My Return to Bennett’s!

 

          I was so excited to be invited back to Bennett’s Publical Family Sports Grill in Miamisburg, Ohio, after Gov. DeWine lifted the statewide lockdown in response to COVID-19. (To read about my first adventure at Bennett’s click here:  http://myhauntedtravelblog.blogspot.com/2020/05/bennettspublical-family-sports-grill-i.html) I found out the restaurant was finally open – not only for pizza but so I could investigate the second floor, which the manager was opening up just for me! I couldn’t wait!

          I walked through the doors and was sweetly greeted by the manager and bartender, who were soon leading me upstairs to the second floor. As I stepped up the last stair reaching the second floor banquet area, I felt two spirits down the hall toward the back of the building.

          The first spirit I could feel was on the right. It was the male I had originally felt the very first time I entered this building years ago while having dinner downstairs with my daughter. This spirit was a nice man who unfortunately had died tragically in a fire. The manager told me that where I stood was the very spot where, years before, an older women, who was a guest at one of the banquet gatherings being held on the second floor, refused to go any further into the room or even sit with other guests at the banquet table. She had felt the male spirit and informed the staff she didn’t wish to be closer. I was impressed because I was standing in the same spot and I also sensed him. That moment was really awesome!

          Then there was the second spirit directly across the hall from the large banquet room behind a locked door. To me, this felt like a menacing, negative entity that had energy about it that you could feel throughout the hall.

          How odd that I hadn’t sensed this spirit during my last few visits to Bennett’s! As a sensitive, I normally can feel spirits in a building after I’ve been in it for a few minutes. “Hmmm, that is strange. Perhaps it was hiding from me,” I thought. I collected my things and walked down the hallway into the larger banquet room where I felt the male who died in the fire resided.

          I set up my equipment and began my EMF sweep. As I did, the manager and bartender of the restaurant began telling me about their experiences in the room. Then suddenly we heard a large creaking sound from the chandelier located above my head near the fireplace. I asked the two staff members behind me if they had heard it too and they confirmed they had.

          Finding nothing during my EMF sweep, I began asking questions aloud to the man. Then I heard, “you already know the answers.” Determining that he was not in the mood to talk, we all walked across the hall to the room with the locked door. Before unlocking and opening the door, the manager and bartender warned me about the negatives that came with entering this locked apartment.

The manager pushed open the door and I was swiftly hit with a blast of raw emotion. “Wow!” I said aloud to the two staff members as I took a deep breath and cautiously stepped into little apartment. Inside, it felt very oppressive and still – like someone was watching us and wanted to harm us but was deliberating how.

          As I walked around the small space, I could tell the manager and bartender were definitely getting emotional being inside the apartment. Obviously, this little place had impacted them greatly. I asked them to tell me about what happened here that was getting them so upset. Their stories about several experiences while within the space poured out of them with emotion and tears.

          The bartender first spoke up telling me that she had asthma and was fine anywhere else in the building except in this apartment. She said each time she entered the room, her asthma was triggered and she felt like she couldn’t breathe. “It’s as if someone is choking me!” Then I suddenly remembered she began coughing once we got on the second floor, especially as we got closer to the locked apartment. While telling me her story, she began coughing very hard and had shortness of breath. In fact, she started to cough so hard that we thought she might pass out. Excusing herself from the room, she went into the hallway and, within twenty minutes, began to catch her breath and breathe normally again. Even her emotions, which were really showing in the small space, dissipated as soon as she hit the hallway. She reported that this always happened while in that room and she felt sad and depressed when inside. “It’s like someone is trying to suck the life from you.”

          Knowing the bartender was okay, the manger and I went back into the small apartment and she began telling me why she feared the space. The female manager had two boys who occasionally worked at the restaurant and used to come up to the empty apartment to rest on a couch after a long night, in between shifts, or during breaks. The manager explained to me that her sons often experienced wild things and acted differently or unpleasantly after resting in the space. So much so, that she begged them to never rest in the little apartment again. She also removed all the furniture so the boys could no longer sleep between shifts or while on breaks.

          Later on, I interviewed the manager’s younger son, Ben, about his experiences in the apartment. This is what he told me. While sleeping, he said, he dreamt about the ceiling fan in the room going extremely fast and the light was on. The fan quickly began to form into a circle shape ball of light that spun, and then he felt someone holding him down with so much force that he couldn’t move or breathe. He said he told himself to wake up and tried to move but couldn’t. That’s when he heard a male voice scream at him. He said he couldn’t make out what it said but he woke up fast and ran from the room. When Ben returned to his shift, the bartender noticed he was very moody and not acting like his normal self. He reported to me that he felt very negative and felt like all his energy was gone – like someone had just taken the life out of him. He said he will never go into the apartment again.

          I asked Ben if the ceiling fan was turned on when he first entered the room and he said no, it wasn’t. He also reported that his father, who used to live there and had stayed the night a few more times there since, had often told him about hearing the same screams.

          His mother also told me that on separate occasions, both boys have gotten ill three days after resting upstairs in the apartment and it’s happened more than once to each son. She was really emotional when explaining their illness and their experiences, as any mother would be, but she also told me that everyone who has lived in the apartment since the apartment was added onto the building has ended up with something tragic happening, such as a bad accident or drug addiction. And all the married couples living there were divorced shortly after leaving the space.

          While I was alone in the apartment, I was taking pictures. The two employees were in the hallway waiting for me when I saw a dark shadow shot from the doorway to the other side of the room. I shouted out to the manager in the hallway, “Hey did you two move in the hall or turn on a light?” making sure it wasn’t one of their shadows that I saw. The manager stepped inside and told me they hadn’t moved or turned on another light. That they were talking while waiting for me.

          However, later, when reviewing my evidence, I found a very tall shadow figure standing in front of the bare wall where I had seen the shadow dart. But the most fascinating thing about this picture is the figure looked like it was about seven feet tall. It seemed like it was a male with its arms at its side and I could see a translucent, self-eliminating orb floating above its head and between its legs. The shadow figure also had facets of light coming from its right side, under its arm and its feet. But this picture wasn’t the only thing I got! After taking my photos and stepping out of the room, I heard a voice say, “I likeee my kiddies.” I felt this creepy voice was referring to the manager’s two sons. Then I heard a slight chuckle which made all the hairs on my neck stand up.

I’m sure you can understand that after hearing that we all left the second floor in a hurry and went downstairs for some pizza! I couldn’t leave without having a slice or two as well as their famously delicious pretzel bits with cheddar-dipping sauce!

          I also couldn’t resist stepping into the downstairs bathroom to say “Hi” to my fellow-ghost friend who liked to hang out there. I believe it must be an older female entity. When I said this to manager, she told me that the wall in the bathroom was shared with the bar next-door, Good Time Charley’s. She said a long time ago there was a female owner of the bar who was rumored to leave her two children unattended often. A fire broke out in the bar and the two children died in the fire. So it makes sense that this could be the mother and past owner of the bar still residing near her bar, hiding in the bathroom, racked with guilt.

          While at Bennett’s, I also had the special privilege to tour their basement where it is rumored it housed a speakeasy during prohibition times. The only thing I noticed was a negative feeling coming from a corner in the basement. The manager said everyone else said the same thing too about that spot in the basement.

          So again, would I recommend a visit to Bennett’s Publical Family Sports Grill? HECK YEAH!!! In fact, if you have a large group or party and need to rent space for your gathering, guess what? THERE IS NO RENTAL FEE AT BENNETT’S but you may get an invisible guest or two at your gathering! But the more the merrier, right!

       

©Rosella C. Rowe

Disclaimer:

This article was written from the author’s personal experience and perspective only. The article itself and all in it, are not an endorsement. The views from this article are the authors alone, and do not necessarily reflect those of the: people, business, or place, and/or building of subject.

Special Guest Interview with Mark Spencer:

 A few weeks ago, I had the honor and special privilege of interviewing my favorite paranormal author, Mark Spencer, who wrote the best seller, A Haunted Love Story: The Ghosts of Allen House about his beautiful old home in Monticello, Arkansas.

          

           Spencer has been on a lot of the popular TV shows:  Paranormal Witness, My Ghost Story, Ghost Brothers, A Haunting, and several news segments regarding the Allen House. Spencer and his family have experienced many things in their home, including seeing doppelgangers, having items disappear only to find them days to years later, hearing voices, doors and cabinetry opening and closing themselves, and other phenomena since moving into their historic home 13 years ago.

          

            Spencer’s well known book, A Haunted Love Story: The Ghosts of Allen House, is about a real person: Ladell, a high-society woman who in 1948 lived in the home he lives in now. Spencer says one Saturday afternoon he was lead to his attic by Ladell’s ghost only to find many hidden love letters regarding a secret love affair between Ladell and a married man.

Spencer describes the fateful moment in his life. “A little voice was in my head that told me to go to the attic.” When he got to the attic the voice directed him where to look, and there he found an opening in the attic’s floorboards. “I reached into the opening and pulled out a brown envelope full of postmarked envelopes and letters addressed to Ladell.” Spencer says he even found some letters Ladell drafted but never finished. Some letters were from friends of Ladell’s but the ones that stood out were postmarked October 1948 and appeared to be love letters from  a married man named, Prentiss to Ladell just before her infamous suicide.

Spencer knew right away from scanning the flirty love letters that this must have been the real reason Ladell met such a tragic end and took her own life. Spencer says after he realized this he looked up from the letters and said aloud in the attic, “I’m sorry, Ladell.” He knew the sad outcome – that she had killed herself.

Before he found the letters, Spencer says he had not planned on writing a book about his home, only a few articles for the town’s interest; however after finding the letters, the well-known author states, “that was the day I decided to write a book.” Spencer explains he never did experience hearing the voice of Ladell again, but that day certainly changed his life forever!

          

           When asked him to describe his book for my readers, Spencer says his book “is a little of everything. It’s a memoir, it’s a ghost story, and lots more.” But most of all he wanted to create a narrative book based on a real person’s life that read a lot like a fictional story.   

This isn’t the first book the dean of the School of Arts and Humanities at the University of Arkansas at Monticello has written. Mark Spencer originally began his career writing a collection of short stories in the 1980s. He also has written other novels such as: Love and Reruns in Adam’s County, The Weary Motel, and Images of America: Monticello, a local history, which he co-authored with Mary Heady.  He has earned many awards throughout his career.

After writing his popular first book about Ladell and the Allen House, Mark then wrote a second book from Ladell’s point of view after her death. In this book, titled Ghost Walking, Ladell is forced to confront her life and what it meant after learning she is dead. She seess reactions from her family and others in her small town after her suicide. She also sees her father as she journeys back through the times in her life. Now that she has died, she has the opportunity to examine her life and discover what it all meant and why she lived.

I asked the acclaimed author if he ever thought that Ladell (or her ghost) would have been upset after he had found the scandalous letters telling society why she had taken her life. “No,” he adds because she led him to find the letters in the attic. He thinks she was happy he found them.

In fact, Mark thinks Ladell is the one who lead him and his wife to BUY Allen House in the first place, which was a long battle, but eventually all worked out and the Spencer’s got the home. He states that he was even offered other jobs with a higher salary but through a series of many coincidences, Mark and his family were lead to the Allen House. Spencer trusts that Ladell did this all so he would find her letters and tell her true story.

He also states that throughout the years he has heard a popular opinion from the public that Ladell probably left after he had found the letters. But Mark says this simply isn’t true. Since finding the letters and writing his famous book, the family has found lots of evidence of Ladell during many ghost hunts and investigations in their home by TV shows and other private tours, and groups coming in their home. “She is definitely still in the Allen House,” states Spencer!

Spencer also goes on to say that he believes that, “Ladell can cross between dimensions and go back and forth which explains the difference between residual haunting and intelligent haunting.” Spencer adds his wife has witnessed on many occasions Ladell’s parents going about their everyday lives in the house – as if they were living! Once, he says his “wife saw Ladell’s father sitting around smoking a cigar and it did smell of cigar smoke. You could smell it!” says Spencer.

I addition, I asked Mark if he had ever experienced Ladell’s lover, Prentiss in their home? However he told me they haven’t and they don’t expect him to show up anytime soon.

I then asked Mark if he would tell me things that he and his family have experienced after his book was published. He described three incidents:

First, in April 2014, Mark walked into his bedroom and saw his wife with her back to him looking out the window. He couldn’t see her face, just the back of her hair as he walked up to her. “I was about to ask her a generic question and stopped behind her about to speak when she suddenly vanished as if she was never there.” After his “wife” vanished into thin air, Mark says, “a cold air swept over me. Then my real wife walked in through the same doorway I had just walked through a minute ago, and said, ’Why you standing there looking so stupid?’”

Second, another occurrence that seems to happen commonly since moving into the Allen House is that Rebecca, Mark’s wife, seems to lose small items such as her bank cards, and her cell phone. Little things seem to disappear in the house and they are found in random places, often places that they already checked previously. For example, Spencer told me of a time when Rebecca lost her cell phone. He says he came home and his wife was searching the house for her cell phone saying she had been looking for it for hours and just couldn’t find it. Mark says his thought was it must be in the attic because Allen, Ladell’s son, had been a trickster in life and liked to take and often hide their things. So he went up into the attic to look but it wasn’t there. 

Then, as he randomly walked through the house into their kitchen on the second floor, there his wife’s cell phone lay, clear as day, atop the kitchen counter for all to see. He knew he this room had already been searched and the phone hadn’t been there when they checked earlier.

Thirdly, when Spencer’s son was 4 years old, he would ask his dad when he got home from work if he (Mark) would take him (his son) upstairs to the attic to play with his friend. When Mark asked his son one day who his little friend was, his son said it was a little boy named Allen. Allen had been Ladell’s son who died at a young age but not when he was a child.

Another very interesting event that took place was on Ladell’s birthday. Rebecca went up into the attic to wish Ladell a Happy Birthday. She was streaming the encounter live on Facebook. As she was speaking to Ladell and interacting with her, Mark says, “Ladell answered indicating she did indeed know it was her birthday.”

FB: Ladell Birthday Video: 

https://www.facebook.com/theallenhousemonticello/videos/10156175307863788/

I then went on to ask the well-known author what the main thing he wants his fans to take away from A Haunted Love Story? Mark simply states very modestly, that he told Ladell’s life story “correctly and that people who read it reflect on their own lives and think about some things they have never thought about before.” He also wants readers to be entertained by the story and its history.

  I asked Mark if he has anything new coming out soon? To which the author replied, “No, because last fall his latest book was released An Untimely Frost.” This is quite a different genre then the author’s past works. Spencer describes his new novel as having “a bit of gruesome, a little horror, action, some psychological aspects, and some love and romance.” Spencer says his new novel “takes place on the Ohio River in Kentucky where people along the river see zombies coming out of the water. However past loved ones of the zombies, don’t see a zombie, they simply see the person they knew and loved, while the people who don’t know them see a zombie and are frightened.”

             So if you haven’t read some of Mark Spencer’s work I would definitely recommend picking up a copy of one of his books! Perhaps, A Haunted Love Story, (which is my favorite, of course), will be your choice or the author’s new book, An Untimely Frost where you can get a little zombie action! Either way, any of the popular author’s books will be enjoyable for sure!

      ©Rosella C. Rowe

For More Info:

Mark Spencer Website: www.authormarkspencer.com

Allen House Website: http://allenhousemonticello.com/Welcome.html

FB: Allen House: https://www.facebook.com/theallenhousemonticello