Was Grandma's House Haunted?

Now I'm not one to go watch the celebrity haunting programs on TV, but when Cousins Linda and JoAnn and I got talking recently there was one big item on our conversational agenda... about haunting. Cousin JoAnn looked at me with big eyes and asked, "Do you think Grandma Kelly's house was haunted?" Woooah!

Now you have to have known Grandma Kelly. She was pretty much a Victorian woman in many respects. She never met a cabbage rose wallpaper pattern she didn't like. She played rag-time on the piano which, just for fun, she called her pi-an-nee. She loved to tell stories, fact based or not, and was given an award for elocution when she was a girl. In a time before TV and even radio, this was a good skill to have.

Grandma grew up in the Western Maryland town of Frostburg, was born in the old house at 89 West Main Street and died in the same room in which she came into the world. It was her father's house and after she and Grandpop Kelly were married they lived there too. When her parents were gone, the house was hers entirely. But it was kind of haunted.

Helen Gertrude Zeller (1894 - 1985)

As a lovely young girl and before she married.

Cousins Linda and Joann started telling what they knew about the haunting and retelling stories of haunting as I mostly listened and made notes as fast as I could.

The first in a long line of stories had to do with Ma, Grandma's Mother, Moretta Workman Zeller (1859 - 1946). Ma would say with regularity, "Oh what I saw last night!" Tales of furniture moving on the upper floor were quite common. As was the report of head laughing. No body, just a head.

Moretta Workman Zeller
(3 April 1859 - 24 MAR 1946)

Now I do have to admit here that Ma was a jokester and story teller in her own right. I have the distinct impression that when Ma got bored she'd cook up some fun! So what did Ma see?

Finally, a young Helen told her parents that she had seen a woman's face with gold teeth laughing. Grandma was the apple of her father's eye, Gustav Zeller. He was well off and owned a couple of barbering emporiums in the region so money was no object. He promptly built an addition to the house as Grandma's bedroom so she wouldn't have to sleep upstairs... and the hauntings always happened upstairs.

Gustav Zeller
(3 FEB 1858 - 12 Mar 1927)

At this point you need some information about "upstairs." Next to the indoor bathroom with the six-foot tub designed especially for Gus Zeller because he was tall, was an exceedingly narrow stairway, hidden behind a curtain, that immediately made a sharp bend to the left. Kids could scamper up it but it was difficult going for the older folks. At some point Grandma Kelly just gave up on going up there altogether and sent us kids to fetch stuff. I gotta say, I could be kind of spooky up there.

Cousins Linda and JoAnn said that whenever they went to Grandma's house she'd usually send them up on errands and say, "Now hurry and go up can come back down!" No wonder we all thought the place was haunted!

Mom and Dad and I lived in Cleveland but when we went to visit we'd bunk upstairs. I never thought a thing about it being haunted... but then maybe they didn't tell me!

When Grandma passed we bought the old house from the estate. Just wanted to freshen it up a bit and then we'd have a country place to stay in summers. One thing lead to another and we found out that it was way crooked on the foundation, needed a new furnace, plumbing, electrical, and oh, by the way, the walls were all coming down because they were original horse-hair plaster. Many bills and a year and a half later I finally slept in Grandma's house for the first time. Have to confess it was sort of spooky! Said a wish to Grandma to protect me from hauntings. It worked! I slept like a baby:)

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2012/06/was-grandmas-house-haunted.html

Grandma Kelly's Parlor

Grandma had a parlor. Actually, both Grandma Kelly and Grandma Williams had parlor rooms, or front rooms as they were sometimes called. It was the "best room" for visitors or important famly visits.

I had the occasion to remember the parlor because of this article posted to Lynn Coleman's blog, "19th Century Historical Tidbits": http://historicaltidbits.blogspot.com/2012/03/old-fashion-parlor.html

Grandma Kelly's parlor was different than Grandma Williams' parlor. Grandma Kelly's parlor, which was also called the front room, had two windows in which sat "snake plants" in big Victorian pots. It's also been called mother-in-law's tongue but it's proper name is Sansevieria trifasciata. Here's a picture, below, from Tropical Interiors. It's a tropical plant and you see them growing in the ground here in San Diego... so how those two plants came to love grandma's front window in cold Frostburg Maryland with the long winters, I don't know!

There was also a piano in the front room and Grandma played very well. It was out of tune by the time I was old enough to recognize such things, but Grandma made it work when she played ragtime. It sounded very honkey-tonk! There was sheet music in the piano bench, lovely folders with pretty illustrations on the covers.

Fancy lamps and ceramics brightened the room too. Pattern on pattern was the decorating style. Big cabbage rose prints on the wallpaper and floral prints on the upholstered pieces too. Grandma never met a floral print she didn't like... or at least that's how it seemed to me.

As little kids we were not encouraged to inhabit the parlor. But as we became little ladies and gentlemen, Grandma could be talked into taking us into the parlor and playing something on the "pie-an-ee" as she would kiddingly call it.

Next time, more about Grandma Williams' parlor.

Picture of the day from my photo file:

Frostburg, Maryland, about 1912.

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2012/03/grandma-kellys-parlor.html

"Mr. Zeller Weds"

Happy Valentine's Day to all who love!

Here's a short post about love in the Zeller Family (see post below about my GGF, Gustav Zeller.) Great Grandfather Gus Zeller's family moved to Chicago but he visited them and knew about family comings and goings such that he made sure big news was mentioned in local newspapers. Here's the notice of his brother Charles's wedding in the March 3rd, 1906 issue of the Evening Times of Cumberland, MD.

Mr. Zeller Weds

The many friends at this place of Mr. Chas. Zeller, formerly a Frostburger, but now located in Chicago, ILL., will be pleased to learn of his joining the benedicts and taking a voyage over the sea of matrimony. Mr. Zeller was united in wedlock to Miss E. Long, a prominent young lady of Chicago, by a Luthern minister this week. The happy pair will spend several weeks sojourning among places of interest throughout the United States and Canada, after which they will return to Chicago and make their future home. Mr. Zeller, the groom, is a brother of Mr. G. W. Zeller, the Frostburg tonsorial artist, and resided here for many years prior to his removal to the Windy City with his parents some years ago. If possible the bride and groom will spend a few days here the guests of Mr. and Mrs. G. W. Zeller before ending their honeymoon, where they will be tendered a reception.

My GGGF, Charles William Zeller, and

father of the groom in the article above 

(MAY 1829, Germany - 17 MAY 1901, Chicago ILL)

My GGF, Gustav Zeller.

See below for dates and stuff.

My GGM, Moretta Workman Zeller (3 APR 1859 - 24 MAR 1946),

Mother of my Grandmother, whom all called "Ma"

My Grandmother Hellen Zeller (Kelly) as a child and the apple of her father's eye,

with her doll carriage and doggies.

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2012/02/mr-zeller-weds.html

GGF Gus Zeller (1858 - 1927)

My GGF, my Grandmother's Dad, was Gustav Zeller (3 FEB 1858, Frostburg MD - 3 DEC 1927, Frostburg MD.) He owned barbershops in Western Maryland that enjoyed success and allowed his family an affluent lifestyle by the standards of the time. He taught some of the sons and his son-in-law, my Grandfather Kelly, the barbering trade. He even had a small barber shop in the back of his house. His son Gus Jr. took over the barber shops when Gus Sr. retired.

Reportedly, he had a barber shop at 14 East Main Street that burned on December 14, 1917. Then he opened another one at 35 East Main Street making it bigger and better that the old one.

This photo documented the arrival of the trolley to Frostburg, MD from Cumberland.
That's GGF in his snappy white barber frock with his hand to head (signaling hair?)
on the lower step of the trolley. Smart PR!

GGF Gus Zeller was a real promoter of his business, never missing a trick to get mentioned in the most widely read local newspaper of the day, The Frostburg Mining Journal (the FMJ). The dominant job of the town was coal mining and the men put his barber shops to good use.

Today the The Frostburg Mining Journal is housed in the Ort Library on the campus of Frostburg State University, and has many mentions of GGF Zeller. Here are a small handful of them.

2/8/1896: Gus Wm. Zeller received a few days ago 68 fancy fish - silver and gold. Almost 20 were sent to his pond up the pike, 40 remaining here. (Note: they were put in a fish tank in his shop's front window.)

8/29/1896: "Stolen Pigeons", Seven pigeons were stolen by boys from Gus Wm. Zeller last Sunday. When the boys ascertained that Gus had a clue to their identity, they let the pigeons go. Two of them returned to Gus and some of the others flew to Hoffman, their first home. They belong to two branches of the pigeon family - the "Tumblers" and "Rattleshirts".

8/21/1897: "A Pretty Place" (Six paragraphs on the remodeling of Gus' barbershop in the Betz building.) "Quite impressive!"

12/23/1897: "Pretty Windows" (Two paragraphs on the windows of Gus' barbershop, including a large fish tank in one window and a rare stuffed white owl in the other.)

6/17/1899: One morning very recently, GW Zeller had the occasion to be up during the early hours. Standing inside his back yard he heard someone brush the fence going up the alley. Looking over, he saw a man with a pack on his back trotting low toward Union Street. Gus fired his pistol over the fellow's head. The chickens in the sack made a loud outcry and the fellow yelled, "Oh My God." He held on to the chickens. However Gus followed to Union Street. A man coming up saw Gus with a lantern and gun, took to his heels also and neither has been seen since. Gus was about to ask him to help catch the fellow with the sack but the Union Street early bird gave him no chance.

Grandma was the only girl and the apple of her father's eye. When she married, he even built her a separate kitchen onto the house so that she and Ma wouldn't lock horns over kitchen duties! Grandma Kelly was born and died in that house.

My Grandma Helen Zeller (Kelly) as a young girl,

all decked out and ready to have her picture made!

One of these days soon I've really got to dig more deeply into this branch of the family and see what pops up! GGF's parents, Charles and Anna Mary Zeller lived in Frostburg until 1884 when they moved to Chicago. Charles was a confectioner... and Anna Mary a diabetic! Many details of this branch and their family history escapes us in the present generation after the senior Zellers moved.

 Here he is, well coiffed... and look at the mustache!

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2012/02/ggf-gus-zeller-1858-1927.html