S2 – 5: They Were Places of Last Resort

the people could not change their financial situation quickly. To still provide but to reduce the cost of government assistance, many counties established poor houses in the early eighteen hundreds. Poorhouses provided destitute people with shelter. They also commonly provided residents with employment opportunities. Women cared for the houses upkeep. All men would take classes to learn a trade or work in farm fields to provide food for the poorhouses residents.

Many rested on optimistic assumptions about the possibilities of reform, rehabilitation, and education. Their sponsors believed that institutions could improve society through their impact on individual personalities. Because of their environmental sources, crime, poverty, ignorance,

and mental illness could be eradicated. Yet taking in everyone proved to be out of the wheelhouse for many of these institutions, and after nearly one hundred years, the campaign to restrict poorhouses to the old and helpless finally succeeded in the early decades of the twentieth century. In New York. By the end of the First World War, the poorhouse was being looked upon as an institution mainly for the

care of the aged and infirm. Here in the gradual transformation of poorhouses lay the origins of public old age homes. The departure of children, the mentally ill, and the able body did not mean that conditions and poor houses improved dramatically for those left behind. Throughout the early twentieth century, investigations routinely uncovered wretched conditions. In some less populous states. Four houses remained relatively unspecialized, mixing children, the insane, sick,

able body, and elderly. Old age homes paid a price for their origins as poor houses. Emerging as part of the structure of public relief, they never wholly lost the stigma attached to welfare. They were places of last resort, dreaded by the poor. However, places like the Lawrence County

Home for the Aged to began forming. Built in nineteen homes like this were meant to turn over a new leaf, but this one, known today as Hillview Manor, is said to be known as the most haunted site in western Pennsylvania. So if they were successful with their reforms, why is it so haunted? I'm Amy Brunei and this is haunted road.

In June, the city of Newcastle, Pennsylvania started accepting bids to build the New Lawrence County Home for the Aged, essentially a poorhouse for the county's mentally ill, severely destitute, and elderly residents with no known family. This joint city County Home, to be built in Nango Township on the Newcastle Elwood Road, would replace the Aging Newcastle City Home

and consolidate various smaller institutions around the county. The Newcastle City Home, a working farm and collection of building, is located on Old Pittsburgh Road, near the present day site of the Chenango Elementary School. Had been around since opening in November eighteen sixty seven. The facility had been built on forty four acres donated by Charles Phillips of Newcastle. Although there was initially a three man board of what

they called poor directors. One of them, a man named Robert Reynolds, largely kept the home in operation with his own financing and tireless efforts behind the scenes. Over the next three decades, the home usually maintained only two full time staff members and housed about ten inmates as they were called at any given time. By nineteen hundred, the resident population at its peak had increased to twenty seven inmates,

but was down to eighteen in nineteen twenty. The institution was for Newcastle residents only and was run by a superintendent, who was elected to a four year term by the city commissioners. Assisting the superintendent was a similarly elected matron who personally versaw all the female inmates. Perry D. Snyder and his wife Mary A. Snyder, first elected in March nineteen thirteen, would serve in those respective posts for the

next three decades. The state of the art County Home also included vocational rooms, a smoking room, several lounges, a bomb shelter, a laundry, a four car garage, a large garden, a small working farm, and a cemetery. An excerpt from an article about the County Home in Newcastle News of October twenty nineteen explains that aged people without a friend in the world will be able to spend their declining years in comfort. Most of the inmates were wards of

the county and sentenced to confinement at the home. Construction was behind schedule, but the facility finally opened on Tuesday, October nineteenth, nineteen twenty six. On that day, the Snyders and their two children, about a dozen staff members, and the first twenty inmates left Field City Home and took up residence in the nearby Lawrence County Home. The new home did not generally take children, although a young boy was among the first twenty residents. The old City Home

was abandoned soon after and was later sold. The new County Home worked in conjunction was several other facilities, including the Margaret Henry Home and the Almira Home. Orphaned and other similarly disadvantaged children were handled at the Margaret Henry Home, known as the Holy Family Home prior to nineteen on Cunningham Avenue in Newcastle. The Almira Home on East Washington

Street in Newcastle was a haven for elderly women. Under the Snyder's long reign, the number of inmates steadily grew, but fluctuated over the years, from seventy two inmates in December nine to one d seventy six in December nineteen thirty four and one hundred thirty six in December nineteen thirty nine. In June nineteen forty four, county welfare officials in the Snyders came under fire during a rather heated public hearing held at the county Courthouse investigating claims of

incompetency at the home. The Snyders were both in their late seventies at this point and probably not suited to operate such a challenging facility. In the wake of the hearing, the Snyders were basically retired with pensions, but allowed to stay on at the home with produced roles. By late August, with Perry Snyder's sick in bed and Mary tending to him on many days, the Snyders were given three weeks

to vacate the premises. That vacate order ended the Snyder's run of over thirty years of service to the local community. Man Spy Hogue, the longtime director of the county's welfare department, took over operation of the Home. The Lawrence County Home continued an operation for many years, and in the latter half of the nineteen sixties, while under the supervision of Director Clarence E. Covert was remodeled and morphed into a

skilled nursing center. By n seventy the home was facing severe overcrowding issues and was housing an average of about one hundred fifteen elderly people at any one time. In December nineteen seventy four, the county decided to update and expand the home by adding a whole new section and remodeling some of the existing floors. The new three story edition, with an additional basement floor to be built off of the woman's department, would allow the home to accommodate another

thirty or so residence. A new kitchen and dining room, and other occupational rooms were also included in the construction. The new north wing cost one point seven million dollars and opened in mid nineteen seventy seven. Meanwhile, after a contest to find a more suitable name for the antiquated sounding Lawrence County Home for the Aged, it was renamed as the Hillview Manor. On March twenty two, nine seventy seven. Due to financial constraints, The county shut down Hillview Manor

in January of two thousand four. The old home has gained quite the notoriety for being touted as one of the most haunted locations in all of western Pennsylvania. In two thousand and eight, local paranormalist Candy Brandiff began leasing the facility and conducting ghost tours for the public. In May of Haunted Hillview Manner Incorporated took over the property and offers a wide variety of activities on the site. Over the years, quite a cast of characters has formed

around the hauntings at Hillview. Many of the spirits have been given names and identities. The following few, while cited on the Elwood City website, were not names that I was able to connect with any records. But that doesn't mean they're not accurate per se. I just can't confirm them. Just like some historical websites say that ten thousand people pass at Hillview, a number I just can't see possible.

But again I can't necessarily disprove it. I guess what I'm getting at is always take reports and facts without back up with a grain of salt, but don't always assume they come from a place of malice. That being said, let's meet some of these ghosts. One of the most notable casualties in the history of the building is that of Eli Sorry. Eli was a middle aged man who was a resident there during the building's early days as a poor farm and halfway house. Eli was a recovering alcoholic,

which the building commonly hosted. However, alcohol was forbidden in the building due to the strict no alcohol policy. He decided to get his fixed by leaving the building in order to go drinking. Eli was found by some of the other residents the next morning laying outside of the front doors, passed out drunk, who then decided to carry him in and leave him in the boiler room to

warm and sober up. Unfortunately, Eli never sobered up. He passed away in his slumber, likely from alcohol poisoning, and now his restless spirit is said to haunt the boiler room area. The ghost of Eli supposedly enjoys taunting women. There are several reports of women saying they were touch, grabbed, and pinched by who they believe is Eli. Many residents of the Manners spent nearly their whole lives there, and

many did not have any family. Mary Virginia, a cerebral palsy patient and resident of the home, was one of these residents. She spent most of her time playing dress up and listening to music, and her room is still set up similarly to how she had it when she was a resident of the manner, complete with toys, dolls, makeup costumes, jewelry, and a music player. Many of the rooms, and specifically the basement, are filled with personal belongings to

many of the past on residents. According to paranormal reports, Mary's ghost is friendly and responds well to her trigger objects her former belongings, showing her presence by swinging the necklaces that hang above her bed, moving her dolls, and faintly playing her favorite music tunes into investigators recording devices. Again that's direct from the Elwood City website. Another favorite spirit among ghost hunters is a child spirit supposedly named Jeffrey.

Jeffrey is supposedly a nine year old boy who lived in the manner with his eleven year old brother, and according to investigators, his eleven year old brother was adopted while Jeffrey was not. They did not know Jeffrey's name until he said it in one of their digital recorders. There is no record of the exact room Jeffrey lived in. However, there are child toys scattered throughout one of the second

floor rooms for his spirit to interact with. George, a spirit that lives in the basement, is said to be a former maintenance man. He has also said to be a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, and he has reported to be very distasteful to the idea of visitors rooting for other teams. People have claimed to be smacked in the back of the head for mentioning another team. Sounds like a lot of New England or sports fans I know. Philly ghost dot com also has some reports listed on their website.

Two brothers reportedly visited Hellview because their grandmother used to live there. An e V P was captured with a woman using a family nickname that no one else would have known. Another relative stated that her grandmother used to play the piano every day at the facility. Now a spirit can be heard tickling the ivories late into the evening. One woman who worked as a nurse had numerous experiences while working. On one occasion, while walking from the east

wing to the west wing. She claimed a very cold and cloudy form passed through her. It did not frighten her, only gave her an incredible chill. On other occasions, when on the second floor near the break room, it would not be uncommon for her to see what appeared to be someone walking down the hall, but upon checking things out, nobody was ever there. So to get to the bottom of these reports and hear about them firsthand. Up next,

we're going to be chatting with Melissa Keen. She is a tour guide at Hillview and she has been investigating this site for over a decade. That is coming up after the break So I am sitting here with Melissa Keene, who is one of the tour guides at hell View Manner. So welcome Melissa. Thank you Amy, it's a pleasure to be here. Yeah, thanks for taking the time. Now, how did you get involved with hell View? How long have

you been there? Tell us all the lowdown. Well, I've actually been investigating actively for about eleven years, and my very first investigation was at hell View Mannor. I just instantly fell in love with the place and went back as often as I could, And then about three years ago, a friend of mine called me and he said, Hey, the owner is having an informational meeting. She wants to

hire a bunch of new employees. Are you interested? I said, of course I'm interested, and came to the meeting and here we are three years later, and it's just it's the best job in the world. That's amazing. So tell me what is hill Views kind of? Um, what is their mission at the moment? What is there kind of what's the idea for the building right now? We're trying to preserve the history and preserve the building itself as much as we can. Um. It's a very large building.

Its eight square feet and you know it, there's a lot of upkeep for a building that isn't used on a day to day basis. And you know, we have problems with the route, from problems without everything, every problem you can imagine with a building that large. Oh yeah, and we're just trying to, you know, preserve it and preserve all the history that came with it. And well, I mean it's a noble cause, I will say it. I don't know that people realize how quickly these buildings

kind of start to deteriorate once they are empty. It's really weird to think about how it just takes humans being inside on a regular basis to kind of keep a building together. But once a structure stops being regularly climate controlled and maintained, it starts to fall apart pretty quickly, exactly.

I never realized that. And the facility closed, I'm sure, as you mentioned in two thousand four, so it really hasn't been that long, but it's been enough to really have some damage in the building that we're trying very hard to get repaired. I'm trying to think back. So I was there with ghost hunters investigating, and admittedly, at this point in my life, I have been in so

many old, abandoned type hospital buildings that they just run together. Well, I said, I'll be visiting a location like, Okay, this hallway looks frighteningly familiar. The structures starts to look the same, So I understand they do. But I don't think we were there very long after it closed. It had to been five or six years. I do remember it being one of the first investigations. We attempted to bring a dog along with us. That's really what stands out to me.

But I do remember it being very active. So you said that was your first place that you investigated, So that could have gone two ways. That could have been like, Wow, this is the scariest thing has ever happened to me. I'm never doing this again too. I guess, Wow, this was scary and cool and now I'm just going to do this for eleven more years. So what happened that first time you were there that made you want to stay, Well,

it was pretty much NonStop activity. When we were just leaving the foyer for the tour, we're saying now it's still day. When the tour was starting and I turned around because I heard footsteps coming up behind me. It's sounded like a woman's high heels clicking. And I turned around and the hallway was completely empty, and I looked over at my friend with these big eyes and he just nodded, went yep. I many times. So it was

right out of the gate. Then when we were on the third floor, I had a shadow figure like manifest in front of me. I was just happen to be standing there taking pictures at the nursing station. It was kind of, you know, doing the three pictures and turning a little bit and I literally watched the shadow like form up in front of me and then dart out to the left and was gone. I was like, okay, so that's interesting, and that's actually like a perfect example.

So I used to be really big on taking photos and like you did, taking you know, three in a row. I always tell told people to take three in a row so that if there was something anomalous, you could kind of say it in each photo and see where it comes from or if it moves or that kind of thing. Now I'm not really big on spirit photograph. I think that's a whole other program. But one of the reasons I tell people to kind of shy away from taking tons of photos is that you might miss

something walking right in front of you. And so you were exactly so you were really lucky. Yeah, I was very lucky, I said, not, I'm very much like you. I've moved away. I'll take some photos, but I'm much more I've moved away from taking as many photos when I'm investigating. Yeah, I mean, obviously flashes it kind of messes up with your night vision. Two if you're investigating

in the dark, you know. Also, so now I've just gotten to the point where so many photos are explainable that I want something else, you know, But that's still that's very very cool. I've heard so many stories come out of there that doesn't surprise me at all now I've heard and just kind of going through the history and going through a lot of the reports, it sounds like a lot of the spirits there have been given

names over the years. Is that still the case? It sounds like there's a lot of you know, different names and identities. I read about a spirit that doesn't like to talk about football, or he's a big Steelers fan or something that is George he is a big Steelers fans, So I mean makes sense, you know, geographically speaking, it very much is. And it's funny because he mainly likes the I hate see the old school Steelers, but the Terry Bradshaw, the Jack Lambert at the Jack cam days.

And we can occasionally even get him talking about hockey, but like all the rest of us long suffering Pirates fans, if you bring them up, he's just like, yeah, no, I'm not talking about that. So, you know, isn't that so funny though? That he will go into a location and they start trying to talk to these spirits we start. I think sometimes it's our inclination to just start asking the very hard hitting questions like you know, do you

know you're dead? But if you come in and bring up something that a lot of people like to talk about, like sports, like that is a really good way to get a response. And so I think that's so cool that that's working for you. Guys. Yeah, we've discovered it help you that if you're much more conversational, you get a lot better responses. I sometimes feel like, you know, people come in, like you said, and they asked the same questions. The spirits are like rolling their eyes, like

are we doing this interrogation again? Right? But we've discovered again, if you're much more conversational and almost try and let them lead the conversation if you know what I'm talking about and see where it goes, that makes sense. And now, so the spirits that you're encountering, what do you think their mindset is? For the most part, you know often wonder that ourselves. The question we keep asking and we've never gotten an answer, is what does the building look

like right now? Like we're trying to figure out do they see it as it is now? Or do they see it as it was then, like when they were here, and we haven't got an answer. We're wondering if they don't understand the question, because for them, their reality is what they're seeing, So what do you mean what does it look like? And we don't know how to phrase that, Like we've tried a bunch of different ways, and so we don't know whether it's just they don't understand or

they just aren't going to answer us, right. I mean, it's a very compelling question and we've actually asked that before too. It kind of raises the idea to like why do you go disappear wearing clothes? It's got to be some sort of kind of interpretation of themselves. And I mean that's just my theory. I don't claim to know any of this. With that, yeah, and it makes you wonder are they projecting a reality or is there some sort of reality aided in their existence that mirrors

what was there when they were alive. It reminds me years ago when we were doing Ghost Hunters at the Mount Washington Hotel and Jane Grant, they were in the Princess room and they asked her, Princess, are you here? And she was like, of course I'm here, where are you? And so it's like that might be it the like why are they asking these ridiculous questions? Right exactly, you're thinking like, Okay, great, the spirits think that I'm stupid,

just move on, right, Yeah, I mean, who knows. I kind of feel like what I like about what I'm seeing with hill View right now, just kind of going through the history and stuff, is that you guys are really moving away from like this is a really scary asylum type thing. It seems like they're really trying to put a positive spin on the location because really what

it used to be with that is that the case? Yeah, it really is, because we think again, I don't know whether it was still at the name out or they just honestly thought that. I honestly don't know. I know a lot of our spirits got a really add rap. The one I always think of was Eli. Oh he was this violent drunk and this that the other thing. And we have never come across Eli being violent at all.

But we've also really like sat down and talked to him, Like I said, I had these conversational moments with him, and he's actually a pretty fun guy. You know, this was in nursing home for the majority of its life, or a poor farm. This wasn't a prison, this wasn't an insane asylum. Did they take in mentally patients, Yes, they did. But we actually got lucky enough last year and the year before we had a whole group of previous staff members visit us, and oh, we followed them

around that building. I felt like the paparazzi filming them and taking their pictures. And it was great for us because they worked there in seventies, eighties, nineties. There was one woman there her great grandmother worked there in the forties. We had everything covered and you could see how much they loved the facility, and every one of them said that that was their favorite place that they worked in their entire careers. Well, that's a really great frame of

reference too. I think it's really easy to go into these kind of older buildings and get scared and get spooky. And we can thank horror movies for that. We can thank you know, shows like I was on Ghost Hunters for that. When we were on it was all about scary, being scary, and I do love kind of seeing this evolution of you know, let's take a step back and just imagine for a moment what this actually was, and

then treat the spirits accordingly. And I bet the staff being there that was probably did that do anything to the activity levels in the place. It did. The whole time we were in there, it like the building felt happy, if you know what I mean. It was just this wonderful feeling. And then for the next couple of days, the activity was through the roof and it was all this like super positive, like uplifting communication on stuff. It

was like they were really really happy. Yeah, I bet they recognized some of them, or at least their energy or their voices. Absolutely absolutely. And then it was because you know, they're walking us through, they're telling us stories that we'd never heard. They were verifying stories that we had heard. You know, it was just oh, yeah, I remember this guy who was in this room. Like I said, I think I wrote a notebook full of notes. It was just an amazing experience. Well, that's gonna be really

good to have to for future investigations. And now you've got names you can bring up to. I always feel like names are a really powerful thing to have in your arsenal when you're investigating because like that's a triggering thing that like, oh, we have someone in common. Do you know this person? Like, let's talk about it now. That aside, though, I am curious to know, Like, have you ever at any point been scared in the building or been frightened or freaked out? Yeah, it has happened

once or twice. Yes, we know that something had been opened up, whether it was a portal or a doorway or whatever opened up. And we've been having some problems with it from time to time. We try and bring people in who can maybe help address it. But you know, unfortunately, I guess there's no way to shut it down. I'm in no way an expert, and I could be completely incorrect on this. We have had some problems and what we call Amanda stairwell. That's the stairwell that goes down

into the basement. When we go around the lock up at night, you just step in there. Half the time, I don't even turn the light on right there, there's enough ambient light from the hallway. And the one night I stepped in there to lock it up and I heard something and looked over in the corner and I could see a dark figure in the corner hissing at me, and I was just like, okay, you can take yourself

right back down to the basement. I'm just locking the doors and I I finished locking and I got myself out of there. Yeah, I mean, but she came back to work after that. I did. I'm not gonna let them scare me out. And we do have something that's been less than friendly keeping around on the second floor. It's been coming in and out of Jeffrey's room. Jeffrey is the little nine year old boy. We had been discovering that Jeffrey either wasn't in his room or was

being essentially bullied into not talking. And we figured out whatever this say is. It's squatting in there, and it won't really tell us its name, but it has come down the hall at us a couple of times, and you'll look up into the window in that hallway and you'll see red eyes looking back at you for split second, like we've even sent somebody up all right, who's up there with a laser grid or who's up there messing around and there's nobody in the hallway. It sounds like

a job for Kindred Spirits. It does, It absolutely does. We need to get in there, that's right, because you know, we don't want it out there, bullying our bullying, our spirits and you know, and necessarily scaring people off. It doesn't show up very often, but when it does, it it's it's pretty aggressive. I mean, it hasn't touched anybody, it hasn't harmed anybody, but you know the feeling when

something unfriendly is blaring at you. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean I think sometimes in these places that either have a lot of energy or spirits in them or have people investigating frequently, you know, sometimes other energies or other entities come in. They can tell like oh wait, they can see and hear them over there, you know, or things

kind of form from that energy. It's really strange. Just the last few years, I've really started putting more stock in the idea of like our intentions and what we can do to a space. And so who knows, but that, I mean, it sounds very interesting for sure. Yeah. No, And that's that's funny. We were discussing that too. Is

is that something that happened here? You said, from all of the urban legends or the history, and you know, we've heard a lot of them about things that went on there that we can't prove or disprove, and we've often wondered if that wasn't the ill intentions taking form, right, it's not even just ill intentions. I think sometimes people come in and when we have public investigations, which I do a lot I do. I take a lot of groups into places. I know how I felt when I

first started investigating, and how kind of like nervous. I was not really even nervous. I was just like a ball of like I don't know what's about to happen. It was this mixture of like anxiety and excitement and fear. And I always think, like, what is happening if we just keep bringing that vibe into a place over and over and over again, Like what happens to that space?

I talked about this in my book a little bit about how if you think you can infuse your home with positivity and you can have a vision board and you can make changes that way, then you believe in energy manipulating your area and your your life. So we I think that has a lot of other applications and other scenarios like this one or many other haunted places I've been in. But that's getting a little deep and it does go that's actually really excellent, and I'm gonna

be giving that a lot of thought. I can tell yourself. Let's let kindred spirits get there though and figure it out. Absolutely, absolutely, we'll get you guys there. Yeah, it's time for a revisit. Now, are there any particular spirits that are your favorite? Are there any areas that you that you're fond of? The

most on the third floor, Actually it was. It's funny, but you know, during the early days of the pandemic, when everything is shut down and all the businesses had to be closed, we still went up a couple of times of week a check the building. We did live streams, keep the people engaged, let the spirits you know that we had forgotten about them, things like that, And we started going into random rooms. You know, the building this big.

We tend to stick to the hotspots, and we're like, you know, this building is so big, there's gotta be stories in every room. So we just randomly picked rooms. Well, we picked one up on the third floor that for years the psychic had told us there were spirits of children in there. Well there really shouldn't have been. So we went in and really started investigating there and we started talking to the spirit of a little girl named Ellie. And Ellie has quickly become a favorite because of the

interaction with them. We did a bunch of research. I'm sure either the local historical society is going to put a plaque up with my name or get me banned. I'm not really sure. When the facility first opened, they took into merculous patients and if the families didn't have anyone to take care of their children, they this particular room is a dormitory, okay, which we never knew, so now it makes sense. And yeah, Ellie is just She's this bundle of light energy. And it doesn't matter where

I'm out in the building. If I'm walking down the hallway on the first floor to lock up, and I usually have something running and I'll hear hi Melissa. So yeah, she's she's a favorite. She just brings all this positive energy. Yeah, that's great. I love George. George is my buddy because you know, Steelers Penguins, what can we say? And and probably on the second floor. My other favorite is Mary A.

L Oh. She was absolutely phenomenal. We've been lucky enough to have like her family members and some of her nurses come and visit us, and they said she had the most wicked sense of humor and she still does. Like you could go in there and have entire conversation, Go sit down, how's it going, Mary, and it'll be like, oh God, you again. What I like about that is that this Mary's family and the staff members are you know, on board with the idea that her spirit might be there.

Do they ever come in and like try to interact with her or do you do you see a spike in activity when they do that. Sometimes her niece has come in a couple of times and there's definitely been a spike in activity when when she's around. And like I said, anytime former staff members come in, that night is guaranteed to be much more active than a normal night. It's always a thrill for us when we get family

members to come in and get more stories. And I'm sure you've heard the stories Jimmy up on the third floor and his roommate, Lester. We had all of Lester's children visit us once and likes the activity that entire weekend was through the roof. Usually Lester's the more quiet of the two and it was all lester all the time that weekend, which was phenomenal. Wow. May I always wonder sometimes if that helps them realize too, like, you know,

whether they want to stick around. I I always talk about how, you know, the whole idea of crossing over to me, I used to subscribe to that idea, but I don't really as much anymore. But I do feel like sometimes closure is a thing, and so sometimes bringing family members in to talk to them or you know, figuring out why they're hanging around. And so I could totally see that, and I wonder if that would ever kind of instigate them to go to wherever they're supposed

to go next. But I also feel like a lot of the people that were at hell View, especially back when it was a poor farm, which I didn't really realize until I started digging into the history, is that the idea of that was like there were people and this still happens today of course, where everyone they knew dies or you know, they are left alone and they

don't have money and they need somewhere to go. And so I wonder sometimes because this is what gave them comfort, or this is what was home to them, and they and in life they had nowhere else that they're afraid to go anywhere else, right now. That's I had never even heard of a poor farm until I started investigating at hell View, and then I did very much the same thing, dug into the history of poor farms in

general into hell View. And yeah, I mean with a lot of our spirits, that was the only home they ever knew Mary Virginia when Spirit lived there her entire life until the facility closed. Jimmy came there in nineteen fifty eight and lived there until the facility closed in two thousand four. So you know, for a lot of them, this may have been the only home they ever knew. Well, that certainly puts some things in perspective. So now have you guys opened back up now for like public tours

and things and investigations. Oh? Absolutely So if people want to do that, where do they go? While we have a Facebook page and it's Haunted Hillview, or we have a website and it's www dot Haunted Hillview Manner dot com. That's great, and so they you guys are doing actual

like investigations and do do daytime tours as well? We do we do now we are that's grist for the season, because you know, the ambient air temperature right now is four degrees which means it's about eighteen degrees in our building. Whatever the temperature is outside, that's what it is inside. We do reopen the second weekend of March, so that's perfect. That gives people time to plan. I mean, right now it is January, but who knows. Whenever you're listening, just

know they're closed. So more. Yeah, we do day tours, we do public investigations, private investigations. We have a whole bunch of really exciting events coming up this year, so it's going to be a great year. Well that's awesome, So I encourage everyone to check out hell View. I definitely plan on getting back. I'm gonna pitch it like crazy for our next season, and so hopefully we can meet in person at some point Melissa. That would be fantastic gaming. I would absolutely love that, and I'd love

to show you guys around hill View again. Great, well, thank you so much. I appreciate all your insight. Absolutely, thank you so much for having me on the show and for talking about hell View. We really appreciate it. I have to note that as I did research on

Hill of View. I obviously found a number of obituaries showing it as the place of death for so many, but without numbered those newspaper articles were highlights of positive happenings there, forage clubs holding cooking classes, youth groups, entertaining patients with Christmas Carol's dance troops, giving patients free lessons, craft and knitting circles, you name it. And though today the building no longer serves its original function as a care home, it now has a larger purpose as a

functioning community center. A documentary film profile from the Westminster College News talks about how the space is utilized for high school dances, for Halloween programming for kids, and for facilitating community events and collaboration with the town police department. So while notorious and somewhat ironically known for death in many ways, Hill View Manner is still very much alive and well. I'm Amy Bruney and this was haunted road.

If you want to join us on a spooky vacation, please check out my company, Strange Escapes at Strange dash escapes dot com. Also, new episodes of Kindred Spirits are currently airing on Travel Channel on Saturday nights at ten ninth Central or streaming on Discovery Plus. 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 Mankey, Alex Williams, and

Matt Frederick. The show is produced by rima Ill Kali and Trevor Young. Research by Taylor Haggerdorn, Amy Bruney, and Robin Miniter. For more podcasts from I Heeart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.