After their debut investigation at Pleasant Home last October, The Other Side Investigations team returned last week for a second public investigation, this time inviting participants to join them in exploring another Park District of Oak Park owned site, the historic Cheney Mansion.
There have long been stories about various apparitions at the block-long Cheney home and garden at 220 N. Euclid Ave. So this event was overdue.
After hearing the history of the mansion, the group of participants split into three different teams to begin their investigations. Each team started in one of the designated rooms — the parlor, the library or the master bedroom — and spent time exploring and gathering information. After their initial investigation, the teams rotated so that everyone had the chance to investigate each of the three rooms.
Equipped with devices provided by The Other Side Investigations team, they searched for signs of paranormal activity, guided them through the experience explaining the equipment used to detect paranormal activity, such as the REM Pod, ghost box, and K2 meters.
Demi Kedrowski took her friend Melissa Graves as a birthday gift to the Cheney Mansion investigation.
Kedrowski and Graves both used the dosing rod asking yes and no questions to try and communicate with the spirits. When they were using the rods and asking questions, the rods were moving wildly at first, but then the activity eventually settled down.
The rods are used to respond to yes or no questions by moving in different directions. If they cross, it indicates “yes,” and if they open wide, it signifies “no.” They can also point in specific directions.
Kedrowski and Graves said they enjoyed getting to use ghost-hunting tools on their own and guide the investigation. They liked that it felt hands-on and personal and said the energy in the room seemed to make the spirits more willing to interact.
“I’ve been on so many haunted tours and had no experiences, so I just assumed we’d go up there, and the whole time they’d say, ‘Oh, nothing’s happening.’ So, the fact that we got responses was really exciting to me,” Graves said.
In a Halloween themed story in the Journal in 2018, Kelli Kline, a past president of the Oak Park River Forest Historical Society, said, “Cheney Mansion is big haunted. They’ve had all sorts of weird stuff going on.” She described caretakers closing up with all the lights turned off and an employee opening in the morning with all lights blazing. Reports of a woman in white on a stair landing have also been reported, she said.
Last week David Kaletta, a team member with The Other Side Investigations, explained some of the equipment participants used in the investigation. Kaletta has worked with dials and rods for about 15 years, explaining that these metaphysical tools are not scientific or electronic but instead operate using spirit energy. He notes that rods tend to be more effective in rooms with high energy.
“The first two groups had the most activity in the parlor. By the time the third group got in here, we noticed that it kind of died down. The rods weren’t as active. Most of the REM pod wasn’t active. We even felt the energy in the room different as it was before the first two groups came in. It felt, you can feel kind of the electricity in the room,” Kaletta said.
Noelle Combs, Cheney Mansion’s special events coordinator, provided a brief history of the mansion prior to the groups splitting up and investigating the rooms. She traced its ownership and major changes over the years.
Combs explained how Charles E. White designed the house in 1913 for the Sharp family, who had lived in a Victorian home on the same property before tearing it down.
“Mrs. Sharp was disabled and in a wheelchair, so this house was equipped with an elevator. Mrs. Sharp, unfortunately, passed away in 1915, shortly after the house was completed. The Sharp family lived there until 1921, and their son, Nathan, married Marie Walsh in the mansion. In 1922, Andrew and Mary Hooker Dole purchased the home,” Combs said.
Andrew and Mary Dole added the solarium. The Doles eventually willed the property to the Park District of Oak Park, and their niece Elizabeth Cheney inherited it, living there until her death in 1985. Cheney collected over 200 rare books, and a set from the house’s library is now in the Smithsonian.