Small Town Whispers

We'd love to hear from you!A wound that vanishes by sundown. A dining room cleared like a stage. Twelve chairs set in a circle with one seat left empty and untouchable. I’m taking you back to Watseka, Illinois and the Roff House, where the final seance begins to form around Lurancy Vennum with a level of planning that feels equal parts family gathering and ritual.Before the lamps are turned down, I share something personal: how fear and perfectionism kept me from publishing creative work for years, and why finishing this season matters to me. Then we return to the pages of Watseka as Mary directs the room, assigns seats like a clock face, and insists on absolute trust. A small basin of water appears, a protective charm is brought into the circle, and the group joins hands as Lurancy slips into stillness.What follows is why this story has never let go of people. A new voice breaks through, and it’s not subtle. Two brand new voices appear out of thin air, seeking through Lurancy. Tune in to her channel in this episode.If you’ve been following this Watseka possession and exorcism journey, this chapter is the hinge that swings everything forward. Subscribe, share Small Town Whispers with a friend who loves paranormal history, and leave a rating and review so more listeners can find the show. And if you’ve got a story of your own, email Porchlight Whispers at gmail.com or message the Small Town Whispers Facebook page.Support the showIf this show resonates with you, please hit follow, share it with a friend who loves true history and the paranormal, and leave a rating and review. It really helps us get discovered, and it helps boost my morale! If you’ve enjoyed listening and you would like to support the show, please consider donating through the following, which are also listed at the end of the episode:Venmo- Bethany-Borden-1Paypal- BethanyBorden865Buzzsprout websiteCashApp- $SmallTownWhispersPlease 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! Did you know we’re on YouTube?! I dare you to put it on at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownWhispersPodcastDon't forget to tell a friend or family member about the show. Thank you!

We'd love to hear from you!A brother shows up at the door with his hat in his hands and a request that sounds simple: “Can Rancy come see Ma?” That one question pulls the Roff household back into the most volatile part of the Watseka-inspired possession story, where every choice feels like it could tip the case toward healing or disaster. Bethany and the Small Town Whispers team walk you through a chapter where love is real, the fear is louder, and the town is watching.We start with a quick, important reminder that this is a fictional retelling loosely inspired by The Watseka Wonder and Dr. E. W. Stevens’ 1878 account, with dramatic liberties taken for storytelling. From there, the tension climbs fast: Henry Vennum worries about a petition to have Lurancy committed, Lurinda Vennum arrives in tears to see her daughter, and the fragile peace at the Roff home feels like it might finally hold. Then Loozie returns to Watseka, and a single church visit detonates into a brutal confrontation that leaves blood on a Sunday sidewalk and a warning no one can pretend they didn’t see.Under the Porchlight Whispers segment, we zoom out into paranormal history and American spiritualism, tracing the Hydesville farmhouse, the Fox Sisters, and the infamous knocks that helped spark a national obsession with séances and spirit communication. Was it trickery, mass grief, or something genuinely unexplained? We sit with the question that keeps haunting every ghost story: if someone you loved could reach back from the other side, would you answer?If you’ve ever had signs you couldn’t deny, email us at Porchlight Whispers at gmail.com, then subscribe, share this episode with a friend, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show.Support the showIf this show resonates with you, please hit follow, share it with a friend who loves true history and the paranormal, and leave a rating and review. It really helps us get discovered, and it helps boost my morale! If you’ve enjoyed listening and you would like to support the show, please consider donating through the following, which are also listed at the end of the episode:Venmo- Bethany-Borden-1Paypal- BethanyBorden865Buzzsprout websiteCashApp- $SmallTownWhispersPlease 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! Did you know we’re on YouTube?! I dare you to put it on at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownWhispersPodcastDon't forget to tell a friend or family member about the show. Thank you!

We'd love to hear from you!A child’s body goes still. A household runs out of options. Then an ordinary white envelope drifts down from the ceiling with instructions detailed enough to save a life. We’re back in Watseka, Illinois, digging deeper into the infamous Lurancy Vennum possession and exorcism case, and the moment Dr. Stevens realizes something unseen might be answering him.We track the emotional cost alongside the paranormal claims: the exhaustion inside the Roff home, the relief when “Mary” speaks again, and the heartbreak of a mother lighting a single birthday candle for the daughter who isn’t really there. Outside the home, the pressure turns public. Easter at the Methodist Church brings a petition, threats, and a demand that Lurancy be sent away. Faith, fear, and control collide, and the warning that follows raises the same question Watseka has asked for generations: is this danger, divinity, or something we don’t have language for yet?Then Porchlight Whispers shifts the lens to the present with a Reddit story about signs from the other side: a fiancé’s name appearing everywhere, a meaningful song arriving at the exact moment it’s needed, and a dream that asks, “Did you get the message?” We share perspectives from comfort to skepticism, including the uneasy possibility that not every “sign” is what it seems.If you’ve ever felt a message brush past the edge of the explainable, we want to hear it. Subscribe, share Small Town Whispers with a friend who loves true history and the paranormal, and leave a rating and review so more listeners can find the show.Support the showIf this show resonates with you, please hit follow, share it with a friend who loves true history and the paranormal, and leave a rating and review. It really helps us get discovered, and it helps boost my morale! If you’ve enjoyed listening and you would like to support the show, please consider donating through the following, which are also listed at the end of the episode:Venmo- Bethany-Borden-1Paypal- BethanyBorden865Buzzsprout websiteCashApp- $SmallTownWhispersPlease 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! Did you know we’re on YouTube?! I dare you to put it on at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownWhispersPodcastDon't forget to tell a friend or family member about the show. Thank you!

We'd love to hear from you!Spring has a way of making people bold, and in Watseka it also makes the haunting louder. We pick back up with the Watseka Wonder story at the moment it turns deeply personal: a March 20th, 1878 letter from “Mary” to Dr. E. W. Stevens. It reads like ordinary life, prayer by candlelight, family updates, flowers and buds in the woods, then slips into something chillingly confident about “news from the other side” and a warning that trouble is brewing.From there, the calm breaks. Reverend Baker and Lavinia Durst arrive at the Roff home and push for a confrontation with Lurancy Venom, demanding proof, throwing around sin, and threatening Springfield. The scene becomes a pressure test for every theme that makes this paranormal history so compelling: faith versus control, spiritualism versus respectability, and what happens when a town decides it can police the unknown. Ann Roff refuses to let self-appointed “concerned citizens” run her home, and the encounter spirals into chaos that forces Asa to send an urgent telegram to Dr. Stevens.Then we shift into Porchlight Whispers with a real modern 911 call from Pender County, North Carolina near Moores Creek National Battlefield and the Black River. A driver reports something beating and scratching on the roof of his truck before it vanishes into the woods, the kind of account that instantly calls up cryptid lore for anyone who’s ever wondered about Mothman and other unexplained encounters.If you love true history, folklore, possession and exorcism stories, and firsthand paranormal experiences, hit follow, share the show with a friend, and leave a rating and review so more listeners can find us.Support the showIf this show resonates with you, please hit follow, share it with a friend who loves true history and the paranormal, and leave a rating and review. It really helps us get discovered, and it helps boost my morale! If you’ve enjoyed listening and you would like to support the show, please consider donating through the following, which are also listed at the end of the episode:Venmo- Bethany-Borden-1Paypal- BethanyBorden865Buzzsprout websiteCashApp- $SmallTownWhispersPlease 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! Did you know we’re on YouTube?! I dare you to put it on at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownWhispersPodcastDon't forget to tell a friend or family member about the show. Thank you!

We'd love to hear from you!A girl runs barefoot into the March snow because she doesn’t recognize the people calling her “family,” and the whole town decides that panic is proof. We’re back in Watseka, Illinois for a pivotal chapter of the Lurancy Vennum possession story, where spiritualism, small-town politics, and fear of the “abnormal” collide inside the walls of the Roff Home.Then the pressure campaign ramps up: Lavinia Durst and Reverend Baker push to have Lurancy locked away again, only to hit an unexpected wall when Mayor Peters refuses to sacrifice a vulnerable child to public outrage. It’s a rare moment of moral clarity in a story packed with rumors, labels, and power plays.If you want to step beyond the page, you can. The Roff Home is available as an Airbnb, and "Watseka: Beyond the Veil" invites you to spend time at the Old Courthouse Museum or join a limited overnight investigation inside the Roff Home. We also welcome back Neal Gibbons of Graveside Paranormal (Chicago) for Porchlight Whispers, where he shares updates on his seance work and dives into the legends of Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery, including the caretaker tale, blue orb sightings, and a photograph that captured a spirit.Subscribe for more true history and paranormal storytelling, share this with a friend who loves haunted locations, and leave a rating and review so more listeners can find us.Watseka: Beyond the Veil tickets are available Saturday April 11th @ NOON CST! https://www.eventbrite.com/e/watseka-beyond-the-veil-tickets-1985645973559Find out more about Graveside Paranormal at:https://gravesideparanormal.com/https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=graveside%20paranormalSupport the showIf this show resonates with you, please hit follow, share it with a friend who loves true history and the paranormal, and leave a rating and review. It really helps us get discovered, and it helps boost my morale! If you’ve enjoyed listening and you would like to support the show, please consider donating through the following, which are also listed at the end of the episode:Venmo- Bethany-Borden-1Paypal- BethanyBorden865Buzzsprout websiteCashApp- $SmallTownWhispersPlease 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! Did you know we’re on YouTube?! I dare you to put it on at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownWhispersPodcastDon't forget to tell a friend or family member about the show. Thank you!

We'd love to hear from you!A single bark hidden in an audio edit shouldn’t rattle anyone, but it did. While revisiting our interview with paranormal investigator and podcaster Tom Stewart, we hear what sounds like a dog barking right in the middle of a word. Tom hears it too and tells us he has a “ghost dog” that hangs around the basement where he records. It’s a small moment that hits hard, because it echoes the same question that drives this series: how often does the unexplained brush right past us while we’re busy living?Then we step back into Watseka, Illinois and the notorious Watseka possession case. Mary Roff is “back” inside Lurancy Vennum’s body, and for a brief stretch it almost feels normal to the Roff household. But when the Vennum family visits, the fragile peace snaps. Tom Vennum demands a reason, a why he can hold in his hands, and the scene spirals from disbelief to insults to violence. The episode lays bare the raw nerve beneath paranormal history: what happens when fear replaces compassion, and when a family decides a haunting is something to punish instead of something to understand?As more townspeople come calling, curiosity turns into a kind of test. “Mary” recalls names, faces, and long-forgotten details with unnerving clarity, including a retired doctor’s leech treatments and memories that cut straight to the bone. Whether you hear possession, trauma, or something stranger, the story forces a real conversation about identity, memory, and what counts as evidence in small town folklore and paranormal storytelling.Listen now, then subscribe, share with a friend who loves true history and the paranormal, and leave a rating and review. What do you think the bark was and what do you think is really happening in Watseeka?Support the showIf this show resonates with you, please hit follow, share it with a friend who loves true history and the paranormal, and leave a rating and review. It really helps us get discovered, and it helps boost my morale! If you’ve enjoyed listening and you would like to support the show, please consider donating through the following, which are also listed at the end of the episode:Venmo- Bethany-Borden-1Paypal- BethanyBorden865Buzzsprout websiteCashApp- $SmallTownWhispersPlease 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! Did you know we’re on YouTube?! I dare you to put it on at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownWhispersPodcastDon't forget to tell a friend or family member about the show. Thank you!

We'd love to hear from you!A girl walks out of her house in 1878 and into someone else’s life, and a grieving family chooses to believe their daughter just came home. We pick up the Watseka Wonder at the moment it turns from rumor to reunion: Lurancy Vennum arrives at the Roff home, and “Mary Roff” starts talking like she never died, recognizing objects, remembering childhood moments, and crashing into the brutal truth that time kept moving without her.From there we sit with the questions that make this case so haunting: what does “proof” look like in a possession story, why do tiny remembered details hit harder than big claims, and what happens to a family when hope and fear share the same room. Mary’s comments about the afterlife push the conversation into spiritualism territory, touching on change, grief, and the unsettling idea of a plan we don’t fully control. I also share what it felt like to visit the Roff home in modern-day Watseka, Illinois, including why I want to go back with better equipment and a clearer plan for collecting evidence.Then we step under the Porchlight with Tom Stewart of My Paranormal Story for firsthand paranormal encounters in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Tom takes us through Swan Point Cemetery, occult rumors around a pentagram-like tomb space, a gate that vanished overnight, and a terrifying Cemetery Street haunting that includes moving objects, a mirror tilting on its own, and an old man in a black hat seen by multiple witnesses. If you’re into paranormal podcasts, true haunting stories, ghost hunting tools, EVPs, and American supernatural history, this one hits both the legend and the lived experience.Visit myparanormalpodcast.com for more of Tom's stories. You can also listen to his podcast on Youtube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. If you need a fundraiser, check out his company https://www.funny4funds.com/Subscribe, share this with a friend who loves history and the paranormal, and leave a rating and review so more listeners can find us.Support the showIf this show resonates with you, please hit follow, share it with a friend who loves true history and the paranormal, and leave a rating and review. It really helps us get discovered, and it helps boost my morale! If you’ve enjoyed listening and you would like to support the show, please consider donating through the following, which are also listed at the end of the episode:Venmo- Bethany-Borden-1Paypal- BethanyBorden865Buzzsprout websiteCashApp- $SmallTownWhispersPlease 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! Did you know we’re on YouTube?! I dare you to put it on at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownWhispersPodcastDon't forget to tell a friend or family member about the show. Thank you!

We'd love to hear from you!A girl insists she isn’t who her parents think she is and the room spirals from arguments into terror. We start with a chilling stretch of the Watseka possession narrative, where Lurancy Vennum’s family, Ann Roff, and Dr Stevens clash over belief, control, and consequences. The questions are painfully human even when the claims are supernatural: what counts as truth when a voice, a memory, and a body no longer match? And what happens when fear of “the loony bin” hangs over every decision like a verdict? Then we step out from the pages and onto the porch. Porch Light Whispers brings you raw, firsthand eyewitness interviews about the Brown Mountain Lights of Western North Carolina, one of the most enduring American ghost light mysteries. You’ll hear clear descriptions of lights rising above the tree line, hovering, drifting, and disappearing in seconds, plus specific viewing spots like Wiseman’s View and the Brown Mountain Overlook on Highway 181. We also talk about how easy it is to confuse distant town lights with the real phenomenon, and why credibility hits differently when the witness is someone with nothing to gain. Folklore trails behind the lights with stories of a slave searching, a hunter lost, and a lover who never came home, and even a snippet of the classic Brown Mountain Lights song that helped carry the legend across generations. If you’re into paranormal podcasts, historical hauntings, possession stories, or North Carolina ghost lights, this one is built for you. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves a good mystery, and leave a review with your take: what do you think the Brown Mountain Lights really are?See the full video from Patreon here:https://www.patreon.com/posts/brown-mountain-145115177?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_linkSupport the showIf this show resonates with you, please hit follow, share it with a friend who loves true history and the paranormal, and leave a rating and review. It really helps us get discovered, and it helps boost my morale! If you’ve enjoyed listening and you would like to support the show, please consider donating through the following, which are also listed at the end of the episode:Venmo- Bethany-Borden-1Paypal- BethanyBorden865Buzzsprout websiteCashApp- $SmallTownWhispersPlease 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! Did you know we’re on YouTube?! I dare you to put it on at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownWhispersPodcastDon't forget to tell a friend or family member about the show. Thank you!

We'd love to hear from you!A mother opens her front door and watches a “stranger” sprint through the snow with her arms wide, calling someone else “Ma” and “Nervie” like it’s the most natural thing in the world. That’s where we pick up the Watseka Wonder, the infamous Watseka, Illinois possession case that still messes with our sense of identity, grief, and what we think is possible.We walk back into the Vennum home as Mary Roff’s voice seems to speak through Lurancy Vennum, and the reunion with the Roff women turns tender, awkward, and heartbreaking all at once. The details are too personal to shrug off, but the body is wrong, the timeline is impossible, and every loving gesture lands on a family already stretched thin. We also zoom out to talk about Dr. Stevens, spiritualism, and what it looks like to stay curious without turning the unknown into a cheap spectacle. Along the way, we connect this real American paranormal history to the research that helped shape The Exorcist, proving small towns can leave a mark on the biggest horror stories we tell.Then we flip the porchlight on and switch gears to Porchlight Whispers. We sit down reunion-style and trade real unexplained experiences: Lanterns Lane ghost lights that pulse, vanish, and reappear behind you, a chilling “woman in white” sighting, and poltergeist-like activity that includes a TV turning on by itself, strange camera-flash sounds, and toys triggering for no clear reason. We end by asking what our role is in keeping stories like the Watseka Wonder alive, and why paying attention matters more than pretending we have all the answers.If you love paranormal podcasts, small town folklore, and true haunting stories with history you can trace, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a rating and review. What’s your theory about what’s really happening here?Support the showIf this show resonates with you, please hit follow, share it with a friend who loves true history and the paranormal, and leave a rating and review. It really helps us get discovered, and it helps boost my morale! If you’ve enjoyed listening and you would like to support the show, please consider donating through the following, which are also listed at the end of the episode:Venmo- Bethany-Borden-1Paypal- BethanyBorden865Buzzsprout websiteCashApp- $SmallTownWhispersPlease 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! Did you know we’re on YouTube?! I dare you to put it on at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownWhispersPodcastDon't forget to tell a friend or family member about the show. Thank you!

We'd love to hear from you!A father hears his daughter’s voice twelve years after her death. A basement lamp clicks itself on. We open the door to Watseka’s haunted past and present, weaving the famed Mary Roff and Lurancy Vennum possession with fresh, first-hand accounts from Watseka native Matt Lillig. The result is part living-room confessional, part town archive, and part field guide to the strange, where belief is costly and curiosity keeps the porchlight burning.We start with the oil-lamp glow of the 1870s, tracing how spiritualism promised answers to grieving families while inviting scorn from neighbors and churches. Asa and Ann Roff pay for their convictions with lost standing and shuttered friendships, yet hold to a love that refuses silence. From there, we jump to modern Watseka, where Matt’s basement apartment turns into a quiet theater of the uncanny: ceiling tiles shift, objects migrate, and a stubborn lamp insists on being heard. After a devastating 2008 flood, the next tenant reports nothing at all—leaving us to ask whether hauntings bind to people, places, or moments in time.Matt’s family stories widen the circle. What ties it all together is the “Hail Mary” idea: when reason runs out, we sometimes throw a long pass into the unknown. Maybe that’s Mary stepping into Lurancy to heal her mind, body, and soul. Maybe it’s a family recognizing a warning in the crash of oak on kitchen floorboards. Either way, the stories endure because they help people make meaning, protect each other, and navigate grief without pretending the world is simple.Support the showIf this show resonates with you, please hit follow, share it with a friend who loves true history and the paranormal, and leave a rating and review. It really helps us get discovered, and it helps boost my morale! If you’ve enjoyed listening and you would like to support the show, please consider donating through the following, which are also listed at the end of the episode:Venmo- Bethany-Borden-1Paypal- BethanyBorden865Buzzsprout websiteCashApp- $SmallTownWhispersPlease 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! Did you know we’re on YouTube?! I dare you to put it on at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownWhispersPodcastDon't forget to tell a friend or family member about the show. Thank you!

We'd love to hear from you!A number can spook a culture, but it can also signal a doorway. On a Friday the 13th packed with lore and pop nostalgia, we follow a thread that leads to Watseka, Illinois—and a moment that flips possession from horror to human. Bethany walks us back into the parlor where Dr. E. W. Stevens tries to help a fragile teenager, Lurancy Venom, whose body has become an instrument for voices. The room bristles with tension when a voice from the past returns.We unpack why this scene lingers—how numerology’s take on 13 as transformation suddenly fits, how the “instrument and player” analogy reframes consciousness, and how grief can wear the shape of a miracle. Then the porchlight clicks on and Mandy joins to ground the mystery in lived experience. Growing up kitty-corner from the Roff (Roth?!) home, she remembers hallway shadows, a household that stirred when the Watseka book came out, and the ways playground dares like Bloody Mary thread local names into folklore. Together we talk faith and spirit as companions, not rivals, and the hard-won boundaries that keep curiosity safe. The old wooden Ouija board tempts, but respect, protection, and closure lead the way.Across stories runs a single current: connection. Friends reunited by a question only a small town could prompt. Listeners invited to add their voices to a chorus that keeps history warm. If you’ve ever wondered whether love can find its way back—or how to explore the unknown without losing your footing—this chapter of the Watseka case will stay with you.If this resonated, hit follow, share it with a friend who loves true history and the paranormal, and leave a review with your take: invasion, reunion, or something in between? Your stories help guide where we go next.Support the showIf this show resonates with you, please hit follow, share it with a friend who loves true history and the paranormal, and leave a rating and review. It really helps us get discovered, and it helps boost my morale! If you’ve enjoyed listening and you would like to support the show, please consider donating through the following, which are also listed at the end of the episode:Venmo- Bethany-Borden-1Paypal- BethanyBorden865Buzzsprout websiteCashApp- $SmallTownWhispersPlease 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! Did you know we’re on YouTube?! I dare you to put it on at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownWhispersPodcastDon't forget to tell a friend or family member about the show. Thank you!

We'd love to hear from you!A winter storm closed the world outside, so we opened a door most people keep shut: the Watseka Wonder. Bethany revisits a case tangled with possession, small-town politics, and a healer who worked without touch, guiding us through a sequence that feels equal parts courtroom, confessional, and séance. 3 men in Watseka take things into their own hands and approach the Vennums about Lurancy. What follows isn’t spectacle—it’s procedure. We walk moment by moment through the questions, the verifiable family lore, and the unsettling pivot when bravado collapses into pain. Stevens’ “magnetic passes” read like an early form of focused ritual or mesmerism, a careful choreography of belief and care rather than force. Whether you see this as dissociation, social scripting, or genuine spirit communication, the ethical stakes stay front and center: how do we treat the suffering when proof is partial and the unknown stares back?We also hold the narrative up to the light. Bethany compares David St. Clair’s storytelling with the University of Illinois’ scanned documents, noting which names the archive preserves and which the book amplifies. That contrast invites a broader conversation about evidence, folklore, and how memory edits what communities refuse to forget. The real pull of this story isn’t whether spirits exist; it’s what our responses reveal—about mercy, skepticism, and the dangers of imposing belief. Stay to the end for a candid reflection on living with mystery and an open invitation to share your own experiences. If this made you think, subscribe, share it with a friend, and tell us: where do you draw the line between the seen and the felt?Support the showIf this show resonates with you, please hit follow, share it with a friend who loves true history and the paranormal, and leave a rating and review. It really helps us get discovered, and it helps boost my morale! If you’ve enjoyed listening and you would like to support the show, please consider donating through the following, which are also listed at the end of the episode:Venmo- Bethany-Borden-1Paypal- BethanyBorden865Buzzsprout websiteCashApp- $SmallTownWhispersPlease 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! Did you know we’re on YouTube?! I dare you to put it on at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownWhispersPodcastDon't forget to tell a friend or family member about the show. Thank you!

We'd love to hear from you!The room goes quiet when a child is called “possessed,” but the real noise lives in the spaces between fear, faith, and the need to explain what we can’t understand. We open on Watseka’s social stage, where Lavinia Durst’s parlor hums with status and suspicion, and a town’s story takes shape through whispers. As tales of a frightened horse, a threatened minister, and a locked bedroom accumulate, a petition begins to circulate—proof that gossip can harden into action before truth gets a hearing.Enter Dr. E. Winchester Stevens, a towering spiritualist with a voice built for crowded halls and a résumé stitched from lectures, “magnetic passes,” and belief in spirit obsession. Over brandy and cut crystal, he hears about Lurancy Vennum, the boarded windows, and the plans to send her to Springfield. By the time his boots hit Walnut Street, the town’s January thaw reveals a colder kind of frost: the kind that forms when a community decides what is safe to say out loud. His arrival at the Vennum house sparks the episode’s most charged moment—a sharp command, a father’s refusal, and a shotgun promise that draws a hard line between “entities” and medical help.Then we step under the porch light. Bethany brings the story home with her own memories of Watseka: fishtails on ice, sunlit streets that blind at the worst time, a TV that clicks on to static in an empty room, and a closet door that creeps open toward a child frozen in fear. Sleep paralysis is the likely name; the feeling is still uncanny. That tension—between rational labels and lived experience—threads the entire episode, asking what makes a haunting and what makes a community turn toward or away from compassion.If folklore, true crime, and the psychology of belief pull you in, this chapter of the Watseka case will stick with you. Hear how social power shapes a narrative, how a healer meets his match at a farmhouse door, and how personal hauntings teach us to listen. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves small-town mysteries, and leave a review to help more curious minds find their way to the porch. Then tell us your story—what memory keeps tapping on your window?Support the showIf this show resonates with you, please hit follow, share it with a friend who loves true history and the paranormal, and leave a rating and review. It really helps us get discovered, and it helps boost my morale! If you’ve enjoyed listening and you would like to support the show, please consider donating through the following, which are also listed at the end of the episode:Venmo- Bethany-Borden-1Paypal- BethanyBorden865Buzzsprout websiteCashApp- $SmallTownWhispersPlease 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! Did you know we’re on YouTube?! I dare you to put it on at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownWhispersPodcastDon't forget to tell a friend or family member about the show. Thank you!

We'd love to hear from you!Content Note: This episode includes discussion of suicide and historical mental health struggles. Listener discretion is advised.A seventh grader bends over a blank page and starts to write about a crow. Minutes later, the handwriting shifts, the words turn sharp, and a quiet classroom erupts into chaos. We follow Lorancy Vennum through a chilling school-day spiral—eyes closed, voice altered, teachers and students stunned—as a rural town grapples with language for the unexplainable: possession, illness, misbehavior. The fallout exposes more than fear; it reveals how class and silence shape who gets compassion and who gets expelled. We step onto Emily’s Bridge in Stowe, Vermont, where folklore holds grief the way wood holds weather. Locals whisper about a pale figure in white and fresh scratches on passing cars. Our friend and fellow podcaster Heather Holt brings a rare lens: after losing her brother Michael to suicide, she created a “candle of hope” and turned loss into a mission to help others. Michael once saw a girl hanging in the moonlit beams, a moment no one else in his group witnessed yet he never forgot. Then there’s Michaela, who visited in broad daylight with her five-year-old; driving away, her son saw a girl in black only in the backup camera. No one stood on the road. The camera did not blink.Together, these stories ask urgent questions. How do we respond when a child’s pain shows up as a scene? What do we owe people who carry experiences that do not fit our categories? Is a haunting proof of the paranormal, or a collective way to speak grief aloud? We don’t force answers. We light a path—through care, context, and the voices brave enough to share. Listen for the echoes between a 19th-century classroom and a 21st-century bridge. Stay for the human thread that binds them: the need to be seen, held, and believed.If you or someone you love feels alone, call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Then share this episode with a friend, leave a review, and tell us your story—your whisper might be the light someone else needs.Check out Heather's story and podcast at changehappenedpodcast.com.Support the showIf this show resonates with you, please hit follow, share it with a friend who loves true history and the paranormal, and leave a rating and review. It really helps us get discovered, and it helps boost my morale! If you’ve enjoyed listening and you would like to support the show, please consider donating through the following, which are also listed at the end of the episode:Venmo- Bethany-Borden-1Paypal- BethanyBorden865Buzzsprout websiteCashApp- $SmallTownWhispersPlease 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! Did you know we’re on YouTube?! I dare you to put it on at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownWhispersPodcastDon't forget to tell a friend or family member about the show. Thank you!

We'd love to hear from you!We revisit Watseka and are introduced to Lurancy Vennum, a frail teen who hears voices and sees the dead during frightening fits. Between a mother’s terror and a town’s rumors, we explore whether grief, illness, or something unseen is calling Rancy’s name.• Personal connection to Watseka and show updates• Mary Roff’s sudden death and the mercy question• Introduction to Lurancy Vennum and her family’s hardships• Small town class divides and spiritualist rumors• Rancy’s nighttime voices and escalating fear• The parlor seizure• Visions of dead relatives and private details revealed• Lurinda’s denial, past trauma, and protective silence• Invitation to share lantern and mystery light storiesPlease email us the story at porchlightwispers at gmail.comYou could also go to the Small Town Whispers Facebook page and send us a messageIf you or someone you know has a great story for Porch Light Whispers, please contact usWe cannot wait to hear your storySupport the showIf this show resonates with you, please hit follow, share it with a friend who loves true history and the paranormal, and leave a rating and review. It really helps us get discovered, and it helps boost my morale! If you’ve enjoyed listening and you would like to support the show, please consider donating through the following, which are also listed at the end of the episode:Venmo- Bethany-Borden-1Paypal- BethanyBorden865Buzzsprout websiteCashApp- $SmallTownWhispersPlease 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! Did you know we’re on YouTube?! I dare you to put it on at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownWhispersPodcastDon't forget to tell a friend or family member about the show. Thank you!

We'd love to hear from you!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.Support the showIf this show resonates with you, please hit follow, share it with a friend who loves true history and the paranormal, and leave a rating and review. It really helps us get discovered, and it helps boost my morale! If you’ve enjoyed listening and you would like to support the show, please consider donating through the following, which are also listed at the end of the episode:Venmo- Bethany-Borden-1Paypal- BethanyBorden865Buzzsprout websiteCashApp- $SmallTownWhispersPlease 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! Did you know we’re on YouTube?! I dare you to put it on at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownWhispersPodcastDon't forget to tell a friend or family member about the show. Thank you!

We'd love to hear from you!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:Support the showIf this show resonates with you, please hit follow, share it with a friend who loves true history and the paranormal, and leave a rating and review. It really helps us get discovered, and it helps boost my morale! If you’ve enjoyed listening and you would like to support the show, please consider donating through the following, which are also listed at the end of the episode:Venmo- Bethany-Borden-1Paypal- BethanyBorden865Buzzsprout websiteCashApp- $SmallTownWhispersPlease 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! Did you know we’re on YouTube?! I dare you to put it on at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownWhispersPodcastDon't forget to tell a friend or family member about the show. Thank you!

We'd love to hear from you!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?Support the showIf this show resonates with you, please hit follow, share it with a friend who loves true history and the paranormal, and leave a rating and review. It really helps us get discovered, and it helps boost my morale! If you’ve enjoyed listening and you would like to support the show, please consider donating through the following, which are also listed at the end of the episode:Venmo- Bethany-Borden-1Paypal- BethanyBorden865Buzzsprout websiteCashApp- $SmallTownWhispersPlease 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! Did you know we’re on YouTube?! I dare you to put it on at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownWhispersPodcastDon't forget to tell a friend or family member about the show. Thank you!

We'd love to hear from you!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_linkSubscribe 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 showIf this show resonates with you, please hit follow, share it with a friend who loves true history and the paranormal, and leave a rating and review. It really helps us get discovered, and it helps boost my morale! If you’ve enjoyed listening and you would like to support the show, please consider donating through the following, which are also listed at the end of the episode:Venmo- Bethany-Borden-1Paypal- BethanyBorden865Buzzsprout websiteCashApp- $SmallTownWhispersPlease 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! Did you know we’re on YouTube?! I dare you to put it on at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownWhispersPodcastDon't forget to tell a friend or family member about the show. Thank you!

We'd love to hear from you!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=qvXQncXVSFPoAd5NWe 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 showIf this show resonates with you, please hit follow, share it with a friend who loves true history and the paranormal, and leave a rating and review. It really helps us get discovered, and it helps boost my morale! If you’ve enjoyed listening and you would like to support the show, please consider donating through the following, which are also listed at the end of the episode:Venmo- Bethany-Borden-1Paypal- BethanyBorden865Buzzsprout websiteCashApp- $SmallTownWhispersPlease 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! Did you know we’re on YouTube?! I dare you to put it on at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownWhispersPodcastDon't forget to tell a friend or family member about the show. Thank you!

We'd love to hear from you!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) ElsonMeliSupport the showIf this show resonates with you, please hit follow, share it with a friend who loves true history and the paranormal, and leave a rating and review. It really helps us get discovered, and it helps boost my morale! If you’ve enjoyed listening and you would like to support the show, please consider donating through the following, which are also listed at the end of the episode:Venmo- Bethany-Borden-1Paypal- BethanyBorden865Buzzsprout websiteCashApp- $SmallTownWhispersPlease 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! Did you know we’re on YouTube?! I dare you to put it on at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownWhispersPodcastDon't forget to tell a friend or family member about the show. Thank you!

We'd love to hear from you!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 hauntedDo 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 showIf this show resonates with you, please hit follow, share it with a friend who loves true history and the paranormal, and leave a rating and review. It really helps us get discovered, and it helps boost my morale! If you’ve enjoyed listening and you would like to support the show, please consider donating through the following, which are also listed at the end of the episode:Venmo- Bethany-Borden-1Paypal- BethanyBorden865Buzzsprout websiteCashApp- $SmallTownWhispersPlease 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! Did you know we’re on YouTube?! I dare you to put it on at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownWhispersPodcastDon'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 showIf this show resonates with you, please hit follow, share it with a friend who loves true history and the paranormal, and leave a rating and review. It really helps us get discovered, and it helps boost my morale! If you’ve enjoyed listening and you would like to support the show, please consider donating through the following, which are also listed at the end of the episode:Venmo- Bethany-Borden-1Paypal- BethanyBorden865Buzzsprout websiteCashApp- $SmallTownWhispersPlease 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! Did you know we’re on YouTube?! I dare you to put it on at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownWhispersPodcastDon't forget to tell a friend or family member about the show. Thank you!

We'd love to hear from you!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. I read a vivid passage from Watseka, America’s Most Extraordinary Case of Possession and Exorcism that captures the room’s shifting air: Ann’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 showIf this show resonates with you, please hit follow, share it with a friend who loves true history and the paranormal, and leave a rating and review. It really helps us get discovered, and it helps boost my morale! If you’ve enjoyed listening and you would like to support the show, please consider donating through the following, which are also listed at the end of the episode:Venmo- Bethany-Borden-1Paypal- BethanyBorden865Buzzsprout websiteCashApp- $SmallTownWhispersPlease 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! Did you know we’re on YouTube?! I dare you to put it on at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownWhispersPodcastDon't forget to tell a friend or family member about the show. Thank you!

We'd love to hear from you!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 showIf this show resonates with you, please hit follow, share it with a friend who loves true history and the paranormal, and leave a rating and review. It really helps us get discovered, and it helps boost my morale! If you’ve enjoyed listening and you would like to support the show, please consider donating through the following, which are also listed at the end of the episode:Venmo- Bethany-Borden-1Paypal- BethanyBorden865Buzzsprout websiteCashApp- $SmallTownWhispersPlease 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! Did you know we’re on YouTube?! I dare you to put it on at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/@SmallTownWhispersPodcastDon't forget to tell a friend or family member about the show. Thank you!