Mai's Qualitative Essay

Behind the Stories, Behind the Trip: My Thoughts

by Mai Vo

Author’s Note: In response to our witch project, the four of us were assigned a qualitative piece.  I decided to do mine on my experience and thoughts behind the trip and stories. The trip was very different, but we all enjoyed the experience of it.   In my response, I am working on including repetitive, climatic, and parallel pattern syntactic devices.  I have also been working on reducing be-verbs by one third.  This piece is also to show my voice and opinion on my topic. 

Who knew that I would ever go witch hunting.  Is it a typical thing to do?  Sure, maybe a couple hundred years ago.  When Abbie, Mitchell, Sara, and I took a mini Wisconsin road trip to haunted places it was trip like no other.  Stories and tales of weird, frightening, and murderous happenings motivated us to take a trip to the haunted destinations since we thought that they would have a great experience behind them.  I still knew there was no such thing as witches or ghosts, but I wondered why others believed in such impractical things. 

Whitewater seemed to be the target of various stories of which I thought as somewhat random and abnormal.  Usually I would go to Whitewater every week to see family.  Nothing is ever unusual about the place, or maybe it is because my family does not live within the haunted isosceles triangle.  The triangle is formed by three cemeteries:  Oak Grove, Hillside, and Calvary Cemetery.  Inside the barriers of the triangle is where all of the deadly [Whitewater] tales have taken place. 

The four of us found a water tower at the top of a hill at Starin Park, Whitewater.  Witches were said to hold rituals at the Starin Park water tower to bring in evil forces.  In the pictures we saw it looked like a creepy destination to go.  Ten foot tall spiked fences surrounded the ancient building.  Clouds gray and low, and sunlight dimmed.  The spiked fences were purportedly to keep evil and dark forces from entering and/or departing from the tower.  When we finally got to the water tower, in person, we could not believe how ordinary it seemed compared to the pictures.  I questioned in shock, “We just drove one hour, and this is it?!”  We laughed at our thoughts that we had earlier as we walked around the “haunted” tower.  Surprisingly, it was not until after the trip when Sara and I noticed that the pictures had been edited. 

From the water tower, the four of us drove to Oak Grove Cemetery – one of the three cemeteries of the haunted triangle.  We had read about all of the creepy witch rituals, Bloody Mary stories, gravestones, and completely peculiar events that happen inside the gates of Oak Grove Cemetery.  We still knew they were not accurate.   As I unlocked the gates, we slowly walked through the dark, tunnel-like entrance.  Underneath the overgrown trees, everything looked a lot more creepy but as got out into the open, not so much.  Gravestones were knocked down, they seemed old and sullied.  Surprisingly, we found the so-called Bloody Mary gravestone.  It was small, gray, and the name, Mary, was written in all capitals on the top.  That gravestone could have been any person’s since Mary was a very popular name.  In addition, we found Morris Pratt’s gravestone.  In the late 1800s, Morris Pratt bought the Pratt Institute, which supposedly had a haunted room called “the all white room,” and soon died afterward.  Inside the cemetery gates, I questioned many things, “Why are some gravestones bordered by chains or gates?, How did the gravestones collapse or break?, What really happened here?”  I admit, sometimes I got afraid, but after a while it seemed similar to a cemetery like any other for the most part.  All of the frightening stories could have been misunderstood or pranks on somebody else. 

Our last destination was 570 High Street Pewaukee, Wisconsin – the Deacon West Octagon House.  From the outside, the house did look old and eerie, but I assumed that the inside looked like a common household.  As of today, the house is occupied by an unknown family.  In the late 1900s a family of three had experienced unusual behavior inside the house.  The father saw a ghost-like figure in his child’s room, the mother recalled hearing footsteps and noises in their garden and hallways, and sometimes they thought they saw fog and felt presents of somebody else within their house.  They lived there for over a year until they decided to move away from all of the mysterious behavior.  I believe that these stories were a little farfetched; the house owners could have been paranoid, or exaggerating for attention.

Throughout Wisconsin and all over the world, ghost and witch stories occur at random.  A normal house or town is turned into a haunted destination due to an over exaggerated tale.  After traveling to three of the “haunted” locations I began to notice more that each person’s point of view will be unique, each person’s vision and thoughts differ, and each person’s story will change.   In the end, maybe witches and ghosts did exist, or maybe they did not, each person thoughts will contrast, but everything written or said is an opinion. 

Biblography

"The Witches of Whitewater." Chicago, Milwaukee and Indiana Concert Reviews, Photos, Free MP3s, Ticket Swap - ConcertLivewire. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 May 2011. <http://www.concertlivewire.com/witchesofww.htm>.

"About Us: National Register of Historic Places Official Website--Part of the National Park Service." U.S. National Park Service - Experience Your America. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 May 2011. <http://www.nps.gov/nr/about.htm#contactus>.

"National Geographic: Salem Witch-Hunt--Interactive." National Geographic - Inspiring People to Care About the Planet Since 1888. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 May 2011. <http://www.nationalgeographic.com/salem/newcountryroadframe.html>.

"Salem Witch Museum - 1692 Tour Sites - Salem, Massachusetts." The Salem Witch Museum - Salem, Massachusetts. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 May 2011. <http://www.salemwitchmuseum.com/tour/index.shtml>.

"Salem Witch Trials - The Story - DiscoverySchool.com." Free Teacher Resources | Discovery Education . N.p., n.d. Web. 31 May 2011. <http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schooladventures/salemwitchtrials/story/story.html>.

"Salem witch trials - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 May 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials>.

Scott, Beth, and Michael Norman. Haunted Wisconsin . Sauk City, Wis.: Stanton & Lee, 1980. Print.

"Witch-hunt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 May 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch-hunt>.

"Witches of Whitewater." Witches of Whitewater. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 May 2011. <mattrock.net/witches-whitewater>.