Marica may not appear as the type to have pursued ghost-hunting, yet there she was in Bellbrook, doing just that. Marcia’s instincts as a reporter led her to investigate phenomena that had no earthly explanations. Her skepticism soon became fascination and she couldn’t discount other people’s stories after witnessing a few bizarre happenings firsthand.
Marcia’s book, Transcending the Heart: When God Brought Me the Ghosts (soon to be renamed Seeker: From Skeptic to Believer) will captivate anyone who suspects there’s something beyond the universe other than what we can see or touch.
Dead and Gone
Immediately, the father sent a boy to fetch a doctor while the remaining family members carried Charles’s body into the bedroom and laid him on the bed. Efforts to resuscitate him failed and he was positioned and covered with a sheet until the doctor could arrive.
The doctor walked into the home within twenty minutes of the collapse. He noticed that the door to the bedroom was closed and the entire family was sitting in the room outside it. When he noticed the arrival of the doctor, the father jumped up to open the bedroom door for him. The doctor walked into the bedroom with the grieving members of Charles’s family (mother, father, two sisters) close behind. He noticed the rigid outlines of the body under the sheet and a cloth over the face. Through the cloth, the doctor could see facial features and the profile of Charles’s face.
When the doctor approached and lifted the cloth from the corpse’s face, he was stunned to see nothing under the cloth. He quickly pulled the sheet away from the body and saw only empty space. Despite having seen the outline of a body through the cloth, there was nothing on the bed. Stunned, the family members and doctor simply looked from one another to the bed, speechless. It took a moment for the three ladies present to react, swooning onto the floor. While the doctor attended to the ladies, the father stood in a dumbfounded state, muttering incoherently and staring unseeing into the distance.
Once the ladies were brought back to consciousness, the doctor walked to the only window in the room and studied it. The window was locked from the inside and had clearly not been opened for a while. Since there was no body, no coroner’s inquest was held. An investigation into the disappearance was made but no answers have ever been found. Charles J. Reed was dead and gone
Read this and other tales of the weird in Dayton Ghosts & Legends, available through Amazon and major book retailers. Autographed copies available directly from the author on SaraKaushal.com
1911 Pearls of Wisdom
- A cold, wet May, a barn full of hay
- Rain before seven, clear before eleven
- Tea kettle suddenly sings means news
- Move in the light of the moon for luck
- Broad front teeth mean that one is generous
- If a baby does not fall out of bed, it will be a fool
- A group of bubbles on a cup of coffee signifies money
- If a child cries out during baptism, it is the devil going out of it
- At cards it is bad luck to play against the grain of the table.
- Water spilled on the doorstep means the coming of a stranger
- Whoever eats the last piece of bread on the plate will be an old maid
Summer Events
- What’s Your Favorite Scary Movie? Art Show
Includes Hearse Cruise-In, Vendors, and Food
Secret Chamber of Oddities and Artwork
17 W Main Street, Fairborn
Friday June 13th, 3pm-5pm for the less energetic, 5pm-9pm, for those all in - Pickle Fest
Austin Landing
3700 Rigby Rd, Miamisburg
June 21st, 3pm-10pm - Greene County Strawberry Fest
Greene County Fairgrounds
120 Fairground Rd, Xenia
June 21st-22nd, 10am-5pm - The Great Dayton Food Truck Rally
104 Front Street, Dayton
July 11th, 5pm-9pm
July 12th, 11am-8pm - Columbus Book Festival
Columbus Metro Library
96 Grant Ave, Columbus
July 12th 10am-6pm
July 13th 10am-5pm - Gem City Comic Con
Marriott at UD
1414 South Patterson Blvd, Dayton 45409
July 19th & 20th 9am-4pm
Dayton Codebreakers – Sir Dermot Turing’s Visit
Desch and his team worked in one of NCR’s buildings decoding the messages using the American Bombe Machine and would then send the messages to Washington D.C. as intelligence. While working with the American Bombe Machine, Alan Turing – known for cracking Germany’s Enigma code – visited Joseph Desch in Oakwood and at the NCR building.
Retired RAF Captain Andrew Lloyd, along with the organization he founded, Oakwood Unsung Heroes, have been working to showcase this piece of history by having a City of Oakwood proclamation for the month of May to be Codebreaker Month, and they have an exhibit on display at Wright Memorial Public Library in collaboration with the National Cryptologic Museum.
On May 8th, the nephew of Alan Turing, Sir Dermot Turing, will be speaking at the Dayton International Peace Museum and at Carillon Park. For both events, tickets are free, but limited.
- May 8th at 11am @ Dayton International Peace Museum
- May 8th at 7:30pm @ Carillon Park
If you’re interested in reading more about this topic:
- X, Y & Z by Sir Dermot Turing
- The Codebreakers of Bletchley Park: The Secret Intelligence Station that Helped Defeat the Nazis by Sir Dermot Turing
- The Enigma Story: The Truth Behind the ‘Unbreakable’ World War II Cipher by Sir Dermot Turing
- Reflections of Alan Turing: A Relative Story by Sir Dermot Turing
- The Secret in Building 26: The Untold Story of America’s Ultra War Against the U-boat Enigma Codes by Jim Debrosse
Katt Williams to be Honored in Cincinnati
Williams was born in Cincinnati in 1971 and moved to Dayton with his Jehovah’s Witness parents. During that time, he learned multiple languages, including Creole and French, and he lived in Haiti for 18 months as part of religious missions. Williams emancipated himself from his parents at 13, then moved to Florida and supported himself as a street vendor.
Williams has found success through his stand-up comedy, acting, and music career. Although he has faced many legal issues, he has continued with his career and received an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his appearance on the show Atlanta. His “Heaven on Earth” comedy tour has dates across the US through November.
Huffman Prairie & Simms Station
Quick Dayton Stories
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- December 1946 – Police rushed to the scene after a woman reporting a freshly dug grave near her home. The grave was adorned with a large floral display. Deputy Sheriff Ben Brown dug for several minutes before finding a large box tied with a fancy ribbon. The scene was silent as the Deputy Sheriff lifted the box from the ground and untied the ribbon to see a large silk handkerchief inside. In it, he found a dead canary.
- March 1802 (reported December 1802) – While Jonathan Dayton attended a session of Congress in Washington DC, he had an experience of “Spontaneous Combustion”. While undressing himself at bedtime, Dayton removed a pair of silk stockings he wore over a pair of woolen stockings. He dropped the silk stockings onto a woolen carpet near the side of the bed. One of his garters fell down with the silk stockings. The white woolen stockings were tossed farther away, near the foot of the bed. Dayton noticed a bit of sparking when he separated the silk stockings from the wool ones, which he gave no mind, since he had seen that before. He slept through the night as normal. In the morning a servant entered in the morning to kindle the fire, waking Dayton. Dayton then noticed his silk stockings were a brown color and one of his leather slippers was burnt. The garter that fell next to the silk stocking was charred but intact. Upon closer examination, the leather slipper and the garter only were burnt in the parts that had been in contact with the silk stockings. Both Dayton and the servant attending him noted there were no candles burning in the room and the fireplace was at least 9 feet away and burning low. Based on the evidence, they concluded it was spontaneous combustion.
- September 1997 – A plain pine box with the skeletal remains of at least two early Daytonians, buried in St Henry Cemetery in the late 1800s, was laid to rest during a service and burial at Calvary Cemetery. Workers found the bones while laying a sewer line for the Miami Valley Hospital’s new Emergency and Surgery Complex. Cemetery Superintendent Rick Meade provided green carpeting and a red tent, hospital carpenters made the pine box, and Miami Valley sent a pot of mums for the service. The land had been the site of St Henry’s Catholic Cemetery. The city of Dayton had grown around St Henry’s, leaving it with no room to expand. The cemetery hit hard times, unable to keep up with maintenance. That’s when the trustees decided to sell the cemetery and move the bodies to Calvary. Roughly 6,000 bodies were moved from St Henry to Calvary, and 4,013 were unclaimed. The unclaimed were buried in a mass grave at Calvary Cemetery where the Memorial Chapel stands. The chapel was built from funds derived from the sale of St Henry and dedicated to the unclaimed souls. The Memorial Chapel was dedicated on All Souls Day, November 2, 1902. In the service provided for the reinterred, Rev. Richard Knuge, chaplain at Miami Valley Hospital, read “We commend these remains to the Lord, that the Lord may embrace them in peace and raise up their bodies on the last day”, from the Roman Ritual, Order of Christian Funerals. “We are dust and into dust we shall return. Blessed is the Lord.”
The Grave at UD
The Founder of the Society of Mary, Father Leo Meyer, came from Alsace to Cincinnati to serve as a missionary in 1949. He found the area in the midst of a cholera epidemic and volunteered to help. The next year he was sent by the Bishop to Dayton to serve at Emmanuel Church, where he met John Stuart.
Stuart owned 125 acres of farmland in the Southeastern section of Dayton. Stuart had come from Scotland and wanted to return, and Father Meyer wanted to establish a colony of Marianists. The two negotiated and made a deal. Stuart would give the land to Father Meyer and allow him to pay back when he could, and Father Meyer would give him his St Joseph Medal as collateral. It took twenty years to pay the debt and get back the medal.
Mary Stuart, infant daughter of John, was buried in St Henry Catholic Cemetery, on Main Street near Ashley and Frank Streets. When St Henry was sold and the bodies exhumed, Father Meyer moved Mary and her monument to the UD Campus in order to fulfill his promise to John Stuart that he would always care for the child’s grave. When the Marianist cemetery was established in the present location, Mary’s grave was moved along with the rest. Stewart Street is named for the Stuart family, but the name was misspelled.
Have You Seen this Bench?
Dayton Unknown 