S1 – 3: Visit the Sick, Relieve the Distressed, Bury the Dead

eleven years old. My mom and I stayed in this room, and we both watched her hair brush fly off the desk when no one was near it. During the night, I was awakened by a bell, not like a church bell or a small tinkling bell, but more like the sound of a bell at a store counter. The next day, I woke up to the desk chair across the room and pushed against the wall. My wife and I turned the thermostat to seventy degrees before falling asleep. We both awoke in the middle of the night to find the

room blazing hot. We threw off the covers and went back to sleep. A few hours later, at four am, I woke to find a small, blue eyed, blondhaired child staring at me from my side of the bed. He disappeared, and a few seconds later I heard a small child's voice speaking from my wife's side of the bed. I woke up in the middle of the night to see the bathroom light on. I like to sleep in darkness, so I got out of bed, walked across the room,

and turned the light off. After getting back in bed, I rolled over to see the light was on again. This time I stood up, and as I walked over, I said, I'm trying to sleep, leave the light off, please. I went back to bed, and then heard the soft click of what sounded like my door opening and closing, as though someone left because I clearly wasn't much fun.

That last story was mine, by the way, and every one of these stories was taken from the bedside journals kept at the Belvoir Winery and in in Liberty, Missouri, a haunted winery. You ask, well, when it's a former orphanage next door to a former nursing home, hospital, cemetery and morgue that ups the anti unweather your winery is haunted, so let's head to the Odd Fellows Complex. I'm Amy Brunei and welcome to Haunted Road. Visit the sick, relieve

the distressed, bury the dead, and educate the orphan. That was the official purpose of the Independent Order of the Odd Fellows, which was founded by tom Us Wildy of Baltimore in eighteen nineteen. The I O o F stemmed from the eighteenth century Odd Fellows of English creation. Being of fraternal order, Odd Fellowship is also known for their mysterious and secretive rituals, including rites of initiation, a secret grip, and secret passwords. The officers and members of the lodge

where regalia during closed ritual meetings. Most famously, each lodge has an actual skeleton named George, used to symbolize members mortality. The Fraternal Order first came to Missouri in eighteen thirty five, and by the end of the century they built the Odd Fellows Home, a two hundred forty acre complex. It was a form of health and life insurance, and as long as members had a good record, they could depend on the Odd Fellows for help. The complex had its

own farm and expected those who could to work. It also eventually had its own hospital, an orphanage school, nursing home, and cemetery. Eighteen eighty seven was a great year for Clay County, called the Great Boom. The community benefited from the influx of real estate investment and construction. That year, the Winner Hotel was built, but the plans didn't stop

with it. In eight eight the land was plotted to be the home of Red Springs, a complex intended to take advantage of nearby springs thought to be healing waters. But by eighteen nine the plans hadn't borne much fruit Besides the hotel and the owners finances were struggling. In the midst of the healing waters interest in America, they renamed the hotel the Read Springs Hotel in an attempt to attract more visitors. One of those visitors was a young Fellow who later became the Grand Master of the

Odd Fellows, Dr F. H. Matthews. In poor health, he had gone to Read Springs Hotel for its healing waters. His health restored, he married a young Liberty woman and remained in Liberty to practice medicine. He later was physician at the Odd Fellows Home for twenty three years. In eighteen ninety seven, the real estate boom ended, but the

Odd Fellows had purchased the hotel in Acreage. In February of nineteen hundred, the former Red Springs Hotel was then being used as an Odd Fellows home, and in an attempt to unthaw frozen pipes, the building caught fire and burned to the ground. There were allegedly three hundred residents on the property at the time, but miraculously all escaped. Although the fire set the Odd Fellows back money and labor, they took control of nearly two hundred fifty acres of farmland.

Adults and children, aided by the Odd Fellows, worked this land and more or less made the home self sustaining. What stands now as the Odd Fellows District was constructed between nineteen hundred and nineteen thirty five. The establishment of statewide homes as the Missouri Odd Fellows in Liberty was viewed as a form of health and life insurance. As long as members were in good standing, they could count on the Odd Fellows taking care of them or their

family if misfortunes should arise. It seemed like a bold and noble purpose, except eventually the Odd Fellows Home district became outdated and the conditions people were kept in deteriorated. Originally, the home was intended to represent modernity, cleanliness, and caretaking until social programs took over in the nineteen thirties. Now a little history on the buildings at the Odd Fellows Home. The administration building was originally built in nineteen hundred house

all the inmates, employees, and functions of the complex. Now, when I say inmate, I am using an old school term to refer to the then current residence. The original school building, now gone and replaced by the modern nursing home in nineteen fifty five, was built in nineteen o four. After that, the rooms in the administration building were reduced in size to function as residences for elderly folks throughout

nineteen o seven and the following year. The Old Folks Home was built in nineteen In twenty three, the old hospital was added to the grounds. By the time it arrived, there had been a need for its singular purpose since nineteen o five. Because the Grand Lodge made it impossible for the home to reject an applicant based on a physical disability, many residents required hospital care beyond that provided

by the staff, nurse and doctor. The hospital was the only medical facility in Liberty for quite some time, and even had its own laboratory, but over time it too became outdated, as the halls and doorways were not wide enough for movement of hospital beds and equipment. As for residents, the early years were marked by a greater number of children versus adults. Around the time of the Great Depression, though,

adults began to outnumber the children. But along with the depression, national efforts to start up social welfare programs marked the beginning of the end for the home, at least as it served the Odd Fellows. Also during the Depression, a large number of non orphan children were admitted their families were unable to care for them. In addition to education, activities for the children included music, literature, radios, religious services,

holiday parties, and movie nights. To this day, people who spent time at the Orphanage come back to visit, and most recall having fond memories there. This may explain why most every encounter with the ghosts of children here involves playful activity and laughter. Now, as in life, so too and death did the Odd Fellows aid their members a cemetery plot, headstone and burial where yet another benefit provided to their members. There is an on site cemetery at

the complex. Originally it began its tenure near the admin building, but was moved to higher ground in nineteen eleven. The cemetery contains the remains of nearly six hundred people. Over the decades the Odd Fellows Home was an operation, it is estimated as many as ten thousand people died there. While many were expected as people were taken care of in their later years, it's many were due to the lack of adequate medical facilities in the early years and

then outdated facilities in its later years. There are also newspaper records of at least a few suicides and accidents, and a number of children are buried in the cemetery, most likely victims of pneumonia or tuberculosis and with no family or means to be buried elsewhere. In n the Odd Fellows sold the property to the current owners. At that time, every building had long been closed and out of commission, other than the nursing home, which still had

a few remaining residents. Eventually, that too was shuttered, and the new owners then turned the campus into a winery. The district now totals thirty six acres. It is a dark, looming set of buildings. The original orphanage is now operating as the inn and winery, and as fate would have it, is a popular wedding venue. Also in this building is a large collection of antique Odd Fellows artifacts, including masks, robes,

and of course, their very own George. This skeleton dates back to the eighties and belonged to an Odd Fellow who bequeathed his remains first to science and then to the I O O F for ritual use. Now, in addition to educating folks on the history of the Odd Fellows, he's a popular stop for selfies. Just next door sits the dormant and quiet nursing home Basement Morgue still included,

and beyond that the old Folks Home and hospital. All these buildings are wide open to the elements, as nature is slowly taking over in some places, but it's not hard to imagine what the complex look like in its heyday. One thing is for sure, the Odd Fellows complex has been rumored to be haunted for decades. Many locals have stories of being dared to enter the buildings in their

teenaged years and having strange encounters. Former staff of the nursing home, which remained open long after the other buildings had closed, reports strange going on, especially on the night shift, and of course the current employees have no shortage of tales to tell visitors and guests. I should add the place is now patrolled by security, so no more breaking and entering, please. Even Jesse lime Killer, who I should explain as a dear friend and CEO of the winery.

His wife, Melissa's father is the one who originally took on the task of buying the complex, doesn't shy from telling his ghost stories. Will be interviewing him in a bit, but he has seen the apparition of a small child, a woman, and a shadowed silhouette. He's also personally told me numerous stories of voices and footsteps in the building when he has been all alone. It's not unusual for guests to report footsteps or to hear the pianos playing on their own, have lights turn on and off, or

see doors slam. So now that you're an expert on all things odd Fellows Home, let's have a chat with Jesse. I actually met Jesse and his wife Melissa when we filmed Ghost Hunters at the home so many years ago, and we hit it off, Daly, I mean, of course we did. A family who loves to travel and owns a haunted winery. Let's just say we were fast friends. Welcome to the show, Jesse, thank you for having me, of course. So can you kind of explain how you

came into owning and running a haunted winery in sure? Yeah, so my wife's parents, they originally acquired the property directly from the odd Fellows, the odd Fellows that had the property for about a hundred years, and we acquired it in My in law's dream was to turn the winery property, which it was actually just a nursing home, and at that time they wanted to turn the proper me into a winery and then a bed and breakfast as well, and so we started making making those changes and renovating

just to make the winery and then eventually we've fulfilled what they wanted and about the last five years we completed the in as well, and now they have it all m So can you just kind of explain who the odd Fellows were? Yeah? So the odd Fellows is a fraternal order and charitable order, much like the Mason, Shriners,

Knights of Columbus. Those type of groups, the lodges would be located in each individual city, um they would be everywhere the height of the organization, which was in the thirties and the forties, and so they would have the meetings in those lodges, and they would also hold the rituals in those lodges, and the ritual was based on Old and New Testament teachings, mainly the parable that goods

the Briton. And then in addition, they would also have what they called Odd Fellows homes, and they were one or two in each state, and their purpose was strictly charitable. They were looking to take care of the orphans, take care of the poor, how's retired people. And then also in some cases they would have a hospital there as well. Okay, so were these buildings where they open to just members of the Odd Fellows or were these places that anyone in the community could make use of, so a mixture

of both. They had the orphanage which could be open to the public, and they were just there to take care of anybody who needed help in that regard. Usually it wasn't necessarily that the family was giving up the orphan It was more a situation where, for example, in the twenties thirties fourries, they couldn't always feed their family members, all of them in some cases, and so they would

drop off, usually the younger members of the family. The older families they would keep on the farm because they were able to work, whereas the younger kids, they would take them to these orphanages where they be fed and taking care of and clothes, and then eventually when the family got back on their feet, they would come back and get the orphans. Hopefully. I didn't. I was not aware of that. I just I feel like everybody assumes orphans means no parents or no family. Yeah, yeah, in

some cases, I mean. And and it was kind of weird too, because in the case of the orphanage, the families would actually come visit them periodically in many cases, um and so we have a lot of stories where, for example, a family might have six kids and three of them were at the orphanage, and then three of them were at home working on the farm on the property, and every two to three weeks the family would usually come on a Sunday after church, they would come and

visit the other kids. They would hang out, they would have a picnic, just do family things like everything was normal. And then at the end of the afternoon, the family would head back with the older kids back to the farm, and then the younger kids would be left there for another two to three weeks before they saw their family again. It's it's so poor into what we think about now, you know, as as as how things run. But at the time that was that was very normal. That was

just a way that the private organizations helped people. But it was just a way of life, and that was how they survived during that time. So why Liberty, Like, I know, when I when I get to the winery, when will you arrive? It's really set away from everything, you know. Is there a reason why they picked Liberty in particular? So generally speaking, they obviously turned to try to be relatively close to bigger cities, which obviously Kansas City is only about oh fifteen minute drive twenty minute

drive tops. So what they would try to do is get towards those big population centers where there was the most need. In the case of Liberty, Liberty actually originally was going to house a Mason's home there, and what happened was is that deal fell through, and so then the city of Liberty offered the odd Fellows seventeen thousand dollars and that would have been which is a lot of money back then. But they offered that money to them and said, hey, will you come and take what

the building, which was basically a bankrupt hotel. And so they had this large hotel on the edge of their town and they wanted to do something with it, so they offered them this money to come in and set something up, and that's how they came to be at the property. It was also really close to the river and a major road which was nice as well, so that's originally how they came to that property. Did you ever have any connection to the Winter Hotel or the

Red Springs Hotel or anything like that. Yes, So that was the hotel that I just spoke of that was bankrupt. So it originally the original building was a wood structure on the site and it was built in eighteen eighty. It was called the Winter Hotel initially um and that was the person that actually built it, and then later it became the Red Springs Hotel as well. But there

was actually a full plan for the entire property. Originally it was supposed to be a community with lots of houses and businesses, and there was actually a horse racing track out in front of the property that they did actually build and was used for a period of time. But all that was supposed to happen this giant community just outside of Liberty, and then basically they built a hotel.

It did all right for about a decade, and then there was a real estate crash early in the eighteen nineties and the Mr Winner who owned the place, he basically lost all his properties, and so that's how it became a bankrupt hotel and became for sale, and that's how the odd Fellows ended up with it. I see, now, did that building burn down or is that one of the structures that's still there? Correct? So the odd Fellows got the property with the original hotel in and turned

that into an orphanage. And then on Valentine's Day nineteen hundred, in that building, the cook who was there, they had a frozen pipe and he wasn't able to do what he needed to do to cook the meals, and so he actually went down in the basement and was using a blowtorch to heat the pipe, and part of the blowtorch evidently caught part of that wood section on fire. He didn't know it initially, that's what happened, and of course it went up flames in a hurry because it

was a wood structure. And that's actually one of the main reasons that the current building is built with, you know, eighteen inch brick walls, because the odd fillo is to not want that to happen again, and so they built one of the most fire resistant structures in the United States at that time because they didn't want to have another wood truck that might go up again. Yes, so we're the other buildings present when that Orphanage building was rebuilt.

The Orphanage building was the original building it was built in that's also the current winery building. And then the second building that was built was the schoolhouse next door. It was built in nineteen o two. Then the old Folks Home was built in nineteen o five, and then finally the medical hospital at the far end it was

built in the early twenties. Okay, I just I noticed, like when you when you go there, the Orphanage which is now the winery is just it is in Obviously it's in great shape because you guys did a lot

of renovating on it and things. But I feel like that building has just kind of stood the test of time better than some of the others because the other ones are they're just wide open to the elements and they it's so surreal because you roll up there and you see this big, you know, structure, and then you see these other structures around it that are covered in vines and are wide open, and just it looks like

it should be haunted. And you would never expect to walk into to the winery building and find this like beautifully restored you know, obviously the winery and the bar, and then upstairs this beautiful in I don't know, I always feel like it's just such a contrast between that building and the other buildings and how they have kind of fared over the years. Yeah, and it's a it's a lesson obviously and kind of choose your poison as far as you know, when you're dealing with these properties.

You know, we've spent a few million on the building that we do have, you know, but it literally if we want to do all the buildings, it literally costs like tens of millions of dollars, and a lot of people are wondering, you know, well, why don't you restore

them all? It's like, well, they cost a lot of money to make to make history happen in those cases, and so you know, as much as we'd like to just blow right through them and do them all, you kind of have to stagger it so that you're able to afford it and not go you know, like Mr Winner go bankrupt in the process. Exactly, exactly. Now, let's talk about just you know, why it's haunted over the years throughout those buildings. How many people do you think

passed away on that property? The off Fellows have just over ten thou recorded deaths on site. Most of those are obviously in the nursing home, the old folks home, in the hospital. You know, I mean the hospital for the first half of the last century. It wasn't always a place that you were cured. Sometimes in some cases it was a place where you were just brought to

be comfortable. You know, they didn't have things like antibiotics and stuff like that for a long period of time, and so stuff that you know, we cure easily, they it wasn't cured easily back then. And then in addition, there were lots of residents. I mean, between the nursing home and the old Folks Home, there's about two rooms in those two buildings, so you can imagine how many people were going in and out. And it wasn't a situation where they had a lot of long term residents. Necessarily,

they were coming in out relatively quickly. And in fact, we have the cemetery on site which acts about six hundred graves. And it's easy to see too if you go up there that most of the graves that are up there, I think there's only about five orphans or

something like that. Most of the graves up there are people who lived into their eighties and nineties, and we don't always think about that because so many times, you know, they tell people, oh, well, they didn't live as long back then, but there was a lot of people that did still live that long, and so a lot of those people up there have lived a long life and

and passed away on the property. Yeah, and it sounds like when it was built, it was it was state of the art, but then at some point it kind of started falling behind, you know, was there kind of a shift or turn as far as the conditions there at some point. Yeah, the first shift, the major shift that happened was, you know, when you have federal government takes over things like well fair and child protective services.

For many years, these kind of places provided those kind of services, and the ones that that change took place in the federal government started covering some of those kind of things, there was no need for those things there. As a result, there was a situation where something that was a stream of revenue that was providing maintenance in a lot of cases suddenly wasn't there anymore, and your

left basically with a nursing home at that point. And while you know, theoretically you could do that, it's much more difficult to run that kind of a property with that size where it's only a nursing home in a lot of cases. To the odd fellows, they would pay a stipend throughout their life as an odd Fellow, and then if they paid for a certain number of years,

they would get free retirement at the site. While that was a great idea in principle, what happened was as you go along, they didn't get as many new members coming in and so as a result, there was less of a revenue stream coming in to support all these people being taken care of at the nursing home, and as a result, you know, then they suddenly had these behemoth properties with not enough revenue coming in to support them.

And so it seems like probably the closures were sort of staggers, and then, like you said before, by the time your wife's family purchased at it was just the nursing home and operation. Correct. Yeah, correct, there's only one building in operation at that time, and I think there was only about fifteen residents there, so it's not very many.

And in fact, the building where the winery is it was actually closed for no I'd say, about five to eight years before we even got it as well, so it was already in somewhat of a stated decay and we were we got it in and restarted from the studs basically. So why why do you think Why do you think it's haunted? Um? I think it's a mixture of things. UM. In the winery building, I don't think. I don't feel like it's a situation where it's a

threatening thing in any way. It's more playful usually, which makes sense. I mean, there's mostly kids there in some cases. I mean, most of the residents that were there that we've met who used to be orphans, they said it was actually a nice place to stay. They were well taken care of, and they didn't really have any issues with staying there other than the fact they would have

rather been home with their families obviously. But you know, I think I think some of them actually had some good times with some good friends there and and still enjoy it. And there were a few that passed away there. I mean, it does happened. As far as the other buildings, you know, it's more old age and those kind of things. A lot of those buildings, it's more of a vibe

like they don't want you there. It's kind of like grumpy old people kind of thing where you don't feel welcome there necessarily just because they'd rather not have you there. It's one of those things where I don't know that those people necessarily enjoyed their stay as much as maybe the orphans did. So I think it's why there's a totally different vibe there. And of course just the simple fact that so many people passed away there. We've come

across a few other situations. There's a one week in the mid thirties the summer where they had like seven residents pass away from a heat wave. It just literally got up to like a hundred nine degrees for several days in a row, and those residents were in the building and they literally just you know, overheated to death. And there there was a suicide on site one that

we know of. UM, some other situations, but you know, there's plenty of life events that happened in those buildings, so I don't think it should be all that surprising. What would you say is the most common occurrences that people report, either in the in in winery or just in the buildings. UM. I think the two main things are voices. It seems like there's a lot of situations where you feel like you'll be in the building all alone and you'll hear conversations down the hallways. It will

be more than one person. As you walk toward, it just kind of goes away. The other thing is very prevalent is footsteps in the other buildings. A lot of times you can actually hear them. In some cases. It's kind of weird because even though all the breed that's on the floor wasn't there at the time those people were there. In most cases, you can actually hear the floor, you can hear the crunching, you can hear the noises,

which is probably unique. I don't know if that's common or not, but I feel like that's something that doesn't always happen. I feel like sometimes you'll have a normal footstep if I despite the fact that there's kind of free on the floor, that should be making a different town. H It's such an interesting, um influx of visitors that you have because you know, having visited many times, you have people who are definitely there just to kind of

enjoy the winery and in the sceneries. It's beautiful, you know, the land and everything in the views, and then you definitely have the people that are there just to look for ghosts. And how is that received in the community. Um, you know, I think it's something they've grown accustomed to. Even before we open the property, you know, there are rumors of paranormal activity. I can say we didn't really

experience that much before. Um, you know, we were out there more often, which would have been around two thousand eight somewhere in that range. We didn't really experience that much out there. To be honest with you, Once we were out there more often, I think it became more obvious, and it was a situation where, you know, we couldn't really hide from it. There was so much talk in the community. In a lot of cases, it's an institution that a lot of people in the community were involved in.

I mean, people come in, you know, when they're tasting tasting wine and things like that, and they'll tell stories about you know, when I was a kid fifty years ago, I used to come out and sing for the old folks home for caroling, you know, or the boy Scouts used to paint some kind of pesticide on the bottom three feet of all the trees. You have painted trees throughout the property, or all those kind of things, and all those people came out, and so it's been such

an integral part of the community for so long. I think at this point people are just glad that they're able to come visit it again and and see the history and all that kind of stuff. And and in a lot of cases we have people who come multiple times, and they keep bringing different people, and in some cases they're just you know, they'll go out and do their own tour and tell the history and we don't even have to do the work for them. That is nice

to have. It is interesting because so many times when we investigate places like that, you know, we don't ever really get to talk to people who truly spent time there. But that is one difference there that it was such a huge part of the community for so long, Like you have generations of people who either knew someone who

spent time there or who worked there. Because I know, when we were filming Kindred, we kind of put a call out at the last minute because we wanted to kind of do this experiment and bring out people who had some sort of attachment to the building, and we got a huge response, Like it was not hard to find people who had, you know, actually spend time in those walls when it was functioning. Yeah, absolutely, so real talk. How many times have your in guests left in the

middle of the night. We actually we actually keep a running count and the current count is seventeen rooms I've left in the middle of the night so far. So and that's in four years time. So you know, about every two to three months we get somebody who just flat out all the building is done for the nights, I don't want to stay here. There are other nights or other situations where we do have you know, they

get freaked out, but maybe they don't leave. We had one where there was a couple that was staying and they woke up in the middle of the night and had voices and one of the people felt somebody sitting down on the bed next to where they were sleeping. I said, they were done, and they went out to the car, and the spouse was like, I'm all right with that, and so the spouse actually stayed in the room while the other person went out and slept in the car for the last four hours. Oh my goodness.

They're lucky their marriage survived that, you know. And it's funny because I started, uh, I started this podcast kind of reading off some experiences because you have journals in every room for people to you know, just you know, write their experiences down, which is really great because we always recommend that to people when they're researching their hauntings, is to keep kind of a running log, and so you have people doing that for you. But yeah, one

of them act she wasn't experience just like that. A lot of people seem to feel someone sitting down on their beds. You know, I know me personally, I always stay in the bridal suite, of course, and that I've had the bathroom light turned on and off in their multiple times. And I've also had the door open and

clothes in there, and I've heard so many sounds. Like I know, when I stay there, I'm not frightened in the slightest, but I do usually wear ear plugs or have a fan going so I don't have to hear all the sounds that are happening around me, because I swear I've heard footsteps there a few times too. Yeah, they have. UM. There was one couple that was in

there that um. As you know, our rooms are next each other, our standard rooms are next to each other, and so they were staying in room nine, which is right next room seven. And in the morning they came out and I said hi and greeted them and asked asked them how their night was, and they said, well, it was fine until their neighbors started making a bunch of noise and said, oh, that's terrible what happened. So

they talked about it. I think it was like four in the morning they heard footsteps next door and a bunch of talking, and they were annoyed, and I even got the impression that maybe they were going to ask for some money back or something like that, because they were so frustrated with the situation. And I said, well, let me check, and so I went over to the computer and pulled it up. There was nobody staying in Room seven the entire night. We didn't have a key

out for that. And I said, I don't have anybody in that room. I said, there's literally nobody there, and and I said, I feel free to take a peek. And they came around and looked and realized that there was nobody in that room, and they actually apologized to me on the spot and said, I am so sorry. Apparently we got what we're looking for and we just

didn't know. It's I think that hotels sometimes worry about having that reputation, and I'm constantly explaining to them that it's very rare that that is going to stop from someone from staying in a hotel. It might make them leave in the middle of the night, but even that's pretty rare. Yes, yes, absolutely, we have. Generally speaking, it's been a very positive experience as far as that goes. Now, I feel as though the Morgue to me in the

nursing home, and then I would say probably out. I can't even pick which spot is the most active paranormally speaking to me, Um, I do know the morgue has notoriously been a spot where I've had a male voice down there talk to me. I've had something grabbed my arm down there. Chip Coffee famously had his arm grabbed

in the morgue. What spot do you think has kind of the most extreme activity, um, I would say that morgue as well, actually, and some of it I would attribute to when I go down there, I just don't feel comfortable in any way, shape or form. I mean, it's a situation where it's cold, it's clammy. There's literally like doors all around you. You know, there's kind of that central area where there's you know, everywhere you look there's a door staring at you. It's a it's total darkness.

You know, even one of the doors that has nurses locker room where you know they're still closed in there from forty years ago. And let the left there like just happened yesterday almost and you know, all that just kind of there's a big vibe down there, and you can just feel it almost feels like a buzz. I just don't I don't like it much. I mean, I'm happy to go in most the areas, and I'll go into the morgue as well, but you know, I won't go down there unless I have. Yeah, there's times where

we're doing events. They are a group investigations, and you know, I've had to move from like point A to point B by myself. And you know, I have this thing I do when I'm in a really haunted space and I'm nervous, which I get nervous. I can't help it, especially when you've been grabbed in the dark by something you can't see. But I tend to whistle or hum

because I feel like nothing bad can happen. And so if I'm whistling or humming in a cheerful way, because it's quicker sometimes to go through the morgue to get to the you know, because sometimes there's people up on the upper level or that door's locked, and so whenever I have to do that, I'm like humming and whistling

and rushing through there as quick as I can. And that's the one spot that I do that, so, you know, and I think that, having investigated there so many times, I do think that there is something to the idea, like we explored on the episode of Kindred we did there, that people start kind of bringing that energy with them, and people investigate there so often that certain areas that get that reputation they almost kind of perpetuate that energy and it stays there. And and the morgue and the

nursing home in particular, I think are perfect examples of that. Yeah, and I get a heavy feeling of in that In that building as well, I'm always looking over my shoulder and it's not a it's not a situation where you're like, you know, a little freaked out kind of thing. I mean, I've been there for almost three decades now, that seems like forever. But I don't get freaked out easily. It doesn't. It takes a lot for me to get freaked out. But when you're in that building, it just really feels

like something's just standing over your shoulder. I mean, it's I don't know how to explain it. That sounds weird and ridiculous, but it's true. I Mean, it just totally feels like something's watching you. Yeah, I mean, I can't even begin to imagine who it could be. There's any number of people it could be. We've we've done so much digging, we've done so much historical research, We've gotten so many names. We've actually had spirits there identify themselves

to us before. We we've had a spirit correct the pronunciation of their name to us before. But whoever that is in the nursing home and the morgue, they remain anonymous. They won't tell us really much of anything, and they seem to just kind of exists there, and they tend

to scare people a lot. Well, I think that that's it for now, unless there's anything you want anyone to know about investigating there, any activity that happens there, Like if there's any message you want to get across to people who plan on visiting, this is a good time to do that. No, not really. I mean, you know, most people realize it's really tough to investigate the wider in the most part because our tours that we have

they sell out really quickly. You know, hopefully everyone gets the opportunity that wants to eventually, But I mean it's a it's a wonderful place to visit. It. It's a wonderful place to learn about a lot of history that you wouldn't normally learn about um And I always tell people, you know, paranormal activity is a great way to teach people about history without them necessarily knowing that you're teaching

them something. I mean, if we just had buildings and we were telling them about the Odd Fellows, they wouldn't pay attention. But when we talk about the Odd Fellows and their paranormal activity behind, it's suddenly everybody's very interesting what's going on. So that's a great part of the property and a great part of the learning experience. You know that people enjoy when they come to the winery, So I think that's fantastic. Well, thank you for your time.

I appreciate it everyone. I do encourage you to visit the winery and in if you're in the area, or make a special trip for it, because it's worth it. There's so much to see and do nearby as well. And you know, like I said in the beginning of the interview, Jesse and his family and the winery all have a very special place in my heart. It's place unlike any other, so um highly recommend very haunted, lots of great stories, lots of great history. So Jesse, thank

you so much. I super appreciate your time. I love the evolution of the Odd Fellows complex, and I love the acceptance of the owners in embracing their ghosts. But over the years things have gotten a little darker in certain corners of those crumbling buildings. Well, I don't think

the place is infested with demons or anything. I don't think you can have a space like that with paranormal investigators going in and out constantly, some terrified, some nervous, some rehashing and discussing every tragedy or death that has happened there without affecting the energy and the walls. It's something we've seen time and time again with some of these more well known locations. And while those thoughts are inevitable,

it also lends to a valuable lesson. If you believe in the power of paul positive thought, then you should also entertain the power of negative thought and what that means when you walk the dark house of an old hospital thinking about every bad thing that happened there. Let's turn that around, shall we. I'm going to focus on those cozy beds in the inn and of course the great wine. Though I do recommend traveling with a good pair of ear plugs should you stay at the end.

So until next time on Haunted Road, cheers. Haunted Road is a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey. The podcast is written and hosted by Amy Bruney. Executive producers include Aaron Manky, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. The show is produced by rema Ill Kali and Trevor Young. Taylor Haggerdorn is the show's researcher. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.