Book cover: Ida Chittum's "Tales of Terror" (1975)

• Title: Tales of Terror
• 
  Author: Ida Chittum (1918-2002). According to her profile page on IllinoisAuthors.com, "Ida Chittum was educated through the eighth grade in a one-room schoolhouse. She was a prolific reader and advocate of literacy. Her love for all living things as well as her warm sense of humor are evident in her many published children's books." She had a talking mynah named Poo Bah and was a friend to stray animals. Her other books included A Nutty Business, Clabber Biscuits, The Empty Grave, Farmer Hoo and the Baboons, The Cat's Pajamas, The Ghost Boy of El Toro, The Hermit Boy, and The Secrets of Madam Renee. (Some of them appear to be quite rare, though, on the used market.) In an article by Mardy Fones that was published in the Oct. 1, 1978, edition of the Decatur Sunday Herald and Review, Chittum explains that she used the front of a brown envelope to rough out chapters and then stored the completed chapters inside, annotated with brightly colored corrections and notes to herself. There are a website and a Facebook page devoted to Chittum's legacy.
• Illustrator: Franz Altschuler (1923-2009)
• Book dimensions: 7.5 inches by 10.5 inches
• Provenance: My copy was previously shelved in the Edmeston Free Library in Edmeston, New York. (The library is inside a gorgeous old building.) Stamps say it was checked out various times between 1980 and 1992.
• Publisher: Rand McNally & Company.
• Series: Rand McNally published Tales of Terror alongside a few other truly spooky books for children in the mid 1970s. The other volumes include Monsters Tales and Horror Tales (both of which I have and both of which are psychedelic collections edited by Roger Elwood) and Baleful Beasts and Eerie Creatures.
• Publication date: 1975
• Pages: 124
• Format: Hardcover
• Original price: I can't confirm. I saw one reference to $4.95, but that seems a little low, by at least a couple dollars, for a hardcover in 1975.
• List of stories: The House the Dovers Didn't Move Into; Vision of Roses; Uncle Ned Kunkle; The Twins; The Snipe Hunt; The Yellow Cat; Giant; The Feather Reader; The Woman Who Turned to Paper; Sod Miller's Money; Print on the Window; The Haunted Well; The Special Gift; Bring Back My Teeth; The Lovers; the Cruel Girl; The Twisting Wind; and Courtland Wethers and the Pit.
• Excerpt from Ida Chittum's introduction: "These stories of the hills are taken from my childhood in the Ozark mountains, those scenic hills in the south central part of the United States that are now, for the most part, national forests and wildlife conservation areas. There, every visitor was a storyteller — a source of mystery. Having no books I read the folks who came calling of a Sunday afternoon. The hills were fertile grounds for listeners. These are accounts of a passing way of life, stories of a people who lived out their lives never seeing the outside world or expecting to, any more than one sees into heaven before dying. ... In a sense these stories are mysteries — accounts to wonder on and ponder over. They are tales that need telling before they are lost or forgotten."
• More about this book: In the 1978 Decatur Sunday Herald and Review article, Chittum adds: "We lived on a 40-acre fruit and tea farm — that's persimmons and sassafras sprouts — between St. James and Salem, Mo. When you live with people in the country as I did, you become one of them. They're different than city people. They have more time to be closer to nature in every way. ... Where we lived was five miles from any other house so anyone who came through was as welcome as the sunrise, and they had their stories to tell. ... About 50 percent of these stories I know to be true." (Chittum adds in the article that her "know to be true" stories include a personal encounter with Bigfoot.)
• Excerpt #1: "The strange part, though, was how the footprints of Enoch Schradder, a slender man, were sunk so deep in the earth all the way from the ravine into the timber, as if he were carrying a very heavy burden."
• Excerpt #2: "If Sod every changed his aging bib overalls or took a bath in the cheerful creek which tumbled past his shed, no one would have known it from walking downwind of him."
• Excerpt #3: "Folks around about considered it a marvel the way Ada learned to travel in the vast, timbered area without getting lost. They didn't guess her guide was Geoffrey, and she never said, fearing that the slender thread of joy that ran through their friendship might be broken by those who couldn't understand."
• Rating on Goodreads: 4.82 stars (out of 5). One of the highest ratings I've ever seen.
• Goodreads review: In 2020, Maria wrote: "I read this so often my elementary school librarian refused to let me check it out any more. The illustrations are excellent and greatly contribute to the mood of the book. I treasure the copy I have now."
• Rating on Amazon: 5 stars (out of 5)
• Amazon review excerpt: In 2017, Cynthia wrote: "I first read this book when I was in I think third grade. I feel in love with it instantly. It's still one of my very favorites ever."
• 
  Thoughts and memories from The Haunted Closet blog in 2008: "The beautiful, yet vaguely disturbing illustrations perfectly capture the tone of these tales of drowned children, restless ghosts, magic spells and malevolent wildlife." In 2010, one of that blog's commenters added: "When I was younger I lived in southern Illinois, not far from the Ozarks that Ida Chittum depicted. We checked Tales of Terror out of the library over and over and it stuck with me down the years. The stories were weird and eerie but had the ring of truth to them as well. Some were so sad and beautiful and others were full of dark humor. In our family we often refer to Uncle Ned Kunkel as though he were a relative. And that cover with the faceless people and the illustration that goes with the first story about the house that didn't get moved into are still some of the scariest pictures I can dream up." And in 2012 another blog commenter relayed this personal story: "Mrs. Chittum lived down the road from me, in a very tiny town in Illinois. As memory serves (again, from the mind of a very young child) she lived in an old Victorian house. How fitting! I'll have to check facts with my parents to find out if that is true or not! I remember being scared to death after a visit to her home. She told us a story (could have been from one of her books, I don't know) of the monster that would grab the uncovered feet of kids & drag them off, never to be seen again ... I was never so scared in my little life!! I couldn't peddle my bike fast enough to get home ... and to this day, I cannot sleep with my feet uncovered!" (For what it's worth, I cannot sleep with my feet uncovered, either.)
• This book's availability: In great news, a hardcover reprint is available for the very reasonable price of $22.99 on BookBaby and Amazon. One person writes on Amazon: "I had an old falling-apart copy that was the only one I could possibly afford, due to it being such a rare find, so I was very glad to see this book republished in an affordable volume." Ida Chittum would be rightfully thrilled that in 2026, these tales are not being lost or forgotten.

Obscure book: "Gabby's Magic Brooms" take on U.S. car culture

Happy Halloween! Here's one final treat for spooky season. Gabby's Magic Brooms, written and illustrated by Marietta Caldwell Schumacher and published in 1968, was really difficult to track down. Fortunately, when I did find a copy it was very inexpensive, due to the fact that it's a library-bound edition in poor condition, with stains and multiple tears. 

That suits me just fine. This is a beautifully illustrated, fascinating and somewhat depressing (more on that in a bit) children's book, and I'm thrilled to be able to document it here. I'm almost certain it was the only published book by Schumacher, who lived from 1925 to 2012. It's a shame she didn't have more books published, though it seems she worked consistently as an artist and had numerous gallery showings.

This hardcover copy measures 7.5 inches by 10 inches, is 48 pages (almost every one illustrated), was published by Little, Brown and Company, and had an original price of $3.50. It is a stated first edition and was once in circulation in the King County Library System in Washington state, which is prseumably where it got all of its wear and tear.

The book's dedication reads "For the father of Shirin, David, Paul and John." That would be Marietta's husband, Paul John Fortuyn Schumacher (1924-1995) and those are their four children. Paul was the chief of archaeological investigations for the Western Service Center under the aegis of the National Park Service from 1956 until 1972.

Here's my summation of the plot of Gabby's Magic Brooms: A witch named Gabadale (her friends call her "Gabby") lives with a bunch of ghosts in a big old house in the middle of nowhere. One day, they learn that the house is standing in the way of a new eight-lane freeway and will be demolished. In a deal to save her home, Gabby uses magic to turn all cars into flying brooms. No cars, you see, means no need for freeways. It goes great at first. People love the freedom and convenience of traveling by broom instead of by car. But not everyone is happy. Schumacher writes: "Meanwhile, in a town named Detroit, men who make automobiles took notice." Alas, the witch has run afoul of automakers, road builders and, perhaps worst of all, "the oil men down in Texas." The supernatural is no match for Big Oil and the auto industry. So Gabby reverses the spell and turns all of the magic brooms into little red cars. Then she makes the only deal she can: She promises to never again use her magic to turn cars into brooms, if the builders promise never to bulldoze her home. The final illustration shows car-filled freeways winding all around Gabby's house. 

A bit dystopian, no?

I'd also note that it was published three years before The Lorax. 

In a July 1968 review for The Fresno Bee, Patricia Miles Martin wrote: "Gabby's ingenuity in saving her house makes a delightful story, in which one learns in this laugh-aloud book that even the least of us have inalienable rights. The is the author-artist's first book for children, and may we see many more."

The Oakland Tribune noted in August 1968: "This is the literary venture of Marietta Caldwell Schumacher, an artist and portrait painter. She views her book as emphasizing 'the precious right of the individual to maintain his identity in an increasingly complex society.'"

The only recent review I came across was by "Abigail." Here's an excerpt from her review on Goodreads that was posted in 2021: "While I'm not sure just how I feel about the resolution of the central dilemma here — the idea of living in a house surrounded on all sides by a busy freeway fills me with horror — I liked pretty much everything else, from Gabby's can-do attitude, to her creative solution to the problem. ... The depiction of Gabby herself, with her extremely tall hat (bent at the top), her ruffled dress with its poofs, and her buzzard-like companion, was the best part! She somehow managed to be both cute and just a bit spooky."

I'm going to close by posting numerous images of the book's pages (way more than I usually do) for posterity, as this is a very difficult book to track down and there's not much about it or Marietta Caldwell Schumacher on the internet.

VHS tapes are improbably popular again, with horror leading the way

Late last November, Ashar and I went to a horror convention in Mesa called A Christmas to Dismember. It was very cool. There were minor genre celebrities signing autographs, you could get your picture taken with Krampus (some people even brought their dogs) and there was a whole hearse-and-coffin setup from Phantasm outside. 

I made one impulse purchase. There was a booth selling VHS tapes and I couldn't resist the box art on two old horror movies: 1946's Shock, starring Vincent Price, (which I'd never heard of!) and the 1941 horror comedy King of the Zombies (which I'd never seen).

Of course, I still couldn't watch them. We have a blu-ray player and a couple of streaming services, but haven't had a VCR connected to our television for at least 12 years, if not longer. Eventually I was able to track down DVD versions of both films, and I was not disappointed. Shock has an entertaining early villainous role for Price. And King of the Zombies, while a bit hokey and uneven, is an interesting entry in the corpus of zombie films and is at its best when Mantan Moreland and his Black co-stars (including Marguerite Whitten and Madame Sul-Te-Wan) are on the screen.

And now I have two nifty VHS boxes to showcase on a shelf, which, yes, is the exact opposite of my slow-moving downsizing goals. I still have no VCR and no plans to get a VCR, so what the hell am I doing with VHS tapes in 2025? I unloaded my videocassette tapes years and years ago, when they were taking up significant space and were already barreling toward being phased out.¹

So what's with the new boom in old tapes?

The VHS revival, spurred by collectors and a new generation of enthusiasts, began pretty quickly on the heels of the great VHS dumping of roughly 2000 to 2010, when DVD became the dominant format.

I hate to promote The Washington Post these days, but an article by Reis Thebault in December 2023 summed up the dynamics of the rise of the "tapeheads": 

"A swirl of societal forces has made the moment ripe for this unlikely rebirth: A booming nostalgia economy that was supercharged during the pandemic, fueling skyrocketing sales of all things retro; mounting fatigue with increasingly costly subscription services; and a growing disillusionment with the algorithms that mediate so much of modern life in favor of unexpected human connections."

There are numerous aspects to this fervor for tape, drawing people in from a wide array of directions. Some people truly like the "VHS aesthetic" of fuzz, glitches and less than perfect video presentation. Some filmmakers release their new movies on VHS. Websites such as Lunchmeat are thriving. Zines and VHS-themed events have helped build momentum.  

At our Bookmans Entertainment Exchange stores here in Arizona, used VHS tapes are taking up more prominent spaces at the front of stores. I took these snapshots at a Tucson Bookmans in early July.

The horror genre is very well-represented in those in-store displays. Horror has been a main driver for the VHS revival and is one of the hottest and most expensive markets. Some people seek out their favorite films; some chase the scarcest titles in their most limited releases; some collect solely for the box art; some relish boxes and tapes still covered with video rental store or library stickers, while others want pristine tapes that are still shrinkwrapped. And some collectors target gory straight-to-video releases that few people have ever heard of — and even fewer have seen.

Ashar, dipping his toe into the VHS marketplace this month, just acquired a tape of 1959's The House on Haunted Hill, one of his favorite films. (And one of my favorites, too.) It will be added to his shelf decorations.

For an article this month on Back Market, Thomas Hobbs interviewed Lunchmeat's Josh Schafer, who said: "A lot of horror movies, especially the more low budget fare, just feel better on VHS. Not everything has to be super hi-def. Sometimes it’s okay to blur the world a little bit, because if things look too real it takes you out of the cinematic world.”

Maybe I should collect all of my childhood horror favorites on VHS. Then set up an old-school television with a VHS player and chase that vibe of watching horror movies on dark nights as a kid in Clayton and Montoursville. It could be a lot of fun. But the true horror might end up being how much disposable income I spend chasing the past, when I could sit on the couch next to my cats and watch a big-screen, crystal-clear version of Suspiria, Kwaidan or, yes, even the original Night of the Living Dead. Nostalgia is fun, but there are only so many rabbit holes I can go down.

Footnote

1. I deeply regret, though, that I got rid of all my MTS3K and St. Elsewhere VHS tapes, plus some other stuff that had been taped off TV. If nothing else, there's a substantial market now for old tapes that include commercials, bumpers, news updates and other record-from-TV content. Add those tapes to the list of ephemera I wish I still had, if only because I could have made some nice coin from selling them now on eBay.

Excommunicated! A family story (maybe) about Communion cups

Above: Grave for John Bressler Otto (1837-1906), posted by Frederich Otto on Find A Grave.

Genealogy and church history time. This one has been marinating for more than a year. If you are interested in mysteries, the Civil War, public health debates and/or the history of Easton, Pennsylvania, this post has something for you. 

It started innocently, as I was just using Newspapers.com to try to fill in some of the blanks in Dad's genealogy chart. But even when I'm doing something straightforward, I'm prone to falling down rabbit holes. And was this ever a deep one! 

On the paternal side of my family tree, the line of men looks like this:

Ashar: 2000-present

Me: 1970-present

Dad: John Alan Otto, 1947-present

Dad's father (my Pappy): John Alexander Otto (1911-1991)

Dad's grandfather: John Algernon Otto (1869-1963)

Dad's great-grandfather: John Bressler Otto (1837-1906)

It's John Bressler Otto we're going to discuss today. He's my great-great-grandfather and Ashar's great-great-great-grandfather. He's pictured at right in a photo that was posted on Find A Grave by Jim Neely. He was married to Margaret Alice English Otto (1839-1925), and, based on what I pieced together from multiple sources, they had at least seven children, though I'm not fully confident in the accuracy of this list: Charles Percy Otto; John Algernon Otto (1869-1963); Amy E. Otto (1874-1946); Florence Emily Otto (1864-1934); Alice May Otto (1877-1902, died of consumption); Horace Otto; and William Warren Otto (1879-1922). 

We know that John Bressler Otto was a plasterer by trade, according to his death certificate. And we know that he was a private in the volunteer 173rd Pennsylvania Regiment, Company F, during the Civil War. The regiment participated in the pursuit of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, from July 12-24, following the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863.

Many decades later, John Bressler Otto was excommunicated from his church.

Maybe! 

This is where it becomes a mystery.

When I started this tangled thread of research more than a year ago, I discovered this short article about "John B. Otto" on Page 8 of the February 16, 1903, edition of the Allentown (Pennsylvania) Daily Leader.

My great-great-grandfather — a deacon — excommunicated! 

Again, maybe.

There's one big hurdle I haven't been able to overcome, and it's that were two men named John B. Otto in the Easton, Pennsylvania, area at this time.

There was John Bressler Otto. 

And there was John B. Otto who lived from 1845 to 1910 and was an alderman. He's always listed as John B. Otto in the news articles I found (a clue, but not a definitive one), and I can't make out his middle name from the death certificate shown here. He was single and had no children.

So, who was more likely to be a deacon at First Reformed Church of Easton in 1903?

— John Bressler Otto, a 65-year-old plasterer who was married with children, or

— John B. Otto, a 57-year-old alderman who was single with no children?

I just don't know. 

Either way, there was a fascinating uproar involving a John B. Otto. 

And it deserves to be retold, whether or not it involves my family tree.

After reading that initial short news article, I didn't learn the full story until I came across a lengthy article on the front page of the March 2, 1903, edition of the Allentown Daily Leader. It turns out that John B. Otto was excommunicated because he was ... advocating for commonsense public hygiene measures in the midst of a typhoid epidemic.

Crazy! 

I've retyped the whole story of the "Fighting Parson" here for your reading enjoyment.

 

A FIGHTING PARSON

Dr. Kieffer Was the Drummer Boy of the Bucktails

RANCOROUS EASTON CHURCH WAR

Pastor Says Majority Is With Him. Opponents, Less in Number, Contribute 75 Per cent. of the Money -- Say He Is Arrogant

Rev. Dr. Henry M. Kieffer, renowned in Civil War annals as the "Fighting Drummer Boy" of the famous Bucktail Regiment, and for 18 years the pastor of one of the best-known churches in Pennsylvania -- the First Reformed of Easton -- is now the central figure in one of the most remarkable church dissensions on record.

He is bringing the "fighting blood" of nearly eight centuries of warlike ancestors to bear against the assaults of his opponents, and not only the thriving city of Easton, but the surrounding country, is intensely interested in the progress of the battle of the pastor and his supporters against those who are determined that he shall surrender and retire -- a condition which the fighting preacher says is impossible.

Rev. Dr. Kieffer is probably best known to the world of literature through his widely-read book, published two decades ago, called "The Recollections of a Drummer Boy," which was a stirring account of the war experiences of the famous Bucktails during the war.

He added to his fame when he became in 1885 the pastor of the First Reformed Church of Easton, that was built in the first year of American Independence -- in fact, was started about the same time that the echo of the Declaration of Independence went thundering across the world.

It is a church that numbers among its congregation families whose ancestors -- immediate and remote -- have been identified with the struggles of the nation on its various battlefields, and it very well known that while the present pastor and the bone of contention between the opposing factions is directly descended from a long line of warlike progenitors, that he has not a stronger claim to the fighting spirit than many members of his flock.

START OF THE FIGHT

What was it that first started the congregational dissensions that have threatened to split the venerable institution in twain?

To locate positively the beginning of the strife is not an easy matter, but it seems to be pretty well agree that an agitation over the use of individual communion cups fanned the flame of dissension until it is now a blaze which nothing but the complete routing of one of the contesting elements will settle.

The yearly meeting held not long ago was the stormiest one ever known in the history of the First Reformed Church, and as an indirect result Rev. Mr. Kieffer and his supporters have scored against their opponents.

There were -- according to Dr. Kieffer -- votes that represented 315 members of his congregation that demanded he stay in the church and votes representing 119 that demanded he sever his connection with the congregation.

"I come from a line of fighters," said Dr. Kieffer, "and if I had not I would have run off and left this church in the possession of the turbulent spirits who have made this trouble. But I will not surrender the church to them as long as the great majority want me to remain.

"Strife if no new condition in this church, and I do not intend to let the fomenters of such a condition drive me away because I think it is my duty to remain."

The direct results of the last congregational meeting were made evident when the Spiritual Council of the church, through the pastor, publicly censured, deposed from office and excommunicated John B. Otto, one of the deacons and suspended for two years, from all church fellowship, Jeremiah Angelmayer and Allan T. Groman, two of the prominent members.

This action created a sensation in Easton, as all of the parties affected are well known, and it alleged that they had been former close personal friends of Dr. Kieffer.

It is said that the legality of the action will be questioned by the opponents of Dr. Kieffer -- and especially by those directly affected -- and that a criminal law suit would probably be the outcome of the action.

"The legality of the action of the Spiritual Council," said a prominent member of the church "is questioned by the opponents of Dr. Kieffer, because they claim, as the council exists to-day, it is not legally constituted, for the elders composing it are all friendly to Dr. Kieffer and dominated by him.

"There are 134 petitioners against the action, and they are said to represent an element of the church that contributes 75 per cent. of the sum required for its support to the treasury.

WOMEN SIDE WITH PASTOR.

"Those who are backing the petitioners are principally older members of the church and their families, while the supporters of Dr. Kieffer are principally women, and the younger element whom he has confirmed in the past 10 years."

There was a meeting of the East Pennsylvania Classis (?) of the Reformed Church held in Easton, at which Dr. Kieffer and his supporters and the opposition exchanged some very strong views on the question of "charges" against the pastor.

One of the main points of interest in the controversy is that it seems imminent that the famous old church after a life of over 150 years will be disrupted by the strife.

While the differences of opinion that existed between the pastor and certain members of his flock over the individual communion cup question furnished certain "grounds for the condition" that exists now they are held by both sides to have been only contributing circumstances to the main cause.

This, one side avers, is the arrogance and severity of the pastor, and the other side says that is the determination of a set of turbulent spirits to drive from his field of usefulness a sincere and loving spiritual adviser.

INDIVIDUAL CUPS.

The subject of individual communion cups has always been a tender one in the First Reformed Church.

It first appeared on the surface of its affairs about a year ago when certain prominent communicants advocated their use on religious and sanitary grounds.

They were promptly opposed by the pastor and it was not long 'ere the congregation was divided into two camps over the subject.

Dr. Kieffer's main reason for unalterable opposition to the innovation was that it was sacrilegious and contrary to the commands of Scripture.

He made the basis of his defense of the congregational communion cup the thought contained in the 26th chapter of St. Matthew: "And He took the cup and gave thanks; and gave it to them, saying: 'Drink ye all of it.'"

In alluding publicly to the subject that threw the church into "painful commotion," Dr. Kieffer said that it was contrary to the Divine will to countenance such an innovation, and that the spirit of the sacarament would be wrongfully observed if they were adopted.

The matter was finally put to a vote and the majority of the congregation stood by the ancient method of receiving communion.

THE EXCOMMUNICATION.

But this controversy seemed to open the way for other differences between the pastor and certain of his congregation that culminated in the dramatic excommunication of Deacon Otto on February 15 before a full congregation.

The exact language used by the pastor in severing the ties of Christian fellowship between Mr. Otto and his brethren of the First Reformed was as follows:--

"Acting under the direction of the Spiritual Council I very regretfully announce: First, that John B. Otto be, and hereby is, censured; second, that he be deposed of his office as deacon, and, thirdly, that he be hereby excommunicated from the Christian Church."

It was said that such a penalty had never been inflicted upon any member of the church in its history of 150 years and the reading of the sentence of excommunication created a sensation.

The terms of the punished meted out to Messrs. Angelmayer and Groman was communicated to them through the mails and not announced from the pulpit.

PASTOR GIVES NUMBERS.

The pastor claims that he has the support of 315 members out of a total of over 500 in his battle against those he terms are the "turbulent spirits" while 119 demand that he shall sever his relations with the pastorate. 

"It is," he said, "practically a battle for the control of the church and I will not turn the people who are in the majority over to the mercies of the turbulent element.

"There are about 80 members who will not take sides in the affair and who refuse to sign any paper and of the 199 who demand my resignation from 30 to 40 per cent. are not entitled to a vote and are simply dead wood in the church. A certain percentage of this 119 has been procured under duress and some of the signatures against me have been procured through business relation and by compulsion.

"I will quote you one instance: The head of one family who signed the petition asking my withdrawal said to me: 'We didn't want to sign this paper we had to or lose our work.'

"They are employed by one of the members who is determined I shall go."

SAY HE IS ARROGANT.

The representatives of the opposition emphatically disclaim such responsibility.

"Dr. Kieffer cannot name one man who signed the petition against him under duress," said one of his opponents.

"We represent three-fourths of the financial support give to the church and we can prove this statement.

"Dr. Kieffer says there are over 500 members, does he?

"Well, his is mistaken, for at no time in the history of the church has the membership exceeded 400.

"He has been high-handed and arrogant in his methods."

"He won't allow us access to the church books and he has done many things that have culminated in the dissatisfaction that exists among his congregation to-day."

"It is idle to say that the disturbance was caused by the communion cup agitation. It was only an incident in the series of misunderstandings that have arisen, and which we fear may disrupt a congregation that has endured for over a century and a half."

DR. KIEFFER'S ANCESTRY.

Rev. Dr. Kieffer is well named the "fighting preacher." He traces his maternal ancestry back to the 12th century, when one of his direct line was a Crusader.

This soldier was George Spengler, born about 1150 A.D., who accompanied the German emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, in the third Crusade against the Moslems in 1189, perished in battle and was buried in the Church of St. Peter, Antioch, in 1190 A.D.

Lazarus Spengler, another maternal ancestor, was coadjutor of Martin Luther and present with him at the Diet of Worms.

His great grandfather, Abraham Kieffer, as a captain in the Revolution and a colleague of George Beaver, the great grandfather of ex-Governor Beaver. At the close of the Revolution they each married the other's sister.

Dr. Kieffer himself fought in the Civil War for three years. He enlisted as a drummer boy at the age of 16, in the Bucktails and served until the end. He was present in all the battles fought by the Army of the Potomac from Chancellorsville to the close of the Rebellion, and was a participant in the first day's battle at Gettysburg, when his battalion, out of a total of 397 men, lost 264. He afterward served as chaplain of the Sixth Pennsylvania National Guard for five years and is known to almost every soldier in Pennsylvania.

* * *

And how did it all turn out?

It seems that, within a few weeks, Dr. Rev. Kieffer lost his power struggle.

And John B. Otto's excommunication was overturned.

I found this via an article in the March 21, 1903, issue of The Lancaster Examiner.

RUIN IN COMMUNION CUP.

Classis Drops Dr. Kieffer, and He Says "Good-By."

East Pennsylvania Classis, sitting as a committee of the whole, at Easton, on Wednesday, continued its investigation of the First Reformed Church troubles which origination in a row over individual communion cups. The pastor, Rev. Dr. H.M. Kieffer, took the floor, and commenced where he left off Tuesday night. He denounced Elder Jacob Rader as a troublesome spirit, and handled ex-Deacon John B. Otto, whom the spiritual council of the church had ex-communicated, without gloves. Dr. Kieffer talked four hours, after which his opponents made reply.

Then Rev. Jacob Rupp, of Northampton, offered a compromise resolution, assuming that the Kieffer faction was able to take care of the church, and that even though the petitioners should leave, their going would not be a serious loss to the congregation. This resolution permitted Dr. Kieffer to remain as pastor of the flock, provided that Messers. Anglemyer and Groman, suspended from office by the spiritual council, should be reinstated; granted a re-hearing to John B. Otto, who was excommunicated, and provided that no charge be made against any members of the congregation for what may have occurred prior to this date. This resolution was defeated by a vote of 13 ayes to 15 nays.

The debate then turned on Rev. Mr. DeLong's resolution, providing for a severance of the pastoral relations, to take effect on September 1. After considerable sparring a vote was taken and resulted in 17 ayes, 7 nays and 3 non-voters.

The committee of the whole then rose and reported its action to the Classis. Classis approved the finding by a vote of 19 yeas, 6 nays and 2 not voting. Counsel for Dr. Kieffer noted an appeal to Synod.

Dr. Kieffer said: "Well, brothers, I see that after September 1 I stop preaching here. You have taken a great responsibility off my shoulders. After that you will have to look after my people. I bid you good-by."

At the night session of Classis the complaint of the suspended deacons, Jeremiah Anglemeyer and A.T. Groman, and excommunicated Deacon John B. Otto, sustained, and they were reinstated to office. 

* * *

And that's the story! Does it involve my family? I don't know. Either way, it's a fascinating look at the struggles 122 years around power, money, religion and, most notably in my eyes, public health. I'll leave it readers to draw whatever insights and parallels they wish to other moments in history, recent or otherwise.

Please share your thoughts in the comments, especially if you have further information regarding John B. Otto and the First Reformed Church of Easton Communion cup controversy.

Greye La Spina, "The Gargoyle" and Spinnerstown, Pennsylvania

Greye La Spina (1880 – 1969) is notable for being one of the relatively few women whose horror and fantasy writings were published in pulp magazines during the first half of the 20th century.

She wrote mostly short stories, but also serials, essays and a couple of novels. Her 1937 essay "On Scaring Oneself into Conniptions" was published in Science-Fantasy Correspondent, according to the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. And I cite it today because it's the first-ever appearance of the word "conniptions" on Papergreat.

"[La Spina] published an incredible number of stories — as many as 100 in a bunch of different genres, including men’s adventure, horror, women’s magazines, etc. In her prime, she was more successful than H.P. Lovecraft, and was very important to the early years of Weird Tales magazine. Readers loved her and clamored for new stories by her. And then, after she stopped writing in the early 1950s, people started to forget her," Michael W. Phillips Jr. told Paul Semel for a 2023 interview posted on Semel's website. 

Phillips had just edited Fettered and Other Tales of Terror, a collection of La Spina's works. You should definitely check out all of Semel's interview with Phillips, which goes into great detail about La Spina's writing career.

Before 2023's Fettered and Other Tales of Terror, others tried to keep La Spina's work in the spotlight over the decades. A significant part of that effort was today's featured 1975 paperback, The Gargoyle. It includes the 1925 serial The Gargoyle and the 1932 novella The Devil's Pool. The book measures 5½ inches by 8½ inches and features a compelling cover illustration by Vincent Napoli (1907-1981).

If you're already intrigued, there are copies on eBay, as of today, for as low as $20. I'm holding onto my copy, because, despite my ongoing downsizing, it's too cool to give up for that low of a price.

This book's publication was the work of (and clearly a labor of love for) Robert Weinberg (1946-2016). According to Fancyclopedia 3, Weinberg was a member of the fanzine community with a huge interest in pulp magazines. That interest led to some big things: "In 1968, Bob began publishing readers guides to the works of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, eventually expanding both to book length and publishing additional guides and books about the pulp magazines and the authors who wrote for them. 1973 saw his publication of WT50, an anniversary tribute to Weird Tales, a magazine to which Bob would acquire the rights in 1979 and help revive. He was editor-in-chief of Arkham House from 2009–16."

For Weinberg's publication of The Gargoyle, the copyright page notes that both of the included stories were reprinted with the permission of Celia La Spina (1900-1982). (She was born Celia Geissler, the daughter of Greye La Spina and Ralph Geissler. After Ralph Geissler died, Greye married Robert La Spina, Baron di Savuto, an Italian aristocrat. According to Geni, Celia married Eduardo La Spina, her stepfather's brother.)

The copyright page also notes that the front cover illustration (Napoli) and lettering (Andrew Brosnatch) are from "the collection of Robert Weinberg." Officially titled The Gargoyle and One Other, this was #3 in Weinberg's series of "Lost Fantasies" and sold for $5 in 1975.

Here's a passage from "The Gargoyle" that perhaps helps to explain why it's subtitled "A Tale of Devil Worship":

"Against this background stood, at irregular intervals, great white crosses before which were sculptured figures in black, figures that made him shudder with uncontrollable horror at their repulsive and abhorrent ugliness. It seemed as if the human imagination had here attained the climax of revolting, horrific distortion and deformity in sculpture and pictorial art. Not a statue, not a painting, but showed the human face and form in such revolting deformity as to send sickly shudders through the observer's sinking frame. The purpose of this ghastly place was obvious ...

"The red light shining everywhere now attracted Luke's attention. It originated in a crystal sphere, hung on almost invisible chains in a shrine just back of the altar."

* * *

One of the niftiest things I came across is that Greye La Spina spent a signficant portion of her life in rural Pennsylvania! An article in the March 10, 1946, edition of Allentown's Sunday Call-Chronicle is headlined "Greye la Spina, Weaves Weird Tales And Tapestries, Finds Life Is 'Fun' Amidst Solitudes of Spinnerstown."

Spinnerstown (new to me!) is a census-designated place in northwest Bucks County. It has a hotel that's been in operation since 1811, and one of the notable (and regrettable) incidents in the hamlet's history is that a massive, 400-year-old chestnut tree was blown up with dynamite in 1919. 

According to the Sunday Call-Chronicle article, La Spina moved to Spinnerstown around 1926, "seeking solitude and peace in the Pennsylvania countryside after the turmoil of life in Brooklyn." 

I love the article's summary of how La Spina's writing career began: "[In 1920] she suddenly got the urge to write down some of her observations on the occult. 'I decided to write a werewolf story, so I sat down, dashed it off and sent it to Street and Smith. They liked it, and wrote me asking for more.'"

She told that newspaper that she planned to remain in Spinnerstown, despite concerns regarding a theory that the East Coast could be turned into a swamp by rising oceans. (My thought: She may have been reading too much Edgar Cayce.)

She also planned to stay there because, in her words, "I have a one-legged cat-bird who comes and sings in the garden. I don't know what happened to his other leg, but I should hate to leave him."

No animals left behind is a sentiment I can get behind, too.

Stubby seemed like the best housecat to pair with this book. It should be known, though, 

that this particular black cat likes belly rubs and purrs very loudly at meal time.

Realms of the uncanny: Dreamcore, backrooms & liminal spaces

Me, less than a year old, in a stroller on the edge of a liminal space in Rose Valley, Pennsylvania (1971).

A couple of weeks ago, Ashar and I were watching a stream of Eurogamer's Ian Higton as he played a new game called Dreamcore. With the game as a jumping-off point, I learned a lot about dreamcore itself (with a lowercase "d") and backrooms. It's fascinating to see how Generation Z has embraced and adjusted the concept of liminal spaces, creating works that feel both old and new. Their stories (urban legends, creepypasta, memes) and original art are intertwined with the jarring 21st century events and technology that have shaped their lives thus far.

I grew up with fantasy books and movies about liminal spaces (though I certainly wasn't using that term). Two that spring immediately to mind are The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and the 1978 movie The Water Babies. I was a kid in various houses with cubbyholes, twisting staircases and unsettling attics and basements that fueled the imaginations of my friends and I, as we sought to transform the ordinary into something out of this world.

 

Now we have cottagecore, goblincore, dreamcore, weirdcore and countless other aesthetics contributing to the culture of younger generations. Additionally, for many of them, there is a deep nostalgia for roughly the period of 1995 to 2005. I won't dive more deeply into all of that, but since it's where this post began, here's a definition of dreamcore from Aesthetics Wiki, a fasincating rabbit hole of a website you could lose yourself in: "Dreamcore is a surrealist aesthetic that uses motifs commonly associated with dreams, daydreams or nightmares, portrayed through media such as images, videos and, on occasion, music." Dreamcore's "base images" often have lighter tones, even pastels, and can involve (but certainly aren't limited to) endlessly rolling hills, clouds, rainbows, bubbles, flowers and empty, nondescript buildings.

And then you have backrooms, or The Backrooms, as the Wikipedia page labels it. There are many places to find the history of The Backrooms online (the lore runs deep), but I really like how Austen Travis described them in a 2023 blog post for Spirit Halloween: 

"Previous, analog generations told scary stories like “The Hook” around campfires, but modern, digital generations spread online 'creepypasta', like Slenderman, Sirenhead, Ted the Caver, and now, the Backrooms. The Backrooms are an aesthetic and a horror story. Somehow instantly recognizable and inexplicably surreal, the Backrooms began as a labyrinth of yellow rooms and hallways. This seemingly-abandoned space is endless, dread-inducing, and weirdly nostalgic. The first image of the Backrooms, along with all the subsequent images that would appear online, resonate with both our past and our nightmares. ... The Backrooms live at the thematic intersection of creepy, nostalgic, sad, and surreal."

In a review of Dreamcore (the game), Lewis Packwood discusses the overlap between dreamcore (the aesthetic) and The Backrooms: "It’s perhaps little surprise that liminal spaces have captured people’s imagination. Images of oddly empty offices and shopping malls were something we were all fascinated with during the COVID lockdowns of 2020, and although such images have always been unsettling, they are doubly so now in the wake of our collective trauma. But the Backrooms also arose directly from video game logic: the act of ‘no-clipping’, slipping beyond the world the player was intended to see. The aesthetic of repeating textures and echoing endless corridors is drawn straight from the gaming realm."

* * *

All of this got me to thinking a lot about photography, and specifically about the kind of photographs that I enjoy taking and looking at. And there's a lot of thematic overlap. My favorite book of photographs is Stephen Shore's Uncommon Places. Shore has an incredible eye for parking lots, hotel rooms, building exteriors, empty streets, crumbling places. The liminal spaces of America; the places that are more past than present. I think my photographic aesthetic and Shore's would both fit in very nicely with some of those that scare and stir Generation Z. 

So, to close, here's a gallery of photos that sort of fit these themes (some better than others). All of these were taken by me, unless otherwise noted. Some of them have appeared on Papergreat previously, but seem a good fit for this post, too.

Ashar standing in front of both a computer screen and a wall-size photograph at a Titanic exhibit. It almost seems as if he could just walk right into that room.

Chests and luggage gathering dust in the attic of the house on Oak Crest Lane in Wallingford, Pennsylvania (probably taken by my grandmother).

One of my favorite photos, taken at an intersection in Dover Township, Pennsylvania.

First of two photos of the former LNP | LancasterOnline newsroom, emptied out by the pandemic. Here's the full post.

Stairwell in the building at 8 West King in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. 

It's now just a memory.

Family photo that seems to be dated 1939. What lies beyond the door in the back?

Another family photo, circa 1985. I think Mom took this and it's at the house in Florida. Another mystery door in the background.

This is from the 1910s, probably taken by my great-grandfather. Unknown building. Possibly an armory, given the guard out front? This building looked old even then. 

I suspect it's no longer standing. At least not in this dimension.

Inside a surreal antiques store in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. See the full gallery in this post.

Parking lot of the Monroeville Mall, near Pittsburgh. Taken from my hotel room window. This was the original "dead" mall, as it was the shooting location for the 1978 movie Dawn of the Dead. Now, tragically, it's a truly dead mall. Just days ago it was officially sold to Walmart, which will likely renovate the property serve its own mindless-consumerism needs. 

Dreamcore? An endless path within a York County cemetery.

This is a real photo! Snapped by me in a back alley in downtown Lancaster, Pennsylvania. How I lived to tell the tale, I do not know.