What do you do for a living? I'm a Navy tricks. Yeah, people are gonna look at you like what you know, and tricks.
• 24:05
  Trisha Smith: She ended up leaving it to Ivan and Verna looker.
• 24:10
  Leyla Zmeskal: But today we're gonna look at Eric White the pair. They were lookers,
• 24:16
  Trisha Smith: And they own the home for 30 something years like almost 40 years. And
• 24:22
  Leyla Zmeskal: It's the genes.
• 24:23
  Trisha Smith: Yeah. Because they're lookers, they're lookers. So, in 1999, Ivan said they never experienced anything supernatural in the house, and they had raised two daughters there. So I mean, they never they're saying they never experienced anything, nobody before them experienced anything. And in 2005 they sold it to a man named John Whitman.
• 24:53
  Trisha Smith: And they were expecting that it would be torn down. But Whitman decided oh, I'm going to get this listed, you know, on Airbnb, I'm going to fix it up and we're gonna say it's haunted. Haunted, right? He also offers ghost tours and seances.
• 25:14
  Trisha Smith: In course he does. Right? Every the only thing he said about, you know, when they interviewed him about why does he think it's haunted? He said he's heard voices, you know, in some of the rooms. It's like
• 25:27
  Leyla Zmeskal: I hear forces to TV is on the other room.
• 25:32
  Trisha Smith: I thought you're just gonna stop there. I hear Oh, no.
• 25:37
  Leyla Zmeskal: Knock crazy. What was that? Copy right there.
• 25:44
  Trisha Smith: So yeah, that's, that was what I found out about it being haunted was reading that little blurb. And I'm like, I'm somebody who's just you know, but then I looked at the history of the house, it was like, Well, this is way better than a haunted house.
• 26:00
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah, that kind of led you into something really interesting and fascinating.
• 26:06
  Trisha Smith: Right? So I mean, of course, you know, from there, you can read it like launches into a bunch of other cases of possession, including the one that we had heard about in St.
• 26:19
  Trisha Smith: Louis, about the kid, the boy that was possessed, that inspired the exorcist. So it's just like this, you know, domino effect. And it was really cool.
• 26:29
  Trisha Smith: And I did a lot more reading about this than I intended. So but this what SICO wonder, is what started it all.
• 26:41
  Leyla Zmeskal: So there was seeker wonder gets a good, interesting, that is interesting. Interesting how somebody can step in for somebody whose soul is damaged?
• 26:54
  Leyla Zmeskal: And what does that mean when your soul is
• 26:57
  Trisha Smith: Right to what caused her? I mean, obviously, she was 13 when she started showing these symptoms. So what happened until the age of 13, to necessitate a Spirit coming in to literally save her soul?
• 27:12
  Trisha Smith: Yeah, I
• 27:14
  Leyla Zmeskal: Don't understand that.
• 27:15
  Trisha Smith: I know, it's no one's where, you know, can you I mean, she wasn't even able to answer it. I mean, she was interviewed a lot people kind of lost track of her as the years went on, because there were other cases, especially like in the 30s and 40s, that start coming out about spirit possession and demon possession.
• 27:33
  Trisha Smith: And so her story kind of got pushed to the wayside and she was able to leave lead just an ordinary life. So and I think she was grateful for that. But
• 27:45
  Leyla Zmeskal: Also to
• 27:46
  Trisha Smith: It's still stall.
• 27:46
  Trisha Smith: So think about their, you know, somebody in there after you hear a lot of people doing good samaritan crap when they're alive, but hey, not so much in the death. Yeah, I know, right?
• 28:01
  Trisha Smith: Usually, it's like bad hauntings, like, you know, and to hear about a possession where it was actually for good. Is just very rare, I think.
• 28:13
  Leyla Zmeskal: I think so.
• 28:13
  Leyla Zmeskal: That's a good one. Yeah. Very, very, very thought provoking on tthat one.
• 28:19
  Trisha Smith: Yes, it was.
• 28:19
  Trisha Smith: Definitely that was that was quite a story. And I think I'm ready for for another.
• 28:26
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah, yeah, me too. All right.
• 28:29
  Trisha Smith: Till next time
• 28:29
  Leyla Zmeskal: Next time.
• 28:30
  Trisha Smith: Cheers.
• 28:30
  Leyla Zmeskal: Cheers Hey, like what you hear.
• 28:33
  Diane Black: Check us out on Instagram
• 28:34
  Trisha Smith: Or send us a message at boozy banter with friends.com
• 28:38
  Leyla Zmeskal: Thanks for listening.
• 28:39
  Trisha Smith: Until next time,
• 28:40
  Diane Black: Late-a