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A quiet Illinois morning shatters with a single scream, and an old question returns with new force: what do we do with the stories we can’t explain? We follow Mary Roff’s final turn as her father, Asa, rides a desperate circuit between Peoria’s closed doors and Springfield’s looming walls, navigating a 19th-century system that sorted people into categories and called it care. The details are intimate and human—a fabricated “vacation,” embroidered napkins left unfinished—until the moment grief floods the house and the town whispers, relieved and afraid.

From there, we step into today’s Roff home with the person who restored it and the caretakers who know its mood by heart. Renovation becomes detective work: original colors recovered from paint analysis, hinges and trims decoded, a color scheme reborn to match the era. Their stories are measured and specific—kitchen lights that answer a question, faucets on full blast, the prickling sense of eyes at the window—told without theatrics, which makes them land even harder. The house holds more than Mary’s shadow; it carries Catherine Clifton’s bold life, a backyard grotto built from stones gathered across the world, and a quiet invitation to consider spiritualism, skepticism, and the fragile line between them.

What emerges is a layered portrait of Watseka’s past and present. We reflect on mental health stigma, the market logic that overruled a child’s plea, and the way a community decides what to see. We also celebrate craft, preservation, and the intimacy of place—how a home can act as an archive, a conversation partner, and a mirror. Come for folklore, stay for the humanity. Then tell us where you land: haunting or coincidence, memory or message?

Subscribe, share with a friend who loves haunted history, and leave a review with your take on the kitchen lights debate. Your stories keep the porch light on.

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The bells of Palm Sunday ring, the town pours into the street, and then the story slips sideways. Watseka, Illinois is celebrating the end of war, but behind the music and speeches, neighbors trade signatures under lamplight, a cruel nickname sticks, and the Roff family learns how quickly a community can turn polite faces into sharpened edges. When Mary vanishes in the crowd, the search begins with smiles that hide panic, and it ends not with reassurance but with a door slamming on an upper porch and fists pounding from the other side.

We walk you through the petition that aimed to put Mary away, the politics of silence from the mayor and the editor, and the kitchen confrontation that refuses to stay folklore. Lavinia Durst’s lamp flares, Mary speaks with a stranger’s certainty, and a teacup room becomes a battleground over agency, blame, and fear. This isn’t a ghost story told at arm’s length; it’s small-town psychology under pressure, where gossip can act like law and where the question shifts from “Is something happening?” to “Who is in control?”

Then we leave the book and step into the Roff home with our own gear. Two nights. Quiet rooms. A servant staircase that hums with unease. A drift of ladybugs that is both a family sign and an all-too-natural invasion. And audio that misbehaves: waveforms dancing without sound and controlled tests that raise more questions than they answer. We balance skepticism with curiosity and invite you to listen closely for what lives between noise and meaning.

If you love true crime atmospherics, American folklore, and the thin places where history touches the present, press play. Subscribe, share this story with a friend who loves haunted history, and leave a review with your take: artifact, hoax, or something we don’t have a name for yet?

Want to stay in the Roff Home yourself? Check it out on AirBnb:

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/39533310?fbclid=IwY2xjawOxlXJleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETF4ck9BYWNRRHVyTjl5bTBJc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHtsP-DCjs5Wgy9jfkoWlYv_gkZXtpCNw4m4V2o7yYDWzNHzQmY62qApSYBp1_aem_2Wjymu3ZmPRfDBpiEImxcw&viralityEntryPoint=1&unique_share_id=49883FBB-782A-4594-83D9-027D11B69ADA&slcid=833e8b8c50ac4937a18d5fa9523f5bcf&s=76&feature=share&adults=1&channel=native&slug=4eXpL7qR&source_impression_id=p3_1766110765_P3TTIgWh8wfqbjOw

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Please share your stories with us at [email protected]

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You'll also want to head to our Patreon page for exclusive footage of the Roff house, bonus listener stories, and more!

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A quiet room, a held breath—and then a voice that isn’t quite Mary’s. What begins as a message for a granddaughter turns into a reckoning about shame, stolen money, and the cost of keeping family history locked away. The word protection lands like a warning shot, and moments later, the chaos stops not with shouting, but with an unexpected hero.

After the dust settles, we step outside under the porch light to talk with investigator and tour host Neal Gibbons of Graveside Paranormal. Neil shares how he prepares the Roff House before anyone presses record: walking the space, listening to the house, and setting boundaries before gear ever comes out. He offers candid notes about what he did and didn’t feel during a recent seance, the recurring girl’s voice that greets visitors, and a faucet incident the camera didn’t catch that still saved the night. We dig into why some sites echo with intelligent responses while others behave like thoughtforms, and how pattern-based research helps map a place without forcing a single theory onto every haunt.

If you’re drawn to the Watseka Wonder, possession lore, and the mechanics of safer spirit communication, this chapter blends story, method, and lived experience. You’ll hear about emotional triggers, the ethics of opening and closing a session, and why a simple object in a calm hand can shift an entire encounter. 

To find a ghost tour or experience with Neal & Graveside Paranormal, visit  https://gravesideparanormal.com/

Keep an eye out for the movie The Seance on the following Facebook pages:

Neal Gibbons:

https://www.facebook.com/neal.gibbons.50/

Larry Eisslee III with Small Town Productions:

https://www.facebook.com/GHLarryEissler/

Subscribe, share with a friend who loves Midwest hauntings, and leave a review to help more listeners find Small Town Whispers. What part stayed with you—the confession, the chaos, or the way it ended?

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Please share your stories with us at [email protected]

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You'll also want to head to our Patreon page for exclusive footage of the Roff house, bonus listener stories, and more!

We are also on YouTube! I dare you to put it on at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownWhispersPodcast

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The room goes still, the metronome ticks, and Mary begins a slow descent down an imagined staircase that somehow leads straight into the private histories of everyone at the table. What follows isn’t vagueness or guesswork; it’s a sequence of precise hits that force even hardened skeptics to rethink their positions. 

We talk openly about fear, faith, and what evidence looks like when it wears the clothes of memory. Reverend Dill doesn’t chase spectacle; he builds a test where witnesses can verify facts and weigh the ethics of what comes next. When a message challenges the town editor to write with more compassion—cry for the living, not the dead—the paranormal becomes practical, turning belief into behavior. 

To widen the investigation, we step outside under a Carolina sky for an eyewitness account of the Ahoskie lights. The description mirrors Brown Mountain reports, adding one more consistent data point to a phenomenon that refuses to be dismissed. If you’re drawn to haunted history, spirit communication, seances, and spook lights, you’ll find both chills and substance here—testable claims, credible voices, and a community that values curiosity over fear. Here is an extended segment about the Brown Mountain Lights: 

https://www.patreon.com/posts/brown-mountain-145115177?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

Subscribe so you don’t miss the conclusion of the seance and our conversation with Chicago paranormal researcher Neil Gibbons. If this story moved you, share it with a friend and leave a review with the one detail that surprised you most. Your stories keep this circle strong.

Support the show

Please share your stories with us at [email protected]

or send us a message on the Small Town Whispers Facebook page!

You'll also want to head to our Patreon page for exclusive footage of the Roff house, bonus listener stories, and more!

We are also on YouTube! I dare you to put it on at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownWhispersPodcast

Don't forget to tell a friend or family member about the show.

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A girl wakes after five silent days with no memory and no weakness. A minister sits in her parlor and suggests a possibility more human than demonic: a spirit not gone far enough. When he conducts an experiment successfully right there in the home, the room shifts from fear to curiosity. That small win for Mary becomes a doorway to bigger questions about belief, evidence, and the strange ways grief and love ripple through our lives.

We open up the conversation between faith and phenomena, tracing how scripture, spiritualism, and everyday skepticism can coexist without shouting each other down. Then we carry that spirit of inquiry onto the open air of legend: the Brown Mountain Lights in North Carolina, glowing orbs reported for more than a century that seem to walk the ridges with intention, unfazed by floods or official explanations. 

Brown Mountain Light song:

https://youtu.be/MlbQ1zsE2nQ?si=qvXQncXVSFPoAd5N

We compare those sightings to the Vander Light along the rails near Fayetteville, a lonely lantern said to pace the tracks after a fatal fall, appearing and dissolving as if still waiting for a late train that never comes.

What connects Watseka’s parlor, a mountain overlook, and a quiet stretch of track is the same motif: a lantern moving through the dark. Lanterns are more than light; they’re the outline of a person’s will, a portable circle that makes room for courage. We explore natural theories—from headlights to mirages to stressed rock—alongside the stories locals keep telling, and we hold space for the possibility that meaning and mechanism both matter. If you’ve ever felt watched over, or watched by, a small light in a big night, you’ll feel at home here. Press play, then tell us what you’ve seen, what you believe, and what still keeps you looking up.

If this story resonated, follow the show, leave a review, and share it with a friend who loves folklore, true paranormal tales, and the mysteries that walk just ahead of us.

Support the show

Please share your stories with us at [email protected]

or send us a message on the Small Town Whispers Facebook page!

You'll also want to head to our Patreon page for exclusive footage of the Roff house, bonus listener stories, and more!

We are also on YouTube! I dare you to put it on at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownWhispersPodcast

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Content Warning:
This episode contains descriptions of self-harm, blood, graphic injury, violence, and strong language. Check the Chapters for details.

Listener discretion is advised. 

The porchlight flickers, the storm gathers, and a small town decides what it believes. We return to Watseka, Illinois, where Mary’s brief calm gives way to a terrifying rupture: a blade in the kitchen, a sprint into the fields, a rescue met with fury, and a town’s certainty hardening into rumor. It’s raw, human, and painfully close to the bone—and it’s the kind of story that outlives the facts and settles into the voice of a community.

From there we follow the echo. You know the ritual: lights off, three turns, a name spoken to a mirror. We unpack why kids dare each other with Bloody Mary, how structure turns chaos into a game, and why certain stories choose us rather than the other way around. Along the way, we share a cherished memory of a teacher who calmly led a whole line of girls into a dark bathroom and said the words for us, proving that curiosity and courage can coexist with folklore. The tension isn’t between belief and skepticism—it’s between fear that isolates and stories that give us a safe way to look at fear together.

This is a story about possession, panic, and the mechanics of myth-making. It’s about how a 19th-century girl named Mary might sit just beneath a chant kids still whisper at sleepovers, and how whispers move faster than facts in any era. We listen to lived voices, sift the gossip, and notice the patterns: summoning rituals, moral panics, and the way a town protects itself by telling and retelling a tale until it feels like a law of nature.

If you’ve ever stood in a dark bathroom with a racing heart, or grown up in a place where everyone knows your name and your business, this one’s for you. Press play, then tell us your own Bloody Mary story—send a note to Porchlight Whispers at gmail.com or message the Small Town Whispers Facebook page. If the episode resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who loves folklore, and leave a quick review so more curious minds can find our porchlight.

Voice Credits to:

"Mary"- Emily Thompson (Watseka 1988-2000) 

Gossipers from Watseka:

Jamie (Kilgore) Elson

Melissa (Sherman) Heckman

Amy Yucuis

Karlie Peters

Justin Lareau

Jenn (Thompson) Jayasingha

Gossipers Living In Watseka:

Justin Bryant

Stacy Beam

Nick Dillon

Scarlett & Elliott

Abby Laird

Friends & Family

Scott Carney

Samantha Borden

Caroline Withers

Laura Beth Payne

Chris Borden

Amanda Sadanaga

Sally Timaeus

Support the show

Please share your stories with us at [email protected]

or send us a message on the Small Town Whispers Facebook page!

You'll also want to head to our Patreon page for exclusive footage of the Roff house, bonus listener stories, and more!

We are also on YouTube! I dare you to put it on at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownWhispersPodcast

Don't forget to tell a friend or family member about the show.

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We trace Mary’s missing days at the Peoria Water Cure and the split between diagnosis and belief, then widen the lens to Wilmington’s haunted landmarks and why certain places feel charged. The thread is care: how families endure the unexplainable and how cities hold memory.

• personal connection to Watseka and stakes
• recap of Mary’s case and early possession claims
• clinic interviews, memory gaps, and skepticism
• months of treatment, routine, and family strain
• empathy for caregivers behind closed doors
• shift to Wilmington’s ghost tours and lore
• Thalian Hall history and reported activity
• USS North Carolina sightings and soundscapes
• invitation for listener stories from Wilmington
• reflection on why places feel haunted

Do you have an experience of your own to tell? We want to hear your stories. Share your experience and let your small town whispers become part of ours.

Support the show

Please share your stories with us at [email protected]

or send us a message on the Small Town Whispers Facebook page!

You'll also want to head to our Patreon page for exclusive footage of the Roff house, bonus listener stories, and more!

We are also on YouTube! I dare you to put it on at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownWhispersPodcast

Don't forget to tell a friend or family member about the show.

Thank you!

We'd love to hear from you!

A teenager restrained in a windowless room, a doctor’s letter that reads like a warning, and a father who refuses to accept “coincidence” as an answer—this chapter of Small Town Whispers moves from the Roff family’s newfound prosperity to the most unsettling moment in Mary’s treatment at the Peoria Water Cure. We walk through Asa’s confrontation with physicians who mock spirit claims and lean on the Fox sisters as a tidy explanation, while he counters with dates, details, and a demand for proof that feels surprisingly modern. It’s not a ghost hunt; it’s a debate about how we decide what’s real when the facts refuse to fit. 

From there, we step beneath the Porch Light and into 1969, where the legend of Lantern Lane carries a different kind of evidence: a steady, approaching light on an empty country road with no cars, no houses, no swamp gas. Becky Mackenzie, a Watseka native and teacher-to-be, recounts her band-night sighting with clarity and restraint. The story endures because it remains stubbornly ordinary and stubbornly unexplained. University researchers reportedly found nothing, and that nothing only makes the light harder to dismiss. 

What ties these threads together is the small-town method of knowing: patient observation, passed-down stories, a willingness to hold discomfort without smothering it under easy narratives. We explore the tension between medicine and belief, the practical courage of a parent insisting on evidence, and the way local legends archive anomalies that science hasn’t yet claimed. If you’re drawn to historical mysteries, paranormal folklore, and the messy, human process of making sense of the unknown, you’ll feel right at home on these streets and crossroads. If the story stirred something in you—curiosity, doubt, a memory—tap follow, share it with a friend who loves a good mystery, and leave us a review. And if you’ve got a whisper of your own, send it our way so it can step into the light next Friday.

Support the show

Please share your stories with us at [email protected]

or send us a message on the Small Town Whispers Facebook page!

You'll also want to head to our Patreon page for exclusive footage of the Roff house, bonus listener stories, and more!

We are also on YouTube! I dare you to put it on at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownWhispersPodcast

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A quiet kitchen, a Sunday supper, and a six-year-old who suddenly sounds sixty-three. That’s where our journey takes a sharp turn, pulling us from small-town routine into a confrontation with the unexplainable. We trace Mary’s strange history from her astonishing twelve-day unresponsive state as an infant to a chilling scene where she cuts her arm, clutches a knife, and insists her name is Katrina Hogan. Layer by layer, we learn how hardship, faith, and the frontier mindset shaped what people believed.

I read a vivid passage from Watseka, America’s Most Extraordinary Case of Possession and Exorcism that captures the room’s shifting air: Anne’s panic, Nervie’s shock, Asa’s steady command, and Josiah’s calm invocation of Spiritualism. The debate that follows feels modern even now. Was this a spirit, a trauma response, a dissociative state, or the pressure of grief and gossip on a family under strain? The details matter—the mud on boots, pegs on the wall, pigs in the yard—because they prove this wasn’t theater. It was a normal day interrupted by something no one could easily name.

I share why the Watseka Wonder still holds me: I lived in that town, walked those streets, and recently even stayed at the Roff house.  We close with Porchlight Whispers, our open line for witnesses and storytellers. If you’ve seen the light at Lantern’s Lane, felt the hair rise at the old mailbox, or carry a legend from your own hometown, step into the circle. Follow Small Town Whispers for new chapters every Friday, share the show with a friend who loves history and hauntings, and leave a quick review to help more listeners find us. What do you think happened in that kitchen—possession or psychology? We’re listening.

Support the show

Please share your stories with us at [email protected]

or send us a message on the Small Town Whispers Facebook page!

You'll also want to head to our Patreon page for exclusive footage of the Roff house, bonus listener stories, and more!

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Don't forget to tell a friend or family member about the show.

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Welcome to Small Town Whispers. In Episode 1, you are going to get to know your host a little bit better and understand why she wants to keep the history of Watseka, IL and the story of the Watseka Wonder alive. 

The Roff family was one of the wealthiest in town in the late 1800s. However, money couldn't cure their daughter Mary, who was suffering from fits with strange and sometimes violent side effects. You'll never guess what's going to happen. This isn't your average ghost story. You just need to hear it for yourself. If you love a mystery from history with a paranormal twist, you are in the right place!

In addition to diving into the book and looking at the facts of the time period, we will also explore urban legends and folklore from Iroquois County Illinois and other small towns. If you have a story to share, please email Bethany Borden at [email protected] or get in touch with us on our Buzzsprout website, Facebook page, or Instagram page. We look forward to hearing from you. 

Please also consider supporting the podcast by liking this episode, subscribing to the podcast, telling a friend about it, or even throwing us a small donation. We are thoroughly enjoying telling this creepy tale. 

Support the show

Please share your stories with us at [email protected]

or send us a message on the Small Town Whispers Facebook page!

You'll also want to head to our Patreon page for exclusive footage of the Roff house, bonus listener stories, and more!

We are also on YouTube! I dare you to put it on at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownWhispersPodcast

Don't forget to tell a friend or family member about the show.

Thank you!