Kimberly Chaffee – PennStory Paranormal

Tracing the Ross House in Bellaire, Ohio Through Deed and Census Records

Kimberly Chaffee — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 20:51:55 +0000

Historic homes often hold stories that are not immediately visible. The Ross House in Bellaire, Ohio is one such property. At first glance, it appears to be simply another nineteenth-century residence. However, the records connected to the house reveal a much deeper history.

Two types of sources are especially valuable when researching a property like this: deed records and census records. Together, these documents allow researchers to trace ownership, identify the families who lived there, and understand how the house fit into the community over time.

By following the paper trail left behind in Belmont County records, it becomes possible to reconstruct the story of the Ross House and the people connected to it.

What The Ross House Deed Records Tell Us

Deed records tell us who owned the Ross house (chain of title) through the years and when ownership changed. Below is a list of deed owners based on records from Belmont County, Ohio.

Harry and Ora L. Weeks (Grantor) to J. Keith Lafferty (Grantee) 13 July 1936.
J. Keith Lafferty (Grantor) to Earl & Elizabeth Leiffer (Grantee) 21 Oct 1937.
Earl & Elizabeth Leiffer (Grantor) to Marie G. Getrost (Grantee) 24 May 1948.
Marie G. Getrost (Grantor) to Charles B. & Dolly Ross (Grantee) 24 April 1990.
Dolly Ross (Grantor) to Charles R. Ross 6 April 2023.

We can learn from these records who held the property at 2011 Belmont St. However, there is another source to tell us who these people were and what jobs they had. More importantly, we can discover who resided in the house before 1936.

The house was built sometime after 1899, and we know this because it appears on the Sanborn Maps in June of 1900 as 2009 1/2.

Sanborn Fire Map 1900 Bellaire Ohio

Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division, Sanborn Maps Collection.

By 1915, the house had been renumbered to 2011 Belmont Street.

Census Records

As we delve deeper into the history of the Ross House, the census records provide a vivid glimpse into the lives of its inhabitants. Each entry reveals the occupations and family dynamics of those who called this house home, painting a picture of resilience and community.

From the early 1900s, we find skilled laborers and budding entrepreneurs. Their stories are intertwined with the growth of Bellaire itself. This narrative, woven together by both deed and census records, brings the Ross House to life, transforming it from a mere structure into a vessel of rich personal histories and local heritage.

Ora Weeks and Frank Fralinger were married in 1892, resulting in the birth of twin sons, John Keith and Jacob Kenneth Fralinger. However, the 1900 census indicates that Ora had relocated and married Harry Weeks, a glassblower residing in Bellaire. In the census, the boys were listed by their middle names rather than their first names.

We also learn from the census that John, Mary, and Minnie Lafferty ages 57, 58, and 32 are living in the Ross house. This family includes the parents of Ora and her sister Minnie.

The Lafferty family played a crucial role in the early social fabric of Bellaire. They contributed to community events and local gatherings. As the years progressed, the house became a gathering place for relatives and friends, echoing with laughter and stories of times gone by.

The changing dynamics of the household reflected broader trends of the era, including shifts in economic opportunities and family structures. Neighbors would often drop by, creating a sense of camaraderie that defined the tight-knit community.

Eventually, Harry and Ora sold the house to John Keith, Ora’s son, and they left for California. He owned the house for about a year before selling it.

Chinchilla Fur Business

The home served as a business for a time, raising chinchillas that Marie Getrost and her husband Frederick sold for the fur industry. They were kept in an upstairs room.

Frederick’s draft card for World War II indicates that he was a fire truck driver. They did not move into the Ross house until 1948.

For a period, the residence served as a business where Marie Getrost and her husband Frederick bred and sold chinchillas for the fur trade. The animals were housed in an upstairs room. Frederick’s draft card from World War II indicates that he worked as a fire truck driver.

The couple did not relocate to the Ross house until 1948. After settling in, the Getrosts expanded their chinchilla business, attracting interest from fur traders across the region.

They built a reputation for producing high-quality pelts, establishing a loyal customer base. As the fur industry’s popularity grew, so did their operation, leading to renovations in the home to accommodate more chinchillas.

However, by the late 1950s, shifting attitudes toward fur and animal rights began to impact their business. Eventually, the Getrosts decided to close the chinchilla breeding operation and repurpose the space for family use.

The home was later bought in 1990 by Charles Ross, whose family owned the furniture store next to the house. Before the home was opened for paranormal tours and investigations, it was used for entertainment purposes featuring escape rooms.

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Between Worlds: The Historical Roots of the Dybbuk

Kimberly Chaffee — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 20:28:35 +0000

Exploring the Jewish tradition of the restless soul that wanders between the living and the dead.

The Dybbuk Before the Play: What the First Tradition Actually Described

S. An-sky’s 1920 play Among Two Worlds defined the dybbuk for many, but its portrayal is not as ancient or straightforward as often assumed. Earlier Jewish sources describe spirit possession very differently. Careful study shows the dybbuk was part of a complex religious system exploring sin, suffering, and the soul’s fate.

Stories about harmful spirits appear in Jewish writings as early as the first centuries of the common era. The Talmud and later commentaries contain references to demons, wandering spirits, and supernatural dangers. However, these accounts describe external, non-human threats, not the dybbuk. In these early sources, harmful forces operate outside humans, whereas the later concept of the dybbuk involves a deceased human soul entering the living. This idea of a returning human soul developed later, linked to mystical teachings from the late medieval period.

The concept of the dybbuk is closely connected to two different ideas in Jewish mysticism, especially in the Kabbalah. The first is gilgul, which refers to the cycling or reincarnation of the soul through multiple lifetimes for spiritual correction. The second is ibbur, describing the entry or attachment of one soul into another’s body, often as a positive or helpful event. The dybbuk differs from both: while gilgul and ibbur can involve spiritual improvement or aid, the dybbuk is a manifestation of distress—the entry of an unsettled or troubled soul that brings harm rather than assistance.

Dybbuk Is Not a Demon

According to the early mystical tradition, a dybbuk was distinguished from demons and maggidim by being the soul of a person who had committed serious wrongdoing and had not yet been punished or forgiven. Unlike external demonic threats or divine messengers, the dybbuk was driven by unresolved moral issues. The word dybbuk itself comes from the Hebrew root meaning “to cling or attach,” underscoring that this possession stemmed from a moral problem requiring resolution, rather than random evil or divine inspiration.

Reports of dybbuk possession emerge more clearly in the sixteenth century, specifically in the city of Safed in what is now northern Israel. At the time, Safed acted as an important center of Jewish learning and mysticism. A group of scholars began to develop new interpretations of older mystical teachings, especially those concerning gilgul and ibbur. Their writings contain the first detailed descriptions of possession by the soul of the dead, including attempts to remove that spirit through prayer, ritual, and the authority of learned men.

The Dybbuk is a painting by Ruth Hooper

The Heavenly Messenger

Stories of dybbuk appeared alongside another kind of experience, one seen as positive. Mystical writers described encounters with a maggid, a heavenly messenger who could speak through a living person and deliver guidance. The existence of both stories reveals a belief in Safed: the boundary between the living and the dead was not entirely closed. Souls might move from world to world, sometimes for beneficial reasons, other times for troubling ones. In this setting, accounts of dybbuk possession helped support the idea of a spiritual world active and close at hand.

Stories spread beyond Safed—and changed as they traveled. By the seventeenth century, written accounts of exorcisms circulated in Europe, where they were related and copied in various communities. Later versions often included dramatic details missing from earlier sources. Possessed persons might be questioned about their sins; spirits sometimes spoke at length through their hosts. Exorcisms could involve elaborate rituals aimed at driving the soul away. Some scholars believe these later stories were formed by popular storytelling traditions and may have absorbed elements from widely known Christian accounts of demonic possession.

By the eighteenth century, the dybbuk was fully woven into Eastern European popular religious culture. Stories of possession and exorcism surfaced in devotional books, tales about holy men, and oral tradition. The ability to confront a dybbuk became a mark of spiritual authority. Especially in Hasidic stories about famous teachers, encounters with troubled spirits served as proof of holiness and power. Over time, the dybbuk traveled from mystical teaching into folklore, and then into literature.

Dybbuk, A Story for the Stage

When An-sky wrote his famous play in the early twentieth century, he turned to these later traditions, rather than the oldest sources. His story fascinated audiences and gave the dybbuk a lasting place in modern culture. Still, the earlier texts remind us that the idea originated from a serious attempt to understand the fate of the soul and the problem of suffering. The dybbuk became not only a frightening tale, but also a way to explain misfortune, lingering effects of sin on the living, and the mysterious border between the seen and unseen worlds.

Looking at these earlier traditions makes it clear: the dybbuk belongs to a long history of people striving to grasp what happens when a life feels unfinished. In this sense, the story is less about ghosts and more about a basic human fear: that some actions might never be set right, even after death.

SOURCES: Faierstein, Morris M. “The Dybbuk: The Origins and History of a Concept.” Olam He-Zeh v’olam Ha-Ba: This World and the World to Come in Jewish Belief and Practice, edited by Leonard J. Greenspoon, Purdue University Press, 2017, pp. 135–50. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvh9w0gb.14. Accessed 1 Mar. 2026.

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🕯️When the Cloaked Man Appeared: A Strange Kindness in Talley Cavey

Kimberly Chaffee — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 01:01:41 +0000

Every old village has its secrets, but few are as chilling as the Talley Cavey Ghost Story. This is one of the many haunting tales whispered through generations in Western Pennsylvania. The Talley Cavey Ghost Story is known for its eerie vibes and mysterious happenings.

After the end of the Revolutionary War, the western part of Pennsylvania remained largely unsettled. As pioneers pushed west over the Appalachian Mountains, small communities began to form in the Pittsburgh region.

One such early settlement was Talley Cavey, located along what is now Route 8. The area once featured a general store, a post office, and a turnpike. Today, the Depreciation Lands Museum sits on part of that historic land, preserving the memory of the region’s early days. Below is one Talley Cavey ghost story that would later become the first of many.

The Church That Time Tried to Erase

In 1830, a group of Covenanters built a modest church on the site, accompanied by a graveyard. The cemetery became the resting place for generations of local families, from soldiers to pioneers, and many children.

By the 1970s, the church had been abandoned and left to deteriorate. That is, until a group of passionate residents came together to save it. They formed the Hampton Historical Society, dedicating themselves to restoring the church and its surrounding structures, including a small annex and barn.

Whispers in the Chapel

As restoration began, volunteers began reporting curious phenomena. Tools moved. Doors creaked open on their own. But nothing felt threatening; in fact, quite the opposite.

A presence was felt. Warm. Helpful. Watchful.

They called him: The Deacon.

One Volunteer’s Chilling Encounter

“It was a quiet Saturday afternoon, and most of the volunteers had already left for the day…”

What follows is a first-hand account from one of the original volunteers at the church. Her experience became the first of many Tally Cavey ghosts stories about The Deacon, and it still gives us chills.

‍ The Man in the Cloak

“The weather was warm, as it was still late summer, not quite fall. I was working near the front window, trying to replace a damaged sill. It wasn’t going well. The wood was too thick, and I had been trimming it carefully with my penknife for some time.

I suddenly felt I wasn’t alone.

I turned and there, standing in the doorway, was a man. Not very tall, dressed in a long black cloak and a wide-brimmed hat. He smiled at me, but said nothing.

I said, ‘Hello,’ but he didn’t respond. Thinking nothing of it, I turned back to the window and muttered, ‘Well, instead of just standing there, why don’t you give me a hand?’

When I looked back, he was gone.

I hadn’t heard him leave. Hadn’t heard him come in. Just… gone.”

A Little Help from the Beyond?

“I picked up the sill and tried again. To my complete astonishment, it slid into place perfectly. Better than I could have managed myself.

I whispered, ‘Thank you,’ not sure if I was thanking the ghost or just my lucky stars.

But I couldn’t shake the feeling I’d just been helped. Helped by someone who had once stood in that same church, maybe centuries ago.”

Who Was The Deacon?

The woman later speculated that the man might have been a former preacher or caretaker, someone tied closely to the church in life, who never truly left it. Whether he was a preacher, a parishioner, or a quiet soul who loved the place, one thing is clear: he meant no harm.

Legacy of a Benevolent Spirit

The Talley Cavey ghost story marked the first of many reports about The Deacon. Volunteers recounted strange, helpful occurrences, a ladder held steady, a stuck window suddenly opening, or a comforting presence when alone.

He wasn’t feared.

He was welcomed.

“Whether it was the spirit of a long-forgotten churchman or simply a trick of the imagination, one thing is certain: Talley Cavey holds stories that refuse to be buried.”

Have You Encountered The Deacon?

In conclusion, the Talley Cavey Ghost Story is more than just a legend; it is a connection to our past. Have you visited the Talley Cavey church or the Depreciation Lands Museum? Have you heard this Talley Cavey ghost story? Have your own ghost story to share? Drop it in the comments or email us at Kimberly@pennstory.com You might be featured in a future post!

Join the conversation and share your insights on the Talley Cavey Ghost Story.

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Chilling Chronicles of the Cursed Bloodline

Kimberly Chaffee — Thu, 21 Aug 2025 22:43:46 +0000

Chilling Chronicles of the Cursed Bloodline

Some spirits don’t haunt houses; they haunt names, memories, and heirlooms. They linger in lullabies passed down, in dreams that repeat, in patterns that seem to skip generations but never truly vanish. This is often a sign of a cursed bloodline.

In my work as a genealogist and haunted history researcher, I’ve come to believe that some hauntings run deeper than cold spots and creaking floors. These are the hauntings of the bloodline where family stories, griefs, and unresolved legacies echo across generations. Such occurrences suggest the presence of a cursed bloodline.

What Is a Cursed Bloodline?

Folklorists have long told tales of cursed families or “bad blood,” but this isn’t always about evil. Sometimes it’s about unfinished business, collective memory, or the deep imprint of trauma.

A haunted bloodline may look like:

– A family where tragedy repeats (think “all the women in our line died young”)
– Dreams passed from grandparent to grandchild
– Family heirlooms associated with strange energy
– Unspoken stories that demand to be told

In the Appalachian mountains, this might be described as “haints in the holler.” Further, in Celtic tradition, it’s the banshee who wails before a death in the family. In African diasporic spirituality, it’s common to recognize ancestral spirits that walk with you. However, these traditions may sound different, but they all recognize the same thing: some spirits are considered family members and may point to a cursed bloodline.

Why It Shows Up in Genealogy Work

As a genealogist, I often trace lines through dusty deeds and church records. Sometimes, its the silence between the records that speak the loudest. This silence is like the hidden whispers of a cursed bloodline.

A few years ago, I was researching a family whose women had all lost children at the same age. The records offered no apparent reason, but in the oral histories, there was a whispered story of a grandmother who had been “cursed” after defying her preacher husband. Coincidence? Maybe. However, when the family acknowledged her story, the pattern broke.

I’ve come to trust that our ancestors want their stories told, especially the ones who were silenced. Recognizing a cursed bloodline may be the first step to healing.

The Science Behind the Ghosts?

Modern research is catching up with folklore. Psychologist Rachel Yehuda has studied how trauma, particularly from war and persecution, can be passed down genetically through epigenetic markers. As a result, this may mean that the fear or grief your ancestor felt may still be reflected in your DNA.

Family constellations therapy (a method developed by Bert Hellinger) takes this further, suggesting that unresolved pain in a family system will continue to manifest until it’s witnessed, honored, and healed.

Even Carl Jung, the father of analytical psychology, described the “collective unconscious” as a place where ancestral memory dwells and from which it sometimes surfaces in dreams, compulsions, or spiritual callings.

How Do We Heal a Haunted Line?

Healing a haunted bloodline doesn’t always mean performing exorcisms or smudging the house. Sometimes it starts by acknowledging the patterns of a cursed bloodline:

– Turning the pain into a legacy

– Telling the untold stories

– Researching the forgotten ancestor

– Creating space for grief, ritual, or forgiveness

My Invitation to You

Do you feel your family has its haunting? Have you uncovered patterns that seem too strange to be a coincidence? Perhaps it’s time to explore the concept of a cursed bloodline.

I’m inviting you to walk with me into this topic one post at a time. In future posts, we’ll explore:

– Signs your family line may be “haunted”
– Stories from folklore and archives that echo this theme
– Ways to use genealogy and spiritual tools to uncover hidden truths

Furthermore, if you’ve got a story? I’d love to hear it.

Sometimes the dead don’t just want to be remembered. They want to be understood, especially in the context of a cursed bloodline.

Sources & inspiration:

– Yehuda, R. et al. (2015). Epigenetic Transmission of Trauma
– Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections
– Hellinger, B. (1998). Acknowledging What Is
– Oral folklore from Appalachian, Celtic, and Afro-Caribbean traditions
– Personal research + casework

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Gravestones: Unlocking Powerful Clues to Your Ancestral Story

Kimberly Chaffee — Sun, 01 Dec 2024 14:54:41 +0000

Gravestones: Unlocking Powerful Clues to Your Ancestral Story

As a genealogist, I find that most online research leads to more questions than answers. Like most, I utilize Ancestry and Family Search for the wealth of information these databases hold. For me, these are surface-level facts and numbers. By themselves, they do not tell the story of an ancestor. Their value comes in providing data that often leads to enough evidence to be considered proof. At the age of ten, my aunt took my to graveyards as she conducted family research. I learned an early lesson that gravestones contribute to research for genealogical evidence.

These databases utilize another database called Find a Grave. If a family story says that Great Grandma died in 1900, a gravestone can be the source useful to confirming this information. Often, a hint (popular on Ancestry) from Find a Grave will allow one to see a picture of the gravestone. However, it would be best to remember that gravestones are both primary and derivative sources, not evidence. The validity of the date on the tombstone depends on the informant and their knowledge of the event. The person providing the date of death was probably there at the time. However, if the person who died was in their 80s, we can assume the informant was not at the decedent’s birth. Therefore, the date of birth has to be verified.

Understanding Sources, Information, and Evidence

SOURCES provide INFORMATION from which we select EVIDENCE for ANALYSIS. A sound CONCLUSION may then be considered “PROOF.”

— Elizabeth Shown Mills 3

Gravestones as Genealogical Evidence

Find a Grave does not include enough source citations to make a case for proof, but it can be a good place to start. What are some things that it does provide?

Name of the Cemetery
Name(s) on the gravestone
Links to other relatives.

We can google search the cemetery to find an affiliated church. Church records may have original source documents regarding the birth and death. If the gravestone has a spouse listed, we can look for marriage records. Furthermore, a death certificate, an original source with possible derivative information, must be found.

Validating Gravestone Data: Birth and Death Records

Key Steps for Using Gravestones in Research:

Verify dates with birth and death records.
Look for clues about family relationships on gravestones.
Research associated cemeteries or church’s for more information.

Is a gravestone evidence by itself? No, it is a source that can lead us to information. However, this is where the real fun in research begins. We have a starting point to start building this person’s life. It is hard to imagine that a person’s final resting place can help us start telling their story.

Q: Are gravestones considered evidence in genealogy?
A: Gravestones are sources that provide information. Their validity depends on the informant’s knowledge and must be corroborated with other records.

What clues have you discovered from gravestones in your research? Share your stories in the comments!

Source:

Elizabeth Shown Mills, Evidence Explained, Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace, 3d ed., digital ed. (Baltimore, Maryland, Genealogical Publishing Company, Inc., 2012), 3.

Ready to uncover your own family’s story? Visit my Contact Me Page

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Whispers in the Hallway: A True Haunted House Story

Kimberly Chaffee — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 21:58:43 +0000

Whispers in the Hallway: A True Haunted House Story

It wasn’t something I thought about then, but it dawned on me much later: I grew up in a haunted house. The split-level home in Exton, Pennsylvania, appeared ordinary enough, nestled on a quiet street in a neighborhood called Marchwood. But appearances can be deceiving. This is the beginning of my haunted house story.

My father purchased the house from Mario and Dorothy Casavecchia on August 7, 1975, for about $39,000. I was only two years old then, far too young to sense what lingered in the shadows of our home. But strange things began to happen, subtle at first but growing more persistent as the years passed in my haunted house story.

When I was around seven, I noticed my mother’s odd behavior during the night. She would leave the master bedroom she shared with my father and hurriedly walked down the short hallway to the bathroom at the end, passing the built-in closet along the way. This ritual always struck me as peculiar, especially since the master bedroom had its own attached bathroom. I could only assume it was because my father claimed that space for himself—it had only a shower, not a bathtub like the other bathroom. But what unsettled me was the way she moved in the dark. She’d walk briskly, almost as if trying to escape something unseen in the hallway behind her.

By the time I turned eleven, I had followed the same pattern. I would wake in the dead of night with an urgent need to use the bathroom. I’d flip on the light, complete my task, and then—without thinking—I’d bolt back to my bedroom, the hallway suddenly oppressive with an invisible presence. I never felt it wasn’t very hospitable, but it was there, watching. Waiting. This was becoming a central piece of my haunted house story.

Around this time, I began noticing other peculiar occurrences in the house. My bedroom shared a wall with the stairs, and I often woke up to creaking footsteps in the middle of the night. The stairs groaned under the weight of someone—or something—moving up and down, up and down. But the steps would stop at the top of the stairs, and no one ever appeared. I would lie in bed, straining to hear more, wondering who could be wandering the house at 1 a.m. But the living room remained dark, the dining room silent, and no footsteps ever moved into the kitchen.

One night, my curiosity got the better of me. I slipped out of bed and peeked down the hallway, expecting to see someone at the bottom of the stairs, but only darkness greeted me. My mother didn’t believe in nightlights back then, so the house felt swallowed by shadows. I stood there for a moment, listening. The silence was thick, and then the footsteps returned—slow, deliberate—on the stairs behind me. Heart pounding, I darted back to bed, convinced that something unseen lurked beyond the veil of darkness. This was another element of our haunted house story.

But the strangest incident occurred one night after I had returned from the bathroom. Lying awake in the darkness, I heard the unmistakable sound of the closet door in the rec room downstairs clicking shut. My heart skipped a beat. Who could be in the closet at this hour? It was well past midnight, and my parents had long since gone to bed, their nightly routines always ending after Johnny Carson’s monologue. Then, I heard something even more unnerving—the faint scraping of cardboard boxes being dragged out of the closet and stacked, one by one.

I sat up, fear prickling at the edges of my mind. Was someone—or something—moving around in the dark downstairs? I had to know. I got out of bed, crept down the hallway, and flicked on the bathroom light. Walking over to the cast iron railing, I expected to see my mother or father sorting through the boxes of seasonal decorations stored under the stairs. But there was nothing—only the eerie emptiness of the rec room below swallowed in darkness.

Shaken, I retreated to my room, shutting off the light and hurrying back to bed. The hallway seemed to breathe with a life of its own, and the feeling of being watched intensified.

The next morning, I tried to make sense of it all. As my mother sat in the living room sipping her coffee, I asked if she or Dad had been downstairs the previous night, moving boxes. She blinked at me, her brow furrowing in confusion. “No, why would I be in the closet? I haven’t touched those boxes in months.” I insisted that I had heard the noises—boxes shifting, the closet door opening and closing—but she just shrugged, her face tight with uncertainty. A few days later, I noticed she started leaving the lamp on in the living room as a nightlight.

My Haunted House Story Gets Real

Fast forward to the night of my high school graduation in June 1991. My Aunt Marilyn had come into town to celebrate, sleeping on the couch in the living room since our house didn’t have a guest room. The following day, she greeted me with a question that chilled me to the bone.

“Kimmie Ann, why were you sleeping in the hallway last night?” she asked, her voice puzzled.

I stared at her, baffled. “What? I wasn’t sleeping in the hallway. I didn’t even get home until after 1 a.m.”

She frowned, clearly unsettled. “But I saw you. I got up to use the bathroom around midnight, and you were lying in the hallway under a blanket.”

A cold shiver ran down my spine. I hadn’t been home. I glanced over at my mother, who was standing nearby, her face pale and eyes wide with a secret she had long kept hidden.

“What is it?” I asked, dread pooling in my stomach.

“Well,” she began slowly, “when we bought the house, the realtor told us that the wife of the previous owner died in the hallway.”

For a moment, the time seemed to freeze. The creaking stairs, the boxes shifting in the closet, and the oppressive feeling in the hallway all made sense. My aunt had seen something that night, something neither of us had ever expected.

“Great, Mom,” I said, my voice tinged with sarcasm, though fear gripped me tightly. “That explains the creepy hallway.”

“I didn’t want to scare you kids,” she replied quietly.

But now, we knew. And the house no longer felt ordinary. It had never been. Something from the past lingered there, silently watching from the shadows.

Genealogy Research on the Property

This past year, I decided to look up the name of the woman who died in the hallway to see if it was a true story. Here is what I found: Mario’s first wife. She died on December 23rd, 1974, at the age of 54. Mario and Mary bought the house from Bernard Hankin on July 16, 1971.

CASAVECCHIA On June 10, 1974, MARY T. (nee De Ratelo), wife of Mario J.

Casavecchia, of Exton, age 54; also mother of John F. Casavecchia, and sister of Emma R. Ward and David De Rafelo. Relatives and friends are invited to attend the funeral on at 10 A.M., from the ALLEVA ERAL HOME, 1724 E. Lancaster Paoli.

**Philadelphia Inquirer 12 June 1974. Page 44.

Read more Chester County History at the Chester County Historical Society

Interested in uncovering your own family’s haunted past? Visit my Contact Me Page

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