I Might Believe in Mary Worth-Whitewater Wisconsin The Second Salem

Given it's September 26, 2026 and it's the full moon, I think it is a good time to recall this memory. I just learned where the Spiritual Hub of America is, or at least was at one time. Can you guess? I didn't know either, but incidents in my past now make sense. It is Whitewater, Wisconsin. In the 19th century, Whitewater was called the "Second Salem.”

My grandson is attending the University of Wisconsin- Whitewater. He was telling his mom about people who go to the cemetery to conjure up spirits. It is tradition to go to the cemetery and it reminded me that sixty years ago I did that too. I also attended UW Whitewater although back then it was called Whitewater State University. It wasn't until 1971 that it became part of the University of Wisconsin system. 

I would never do this now, but in 1966 I was nineteen years old and we would also visit the cemetery. We would go after dark and would say "I believe in Mary Worth".  We would listen for spirits to answer back and swore we saw and heard the voice of Mary Worth. We didn't have the internet to research the subject and it never occurred to any of us to look up the origin. It was just tradition. On top of that, a few of the people from my floor would sit around and use the Ouija board. These boards were originally invented as a harmless game which was "was born directly out of the same 19th century American Spiritualism movement that fueled towns like Whitewater.” Now I see spiritual posts and people who say they would never touch one of those boards, but we looked at it like an innocent game. We would ask it all kinds of questions, like the name of the person we would marry. Believe it or not, my roommate and I both married people with the name the Ouija board predicted. I don't know when we quit, but it did get a little creepy. We went to college without all the modern conveniences today’s kids have. Thank goodness because who knows what would have happened. We had a record player and a hot pot. At night when we were sleeping, the record player would turn on by itself. Or a voice would come into our room over the intercom when the office downstairs was closed. My roommate was in the bathroom and the shower came on in another area and no one else was in there. There were weird feelings at times but we never made the connection between the spirits we invited in and the fact that Whitewater was a Spiritual Hub. Maybe that is why they tore my dorm down. It might have been haunted. We don't know if others in the building had similar experiences because no one talked about it. I think it was probably torn down for expansion but the other explanation makes for a fun story.  

My grandson was nice enough to get some pictures for me. There is the cemetery but there is also the Starin Park Water Tower (1889). It is still there surrounded by a fence. We are not sure if the fence is to keep people out or to keep spirits in.

There are three cemeteries in Whitewater. They make the "witches triangle". They are Calvary Cemetery on the north side of the campus, Oak Grove Cemetery near Washington Elementary school and Hillside Cemetery near Cravath Lake. Calvary Cemetery near campus has been known to have lights floating around. There was a big temperature change that could be felt when entering the cemetery. I wonder if the lights were just college kids with flashlights, but who am I to say? The temperature change was real. 

The Oak Grove Cemetery is the resting place for Mary Worth. She supposedly was an axe murderer. We would call up the ghost of Mary Worth, never knowing that she was an axe murderer and it seems we were even in the wrong cemetery. We could have sworn we saw and heard her. 

The last cemetery was Hillside Cemetery. The grave of Morris Pratt can be found there. Pratt, who died in 1902, was a prominent Spiritualist and the founder of what would eventually become the Morris Pratt Institute. In 1889, he opened the Temple of Psychic Science in Whitewater, which is a large building dedicated to the practice and study of Spiritualism. After Pratt’s death, the temple became the Morris Pratt Institute, a school devoted to the study and teaching of Spiritualism. The Whitewater Historical Society has an interesting article on this. It is way too much information to paraphrase but here is the link. It's very good. https://www.whitewaterhistoricalsociety.org/post/ spiritualism-the-morris-pratt-institute  Another good article can be found here: https://blogs.uww.edu/ucinfo/2021/10/18/morris-pratt-and-the-temple-of-psychic-science-in-whitewater/  The Institute has since moved to Waukesha, Wisconsin but is still dedicated to the study of spiritualism. 

Whether I believe in Spiritualism or not won't be discussed here. I am sure there are people who consider it the work of the devil and there are others who are totally in step with its energy. The fact there was a school devoted to it is very interesting to me. If you want to read more about Whitewater Wisconsin Spiritualism there is a lot of information on the internet. Maybe it's good I didn't know all the details, it might have frightened me to death. Now it has made me fascinated with something that took me sixty years to learn.   

A Star Was Never Born but She Tried

Hopefully I haven't told these stories already. I have written at length about being sick as a baby more than once. My only hope is that if I can't remember what I wrote in 987 blogs, then maybe no one else can either. 

My granddaughter called today. It is always nice talking to her since we don't do it too often. She was talking about my last blog and said I looked like a little diva. That was a shock. I never thought of myself as a diva, but maybe I was back then. I did do things that would shock the people that know the person I became.

For example, I had the lead role in a performance of "The Little Red Hen". When I was in first grade, we did the play. Maybe the other grades did a play too, but I was focused on my special role. I practiced singing the lines accompanied with the piano. My mom's friend was an elementary school teacher and she helped me. We performed on stage at the local armory. It was a big deal. It was so big that I have no memory of it except practicing and how cold the teacher's hands were when she pinned the name on my dress. I guess we didn't have costumes. I draw a complete blank about anything else. We have no pictures of this special occasion but I am pretty sure I didn't dream it. I guess I shut down during difficult times even back then. 

I do remember the story and part of the song.

"Cut, cut, cut cadacket said the little hen, see my little yellow chickens 8, 9, 10" and "then I will do it myself". That last statement was a bit of foreshadowing for my life. I still am not comfortable with asking for help and at my age, I really do need it.

The next thing that surprised her was that I took singing and piano lessons. She said maybe you are more like your grandchildren than you thought. I didn't go very far with these lessons because I didn't have the courage to perform in public but it did me well in college when I had to take music classes. That was not the case for my husband. Poor Mike couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. We used to play games in the car where he would hum a song, and I would try to guess it. I couldn't guess most of the time. His go to song was Country Road by John Denver and I usually got that right. He had to take music classes also and one professor actually had him stick his head down in the piano to try to mimic a sound. He practiced "Go Tell Aunt Rhody, the Old Gray Goose is Dead" on the piano many times in order to get a passing grade. Good thing they had music teachers when he actually became a teacher. I miss that side of my husband that very few people saw. He had his stern teacher look but was a softy on the inside and he sure loved his girls.

I sure wish I had pictures of this. The Danish side of my family was very musical. I know I have mentioned this before but my mom could play the piano by ear. She could hear a song and play it. Many of her siblings could do the same and sing along. Some had offers to be professionals. My grandpa had a lot of songs from the old country he would sing all the time. Maybe that's where two of my grandsons, Dylan and Jack got that talent from. They sing all the time. You always know where they are because they are singing. My daughters also love to sing and dance. I guess if you have the beat in your genes, it has to come out somehow. 

Who knows what other memories will emerge. They say old people start remembering the past more than the present.  Stay tuned, who knows what I will remember.