National Family History Month (October)

October is National Family History Month. By way of reminder, we have prepared the video below. We hope you enjoy it and will explore your family history in the weeks and months ahead. Your family is a "treasure trove" of historical information awaiting your exploration.

OverDrive Digital Books at MPL

On October 11, 2010, Mooresville Public Library (Mooresville, Indiana) will be joining OverDrive, the online digital books provider, enabling patrons to check-out and download eBooks using their library cards. Our video below highlights the program.

Baskets From Junior's Farm at Anderson Orchard Autumn Apple Festival (Sept. 25-26, 2010)

Baskets From Junior's Farm graciously donated the prize baskets given away at the library's booth at this year's Old Settlers Festival & Picnic in August. They have a wide range of custom-made, handwoven baskets from which to choose.

On Saturday and Sunday, September 25-26, 2010, Baskets From Junior's Farm will have a booth at Anderson Orchard's autumn apple festival. Anderson's is situated along Greencastle Road just a few miles west of Mooresville, Indiana. Stop by if you're in the neighborhood. Around these parts, the fall festivals are wondrous and delightful.

(Photos © 2010 by Samantha M. Buckley. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by Permission.)

Hoosier Artists on Display at MPL (Part #2)

Mooresville Public Library presents its second video showcasing artwork on display at the library. The artists in this video hailed from Mooresville and Morgan County, Indiana.

Hoosier Artwork on Display at MPL

We present the first in a series of "treasure trove" history videos showcasing the Hoosier artwork on display at Mooresville Public Library. We feature several artists from Mooresville, Morgan County, and elsewhere in Indiana.

Indiana Ghost Stories

Local groceries are already stocking Halloween candy, reminding us that October is fast approaching. If you like ghost stories, Indiana has its share of haunted tales amongst its facts and folklore.

There are basically three types of ghost scenarios: (1) phantasms of the dead; (2) phantasms of the living (sometimes associated with astral projection, or out-of-body experiences [OBEs]); and (3) "things that go bump in the night" (poltergeists). In our YouTube Channel paranormal playlist, we have featured several books on these subjects.

One of the "living phantasm" variety of Hoosier ghost tales was related in The Phenomena of Astral Projection, by Sylvan Muldoon and Hereward Carrington (London: Rider & Co., 1951), pp. 186-187. We reproduce the episode from the book below.] If the images below are too small, right-click them and save them to your desktop. Then use a photo viewer or photo editing software to see them at full-scanned size.

HOOSIER HAUNTINGS

These books (below) discuss haunted places, ghosts, poltergeists, and spirit communications in Indiana.

 

 The Feeders at Night, by Aldo Gonzalez

(MPL Book Trailer 307)

(An Indiana Haunted House)

Haunted Histories in America, by Nancy Hendricks

(MPL Book Trailer 660)

(Includes Indiana Haunted Places)

 

The People in the Attic, by Doretta Johnson
(MPL Book Trailer 691)

(An Indiana Haunted House)

Hoosier folklorist Tom Baker has published several haunted books, including the ever-popular Indiana Ghost Folklore (Arglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 2009).  Baker includes stories from across the state, and besides ghosts and haunted placed, he includes werewolves and other monsters, lucid dreams, spirit possession, witches, and other supernatural offerings.  This is folklore, so the cases aren't presented as factual events; rather, they are legends that have grown over time in particular places or surrounding specific circumstances.  Did they actually happen?  That's beside the point.  In folklore, the legend is everything.  Baker deftly delivers riveting yarns that will fascinate readers.  Check it out from an Evergreen Indiana (E.I.) library near you (if you're a cardholder, that is).

 

When I was a student at Indiana University, its folklore department was recognized as the best in the world, or so I was informed by a folklore major who had travelled from Israel to study there.  I had (and have) no reason to doubt the academic strength of the I.U. folklore department, as I discovered first-hand when I read Linda Dégh's classic treatise, Indiana Folklore:  A Reader (Bloomington, IN:  Indiana University Press, 1980), available to checkout from Evergreen Indiana.  It is a scholastic masterpiece.  The book includes a superb cross-section of Hoosier folklore, but for our purposes, its accounts of magic, horror, ghosts, and haunted places make this an essential read for anyone interested in the supernatural.  After reading it, I regretted not having taken any undergraduate folklore courses at I.U.  I even reflected that it would have been a more interesting major for me than the one in which I earned my bachelor degree (I won't tell tales out-of-school, so to speak, which means I won't divulge what my major was.  Anyway, I'm old now, and it's possible I've forgotten.  Since my B.A., or, as I.U. shows it, my A.B., theoretically helped me gain admission to a top I.U. graduate program, from which I earned a doctorate, I don't have too many regrets.)

 

 

Speaking of Indiana University (Bloomington), Kat Klockow compiled a collection of ghost stories from Monroe County (and elsewhere in Indiana) that focuses upon I.U.  Like most good folklore, the tales include horror (the "McNutt hatchet man," for instance) as well as more traditional supernatural activities, ghosts, or haunted places.  A few of these I had heard as a student over forty years ago, but most were new to me.  They'll raise the hair on your neck, I'll wager.  Evergreen Indiana cardholders can checkout a copy.

Mark Marimen is a prolific writer of Hoosier hauntings, and his books explore the gamut of Indiana-related supernatural stories.  They remain some of the most popular books on the subject at Mooresville Public Library.  If you're an Evergreen Indiana cardholder, you'll have a field day checking them out and reading them.

 

Nicole R. Kobrowski has written several haunted Indiana books, of which her Encyclopedia of Haunted Indiana (Westfield, Indiana : Unseenpress, 1st edition, 2008--see also the updated 2017 edition) gathers statewide stories of the macabre, organized by location.   See the Evergreen Indiana catalog for a listing of Kobrowski's titles available to checkout.

 

Another popular author of Indiana hauntings is Wanda Lou Willis, whose Haunted Hoosier Trails (Cincinnati, Ohio : Clerisy Press, 2002) and More Haunted Hoosier Trails (Cincinnati, Ohio : Emmis Books, 2004) are perennial favorites for ghost aficionados.  Find these titles here in Evergreen Indiana.

Edrick Thay's Ghost Stories of Indiana (Edmonton, AB, Canada : Ghost House Books, 2001) includes a wide range of haunted places (houses, public places, universities, historical landmarks, bridges and tunnels, cemeteries, and legendary ghouls).  Evergreen Indiana cardholders can check it out here.

Tom Baker and Jonathan Tichenal teamed-up to present hauntings from Indianapolis (and other Hoosier locales) in another excellent survey of the supernatural.  E. I. Cardholders can  check it out.

I was born and raised in Lafayette, Indiana, but I hadn't heard of most of these haunted tales compiled by Dorothy Salvo Davis and W. C. Madden in Haunted Lafayette (Charleston, SC : Haunted America, 2009).  Recognizing the locations helped bring to life the scary stories from Tippecanoe County (and nearby).  Find it here in E.I.

 

 

  

S. E. Schlosser retells several supernatural stories in Spooky Indiana (Guilford, CT : Globe Pequot Press, 2012).  Schlosser garnishes these folklore favorites with some spine-tingling spice.  Find it here in E.I.

 

 

K. T. MacRorie's Hoosier Hauntings (Grand Rapids, MI : Thunder Bay Press, 1997) is an earlier compilation of supernatural and paranormal tales that will send shivers down readers' backs.  It's here in E.I.

 

There are many, many more spooky Indiana books out there, but these will get you started.  Others are easily found in your libraries' catalogs or local (or online) booksellers.  Let's end on a terrible pun:  Put the BOO in books this Halloween season.  There's nothing quite as invigorating as a good ghost story, especially when so many may be found in your own state.

 

 

 

Self-Guided Walking Tour of Historic Downtown Mooresville, IN

Every town has echoes from its past. History is largely the tale of ghosts--facts and folklore about people, places, and things that no longer exist in the same way as before. In a community like Mooresville, Indiana, which has nearly two centuries of history packed away in its attics and cellars, there is much to learn through careful observation.

Take a self-guided walking tour of historical downtown Mooresville, for instance. That's what one needs to do to discover the "treasure trove" of intriguing stories available in the old buildings, records, and photographs that comprise the Indiana Room Collection at Mooresville Public Library. Our program trailer below sheds some light on this activity:

Everyone who has ever lived contributed a history that is worth investigating. We probably can't explore them all, but we can take a closer look at the town we call home and learn more about those who came before to help make it the community we know today.

MPL "Banned Books Week 2010" Display

Mooresville Public Library (Mooresville, Indiana) already has its 2010 banned books display up and ready to read! This year, Banned Books Week is Sept. 25 through Oct. 2, 2010. Select a banned book of your choice to read. You have the freedom to choose! Protect it by exercising your right to read what you want.

MPL "Banned Books Week 2010" Video

Banned Books Week is Sept. 25 through Oct. 2, 2010. We offer our video below to encourage viewers to fight censorship by reading the banned book of your choice. Visit your favorite library today to check-out what you want to read. Like all freedoms, this, too, can be taken away by those who wish to control the information we receive. Let no one curtail your right to think for yourself.

Mabel Leigh Hunt (Mooresville Moments Series)

Mabel Leigh Hunt (1892-1971), Hoosier author, was born in Coatesville, Indiana and lived in Greencastle (until age 10) , Plainfield (until her father passed over), and Indianapolis. She attended DePauw University (1910-12), and, in 1923-24, she attended Western Reserve University Library School (Cleveland, Ohio). In 1926 she began her career as a librarian at the Indianapolis Public Library, a position she held until 1938, when she became a full-time writer.

Hunt's best known novel, Lucinda: a Little Girl of 1860 (1934), was partially based upon her mother's experiences growing up among Quaker families. The characters from the book were derived from actual people Hunt and her family knew in Mooresville, Plainfield, and the surrounding countryside of Hendricks and Morgan Counties. Mooresville Public Library has, in its Indiana Room vertical files, a handwritten note from the author indicating the real people from which her novel's characters were drawn.

Our reprint (click below to enlarge) from Mooresville Moments (1999), written by town historian and retired MPL Indiana Room Librarian Wanda Potts, includes two installments about Mabel Leigh Hunt.