The Boo in Baraboo - Part 2: Shelley Mordini & Gwen Herrewig

Show Transcript

Introduction  0:04  

Welcome to frame of reference informed intelligent conversations about the issues and challenges facing everyone in today's world, in depth interviews with salt counties, leaders and professionals to help you expand in and form your frame of reference, brought to you by the max FM digital network. Now, here's your host, Rauel LaBreche.  

Rauel LaBreche  0:25  

Well, we're back for week two of an exciting conversation. And we're after Halloween now, but I you know, doesn't really matter with the subject matter we're talking about. I'm talking about Shelley Mordini and Gwen Herrwig, who are the co authors of a really fascinating book called haunted bear, boo. And when I think about it, I live in Sauk. County, Wisconsin, which is not exactly the nexus of the universe, right. But in some ways, in terms of when you start looking at the number of hauntings and the number of very extraordinary circumstances that go on in here. It is kind of a Nexus. In fact, it's enough of a Nexus that the folks at haunted America approached Shelley twice and said, We want you to write a book about haunted bearable. And after the first time said nude Oh, no, I don't have time for that. GWEN came after her and said, Shelly, we need to do this. So I am talking to Shelly Mardini Gwen Herrwig. And we had just started to really kind of scratch the surface in the first episode of us talking about the types of experiences that people have, and then their ability or willingness to talk about those things. So when you talked about the different levels of degree of cooperation, some people want their name use other people like, oh, no, I don't want people coming after me. Right. So can you can you talk tell me more about what that experience is like, for people are? Are they? I don't want to put words in but I think of like, are they shaken by it? Are they opened up? And are they more like, hidden and you know, protected? And because I can see this being kind of a fight or flight kind of experience for people. And, you know, part of the reason we have horror movies the way they are, which I really, I wish somebody would make more movies like ghosts, were the particularly good, you know, a thing going on, and it's still sort of freaky for the person involved. But there's much more benevolence to that. And I want to say just from the types of things you've talked about that that seems to be the case more often than not to, that there isn't a whole lot of a malevolent, you know, poltergeist thing popping out of the TV or, you know, whatever, where the ghost is out to kill anyone and everyone, right?

Shelley Mordini  2:37  

I agree. You know, we had a whole section in their private residence, you know, and that was really Gwen's idea. She's like, Hey, we got these stories, we should do this. And there was one private resident story that I love. It's called the lady of the house. And it's where she wakes up a 10 year old girl every night this goes does and she goes downstairs and sets the formal dining room table for 10 people with all the cutlery and the plates and the cops and and then goes up to bed. And then everybody gets up the next morning goes, What's going on? And can you imagine coming downstairs to your house? And like, why is my table set? You know, you know, not not malevolent and ghosts, but Jeepers, somebody is messing with us. Yeah, right,

Rauel LaBreche  3:22  

didn't you? You and I talked about a story similar to that. The first time we talked about the woman who their kids would leave the toys all over the yard and she

Shelley Mordini  3:31  

would come up. Yeah, that was out and bunker road. Yes. Things

Rauel LaBreche  3:34  

were be gathered up. And in fact, if if anyone out there wants to see a really mind blowing picture, you have a picture.

Shelley Mordini  3:41  

It's on my website, too.

Rauel LaBreche  3:43  

So we have to put that one up on the podcast icon for the show. Actually, your book cover really needs to be the icon for the show. I think it's a wonderful cover with the Al Ringling theater and whatnot. And so So Did Did either of you. How many personal experiences have you had with paranormal? Who are their personal things? Or you can say absolutely, this is this is not we're not joking around. This is as real as pavement.

Gwen Herrewig  4:10  

in Baraboo, or any ever. The first paranormal experience I had was in the house I grew up in, and I don't know if it was in one Ewok Yeah, and only I had it in in the family. Nobody else did, but it happened twice. And the first time I must have been in junior high. And I had my music on and I was getting ready to go OUT out for the night and I don't know like fixing my hair or something because it was the 80s and I had big hair big hair. Yeah, I had big hair. I remember all this and I could hear breathing.

Rauel LaBreche  4:47  

That was kind of scary in and of itself. I want to talk about scary. Like hairball bands and all that that stuff is scary. Really scary. Anyway, sorry. We

Gwen Herrewig  4:56  

I could hear breathing in it was Over the sound of my radio, which was loud because I was in junior high. And I remember I just stood up in the middle of a room and I turned my radio down, and I could still hear it. And it was a slow, methodical, breathe as if somebody was sleeping in the room. But it was coming from everywhere. And I couldn't figure out where it was coming from. I was the only person upstairs on the second story. And it didn't make sense to me even at the time, because if it was a ghost, why was it breathing? You know? Don't you know you're in but this same breathing a couple years later woke me up from a sound sleep. Same thing methodic sounds like somebody sleeping coming from everywhere in the room at once

Rauel LaBreche  5:53  

show no possibility that that was like a factory sound somehow or any fact that you're not okay.

Gwen Herrewig  5:59  

Right? Yeah, in then it just went away. I left the room both times. And then when I came back, it was gone. But that was the that was the first time. And it was a big head scratcher for me. But I wasn't scared

Rauel LaBreche  6:12  

and have a sense of their no malevolence, or

Gwen Herrewig  6:15  

no in it probably wouldn't wouldn't even be a story that I would contact the lady that was writing the haunted book, to tell them about, you know, about the breathing. Yeah, let me tell you about the breathing because it was it was so insignificant. But it was the first time that I was like, Hey, that was very strange.

Rauel LaBreche  6:33  

Did you have a sense of fear, when that was happening? Was there

Gwen Herrewig  6:38  

no more confusion? It was the same confusion that I saw in the eyes of all the people telling me about their stories. And we have I have one quote in there from a man who was a school teacher, he taught science and he said, I teach science. I don't like it when things don't make sense. Yeah. And that is like the perfect summary of all the ghost stories and all the people that I've talked to, that they feel about that

Rauel LaBreche  7:04  

because it is difficult, right to make sense of any of this because it requires a kind of sense that we don't have you know, I think of like Georgia forage, you know, if we had those visors that Jordy has, we could look and see there's an electromagnetic force there Captain whatever. But it's so it does defy scientific explanation in some ways. Although there are some tools aren't a read of like

Shelley Mordini  7:29  

they're like ghosts, meter, crows and different tools that we

Rauel LaBreche  7:32  

use. I mean, are they are they reliable? Do you think? Are they actually measuring,

Shelley Mordini  7:36  

you know, be pre COVID time we used to have a ghost hunting experience. So it would be VIP too are you going on to to come up upstairs afterwards in the right building where we just told you we have a lot of stories that take place. And then we hand out ghost meter probes and divining rods. So you know, and dowsing rods, and they work fantastic upstairs, you know, we always have spirits connecting to them, it's

Rauel LaBreche  8:03  

or their audible like, I've seen some of those ghosts, you know, shows on like Discovery Channel or whatever. And they they are, you know, saying well, there's a sound right there, and they recorded, and frankly, I listened to those and I go, I'm not hearing it. And I really want to hear it. You know,

Shelley Mordini  8:18  

in some things, you know, like I had an experience just this summer, I was doing free rickshaw rides on the square during constants were and I Thursdays and I was going into the elevator and I had my hands full of all kinds of stuff. So I hit the elbow, I hit my elbow on the button to go up to the second floor. And as we're going up, I hear Well, hello there. And I'm like, Oh, my pocket dialed somebody and I am sorry, I'll call you when I get upstairs and I get upstairs and I unload my stuff. And I'm like, where's my phone, my phone was downstairs in the car. So those those are pretty significant kinds of things. And, you know, my first experiences started to happen while I was doing these tours. They started out small and they got more and more pronounced. There's a there's a couple that just go oh my gosh, you know, I have kind of tell one more.

Rauel LaBreche  9:11  

One more, two more.

Shelley Mordini  9:14  

This one takes place in the Al wrangling mansion. And I used to do haunted tours there with them. And I it was my first time I had cancer. I was going through some breast cancer treatments and I had that day and I came in that night and I was going to do a show. So I set up my equipment I had 25 People sit in there. I show them EVPs videos, different pitches. Then I turn off the lights and take them on 100 tour of the building. And as we sat down, I turned off the lights in this orb appeared under this man's chair, about the size of the top of a paint can slid slowly across the floor out the front door. I kind of looked at the floor and went man, those drugs were really strong today because I'm seeing stuff. I look up 24 People are Running for the door and there's one guy going what's going on I might do there was this board that appeared I do her chair and so it was only him and I that ended up giving the tour because everybody else ran out and they hit on it to the tour

Rauel LaBreche  10:13  

she'll do a an orbs are pretty common thing in terms of the paranormal. Yes, we'll see that. So there's the apparitions. There's orbs, there's partial apparitions or shadow people shadow. Yeah, I mean, there's a classification system, almost four,

Shelley Mordini  10:28  

we do a nice intro of Gwen and I talk about that of what the different types of things that we see we have a whole if we had a slide projector, we could show you all these things.

Rauel LaBreche  10:38  

As far there are theories or beliefs of of that these are different kinds of ghosts or different kinds of people, or is it just a different way? I almost think of it like their shade different shades of the same color, if you will,

Shelley Mordini  10:50  

well let her talk about the different experiences and they were all kind of fitting in the same area.

Gwen Herrewig  10:56  

Okay. Oh, I'm sorry, I

Rauel LaBreche  11:01  

just did one of these things where Gwen is like, what are you talking?

Gwen Herrewig  11:08  

In so now I know.

Rauel LaBreche  11:12  

All right, okay, here we go.  

Gwen Herrewig  11:14  

We discovered that people have seen everything from clowns to bartenders. Oh, clowns are creepy. I'm sorry. Especially in the ghostly. Okay, to children, little girls and little boys, the shadow figures. And the interesting thing about them is that we would get stories from people from completely different walks of life, teenagers, elderly people talking about different buildings. And they would mention the detail that the shadow figures have red eyes. That's very specific. And there's been rumors for decades that there's a ghost train that comes through now bearable. People all over town, feel the sensation of somebody moving or sitting on the bed next to them at night. In music, people hear music from unseen instruments and radios that they can't figure out where it's coming from.

Rauel LaBreche  12:19  

Because there's almost a an aesthetic to that I'm not quite sure with the word but like a, a spiritual component, which makes complete sense. But when you talk about music, and you talk about children and the red eyes, I mean, there's there's some real I mean, red eyes right away make me think, okay, photograph for one because when you shine light into, you know that the eyes, they bounced back with that red. So is there something there in terms of the correlative of it, but it also, you tend to think of demonic things don't you with? At least that's a strong identification for me. But,

Shelley Mordini  12:57  

you know, I find that the music is an interesting, and there's a story we got in the book, and it's an occurred in January, and my friend was Jewish. So this is important part of this, because somebody is singing Christmas songs outside of her house in January. And she goes outside, can't find him, comes back in starts to do some more dishes. More Christmas music runs outside. Nobody there like to hear somebody singing. And she said it wasn't just a few seconds, a couple minutes of Christmas songs in January, outside a Jewish person's house.

Rauel LaBreche  13:39  

This is an irritating ghost. This is a ghost that obviously is trying to

Shelley Mordini  13:44  

or a sense of humor. Yeah.

Gwen Herrewig  13:46  

I suppose those are my favorite stories. The Phantom pranksters? Yeah, definitely out of all of them that we have. Those are the ones that just seem like they're messing with the person that

Rauel LaBreche  13:58  

is that kind of the idea to have poltergeist is that they're more mischief mischievous in their antics and things that they do, or is it is there a malevolence to poltergeists that

Shelley Mordini  14:08  

we haven't run across to him? Well, it

Gwen Herrewig  14:10  

was there was one family in town. Oh, yeah. I guess we had a poltergeist experience on mound Street. And this story was in hometown horror, which that show is so on. With its travel channel channel. And they came in they did a program an episode in Baraboo called Three Ring terror,

Rauel LaBreche  14:36  

free range. Three, three ring, three ring of course,  

Gwen Herrewig  14:41  

three ring terror. Yes. And they took stories that were really genuine stories from people that that we know. And we know of the stories they they even they talk to us they talk to people all over town, and they sensationalize A lot of the story they, they demonized the stories. And so this person who I know, I talked to her, and I know what her story is on mound Street, and it was a freaky story as it was. And then they, they took it a step further, and they made it a little bit more unbelievable. But basically what happened was they rented a house. They were, they were from Milwaukee, Oregon, they came here, I don't even know what for. But this was in I don't know, 2008. Ish. And they took my tour. And afterwards, she wants to know if we had heard anything about this particular house, because here's what happened. They started to notice that doors were opening on their own like this fine, open the front door, and then she closed it and lock it just fly fly open again, the TV would turn on in the middle of the night. Eventually, her daughter would wake up in the middle of the night with scratches on her body in places that she can't reach. And they would have to deal with it. Because you know, she'd be bleeding or something. And she was scared. And she was young. And they just, they just had to deal with it. And it eventually got to the point that they were all sleeping together in the master bedroom, scared until they got out of their lease and moved out of town. Of course, three ring terror, you know, made it like she was bleeding to death in the bed. You know, I mean, she they made it, look, they made it look really bad. And they took the mound street portion of that and ran with it with the effigy mounds that used to be fair, and just made assumptions in places that we can't make assumptions.

Rauel LaBreche  16:47  

Kind of normal, isn't it? Well, media can't quite just let the story speak for itself, they have to really get the ratings up there.

Gwen Herrewig  16:55  

So in some, in a lot of cases, Shelley and I attempted to correct the stories, put them in writing. We talked to everybody except for that lady she i i wasn't able to connect with her. But I do mention the story briefly at the beginning of the private residences section. But we interviewed everybody and got the whole story. And in Harvey tried to

Rauel LaBreche  17:22  

rest of the story, right. Okay. That's what this is all about the rest of the story. So I find that really appeals to me as being a really respectful way of handling this that you don't, it's not ours to embellish. It's ours to record and present the information and let people evaluate it. Right.

Gwen Herrewig  17:43  

Well, and sometimes that means the story just isn't as good as the other one, you know, or some are better than others, but that it's what happened. And I can only make it as good as the story was right.

Rauel LaBreche  17:57  

Well, and there's enough things I mean, I you know, as I said in the first episode, I did not get through the whole thing, but I can guarantee you folks, there's enough in the stories as they are, you don't need to embellish to get the you know, Heebie Jeebies and, you know, spine tingling feelings that come along with a true ghost story, you know. So, I guess I don't quite understand that need to sensationalize things, because what it does is discredit the entire experience in my mind or our community.

Gwen Herrewig  18:30  

I mean, because nobody's afraid to go into the Ringling theatre. Why while we know that there are ghosts, and some of them are pretty mischievious and a little dark, you know, nobody's scared to go in a beautiful place

Rauel LaBreche  18:43  

and burn it down. But you know, students care and so on some of the places like the right building, you know, has a really, almost, I'd say a regular appearance or issues. Yes. In some of the houses that you've talked about, and they multiple residents, right have recounted the same experience. So and that could either, you know, enhance its value on the market or, you know, take away from its, I guess, a lot of cases of people don't even want to talk about those things they're afraid of will affect the resale value. Yes. in a negative way, right. Yes.

Gwen Herrewig  19:16  

So we identified the street in which the person lived on but not the house number. In a lot of cases, we didn't identify the person sure either.

Rauel LaBreche  19:25  

Sure. Which Yeah, me  

Shelley Mordini  19:27  

small town, they'll figure it out.

Rauel LaBreche  19:29  

And you don't want to have a Looney Tunes come in. It'll make it worse than it already is. Yes.

Gwen Herrewig  19:34  

So especially if there's kids walking through their yard in the middle of the night. Yeah, right.

Rauel LaBreche  19:37  

You know, knocking on the door is trying to freak you out more. So, folks, I'm talking with co authors of a new book called haunted Baraboo Shelley Moore, Dini and Gwen Herwig are here, recounting ghost stories in a very real way. We're gonna take another quick break to hear a word from our sponsors. And when we come back, try to wrap up some of the favorite stories. The favorite the really kind of transformative events that both of these ladies had in the writing of this book because I, I have to believe that there are particular ones that just really hit home with you both. And I also want to ask some questions about some of the really big like Baraboo Inn in the old Barsboo and seems like one you kind of have to talk about. I've been there's a reason maybe why it was at the right at the beginning of the book, too. So but we're going to do all that. So don't go anywhere. We'll take a quick break to hear word from our sponsors and come back and give you the real story. The other side of the story as Paul Harvey would have said, The Haunted bear boo, that we all know about here in this area at least. And we hope you'll buy the book and find out about it too, because there's a there's some pretty scary the is going on here unbearable. Right? So we'll be right back on 99 Seven Max FM's digital network and frame of reference.

While we're back here with authors Shelley Moore, Dini and Gwen Herwig, talking about a new book onto bear boo, which is part of a series of books called haunted America, put out by Arcadia press. Did you say yes, so those of you that love ghost stories that want to know more about those things that we can't quite explain, that are beyond our normal sensory experiences, probably and, and yet, we do see things we hear things. So they're impacting us in a way that they can or means that they can. But I saw before we took a break, I kind of prepped both of you to say I wanted to talk about your favorite story. And, and I'm going to pull it back and give you a little more time to think and tell you my favorite story. And I you know, I didn't read the whole thing. So I'm probably going to find that oh, God, I wish I would have read this one yet and talk about it. But maybe you will. But it was about the old bear Boo in. And I think what intrigued me about that story is not only the volume of stories that there are the you know, it's a pretty lengthy chapter because there's so much information there. But also because it was interesting, it seems to me an interesting environment for helping nonbelievers to have something an experience where they can't quite explain what happened and be like I you know, I don't know how else to explain this, except it was not normal, whatever that is, right. So what did you find that you talked with the current owner? And tell us a little bit about the happenings at old bear blue and white? Is that such a special story?

Gwen Herrewig  23:08  

Sure. Yeah. We talked to the current owner, his name is BC Farr. And the chapter really follows him through his experiences there. And it starts all the way back with when he first bought the building that we tell some history about you know, it used to be

Rauel LaBreche  23:29  

the vendor hotel

Gwen Herrewig  23:30  

vendor hotel, thank you

Rauel LaBreche  23:32  

back when there were like breweries and whatnot in the area, right. And then

Shelley Mordini  23:35  

like in the train came right across the street, you know, so that was the closest place to the train station. Okay.

Gwen Herrewig  23:41  

Right. So in then DC bought it in the late 90s and started working and he had been fairly dilapidated. It was fire had gone through. And at the time that he bought it, I believe it was just being used for storage. And so he started to fix it up to turn it back into a bar. And he almost immediately started noticing strange things happening. And he thought he was going crazy. Because things weren't where he left them lights are on when he turned them off. They had a guy working with them and they started blaming each other. But when he actually finally came out, when it came out that it was haunted enough people had gone there and had enough experiences. People thanked him who had worked in the building and years past. Oh, thank goodness you finally are saying something because they were unable to say anything before even though back when it was Dombroski, as they would have strange things happening to this didn't just suddenly appear when BC bought the building. People who had been there for decades had strange experiences inside

Rauel LaBreche  24:45  

sure when he makes an interesting comment in it that he said for the most part and I'm paraphrasing this piece but for the most part, it seemed like the whatever spirits were there had kind of a good vibe like a party vibe is good in there. bars, bars, eternal party, you know, whatever. So, but there was he said maybe 95% or so were of that nature, but there was a 5% or so that had a real dark quality to them. How does that work? How does that look? I mean, in terms of his experiences,

Gwen Herrewig  25:17  

it seems like the darker the darker side is the side that people feel like they're going to get hurt. Or they feel unsafe. Somebody getting pushed down the stairs, there was an example. He I think hyper extended his elbow one time when he got hit by an orb that was going through was that your general

Shelley Mordini  25:43  

and in but, but there was also a spirit you know, in the story talks about a guy who was carrying up like two cases of beer upstairs. And you know, he could have a different spirit could I gave him a push backwards, but something gave him a push forward and helped him wrap the steps sort

Gwen Herrewig  25:58  

of similar toward the end of the story. Somebody was staying in their haunted suite, they have a furnished haunted sweep that anybody can rent in stay the night. Get in on the action of that the second story, but somebody stayed there one night, and when he was getting up to go to bed, as he was as he went to stand up, he felt the pressure on his chest that made him stay where he was. A moment later, the chandelier in the ceiling crashed to the floor in a big spray of flashing light and the breaker broke and he was all freaked out. And he stood on the road in front of the old caribou and for half an hour. And he had to be talked into going back in the bed because all the other hotels in the in the area were better the night.

Rauel LaBreche  26:51  

interesting too, because he was actually he should be thankful, you know that whatever something pushed him back and said, Hey, do don't move right.

Gwen Herrewig  26:59  

Well, in this weird thing about the chandelier is that it was it was almost like it was a yank out. The screw was stripped. Everything that was up was stripped and the wires had just everything had just broken and it all came down. So you wonder

Rauel LaBreche  27:15  

if there weren't actually two different forces that work there. Right? Yeah, one that was just like, attractive. Right? Yeah. Lord knows there's enough of that in the real world, too. So was in he also talked about a story of a Salesman, right, that came through tell a side story, because that one I found particularly humorous.

Gwen Herrewig  27:34  

Those are funny that people so the old bear Boo in calls it getting ghost bombed when when a non believer comes in, and then they have a personal experience inside the bar, and they become a believer. It's called Getting ghost bombed at the old bear ruin. And for whatever reason, it seems like the ghosts rise to this occasion of people coming in saying they don't believe you. Yes, yes. So there was a delivery man that came in. And he was saying that he didn't believe in ghosts. And it was all just a gimmick. And he he got hit upside the head by something. And then he got hit again. And and he took his hat off. And he went to go out the back door. And he heard a disembodied voice saying, well, I'll be seeing you later, buddy. And he never came back.

Rauel LaBreche  28:20  

That'd be a great way to get rid of a Salesman because it's hard to get rid of them sometimes. Right? So surely, what about you? Was there what story really kind of you and you had more experience or I mean, you've been talking through these stories for a long time, we

Shelley Mordini  28:36  

had quite a few experiences. Like when we originally started with Glenn and I, we didn't want it to be the Glenn and Shelley show, you know, we wanted to have other people's experience. Well, this is the Glenn and Shelley show. And we could easily fill a cup your next couple of weeks for you if you needed to.

Rauel LaBreche  28:50  

So programming for me to worry about.

Shelley Mordini  28:54  

But I really liked the story about the Al ranglin theater, there's quite a few different ones in there. But the one that kind of intrigues me and makes me laugh a little bit is about was told to us by Cory Griffin, you know, moved to California lucky Cory. And it was during beauty in the beast. And while they were doing they were getting the set set up, and the builder was there with his daughter, and he was working on and she you know, was standing in the middle of the stage waving. And he'd be like, Who are you waving to? Oh, the man. I'm waving to the man. And he'd be like, alright, yeah, go back and keep on working. And she'd smile and was dancing around and doing some waving. And then finally when they go to leave, they're exiting the building and she turns to the right there and there's a large picture of Al ranglin And she's like, Oh, Dad, that's the man I've been waving to. So you know, how ringland Still in the

Rauel LaBreche  29:48  

house. Well, he certainly invested a lot in that building right in this

Shelley Mordini  29:53  

community. You know, he was a lover of barebow loved barebow supported bearable wanted. I mean, we have their library As a family have the theater because of him, you know, he encouraged his brothers to set up shop here, you know, like he loved bearable.

Rauel LaBreche  30:08  

So in the first segment of this, I always start off this show with my favorite things is do you have a, I guess I'm going to call it favorite, do you have a favorite way of thinking of ghosts? That helps you to make sense of it? You know, because I think, you know, people struggle with the idea of, I don't know how to explain this. And because I don't know how to explain it, it can't really be real, or y