At 8:30am on Monday August 17, 2015, I was once again on my way to Ohio. Although my photographer was headed for a four-day safety conference in Cleveland, I was brought along on the trip for one simple reason: The Jefferson ‘Revenge’ Tour! Tom had made arrangements with EHS Professional Jason Rasmussen that the two would visit the tomb of James Garfield at Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland prior to the start of the safety conference. When Jason had heard the story of what had happened to me in 2013, he was all-in for a possible ghost encounter at Garfield’s tomb.
With Rasmussen behind the wheel of our Chevy Equinox, we arrived at the North Olmsted, Ohio Red Robin restaurant for lunch with a group of other Cargill safety people at 11:45am. When the hour-long burger-fest was finished, we returned to the Equinox for the 21-mile drive to Lake View Cemetery. Joining my photographer, Jason and I was Aaron Robinson; an energetic and fun guy who worked in White Marsh, Maryland. Aaron had heard that we had planned on visiting Garfield’s tomb, and he wanted to tag along to witness the potential fireworks between me and the dead President.
At roughly 1:30pm, Jason drove through the gates of Lake View Cemetery, and he navigated the maze of roads towards the 20th President’s tomb. Once we were parked a stone’s throw from the gravesite, both Jason and Aaron’s jaws dropped when they saw the grandeur of the 180-foot-high memorial to Garfield. It was time for me to go to work; first I wanted to pose alongside the exterior of the memorial and then I wanted to be carried into the crypt for my confrontation with the assassinated President.
We were finished with our photos of the exterior and it was time. I had thought about this moment for the past two years and I was ready; ready to be carried down the spiral staircase and into the crypt of James Garfield. I was happy that my photographer didn’t put me in the case for our short journey into the tomb. Tom held me tightly in his right hand as he navigated the marble stairway into the depths of the memorial; Jason and Aaron were right behind us. Once there, I was carried through a door and into the crypt. Immediately I saw the flag draped coffin of President Garfield; at which time I became more nervous than ever. My photographer carried me around to the side where he had photographed me two years earlier.
Once we were in place, I was held through the bars at arm’s length into the burial chamber. With Jason and Aaron nearby, my photographer began talking to Garfield; or at least he tried to speak to his spirit: “Alright James, do you remember us from two years ago? Guess what – we’re back! The last time we were here, you removed Jefferson’s head. Do it again, James, if you can! Why did you take his head off last time? Was Jefferson a better President than you? Are you angry that you aren’t considered a great President? Is your spirit still here in this tomb? Can you give us a sign, can you make Jefferson’s head move?”
There were no visible signs whatsoever of a spiritual encounter; I was disappointed and relieved at the same time. Then the questions from my cameraman turned into verbal jabs; all in an effort to prompt some sort of reaction from inside the crypt. “If you were so big and bad the last time we were here, take his head off again. Or if that’s too much for you, just make his head move; make it wiggle. His head is on a spring, that shouldn’t take too much energy. What’s the matter James, not so tough anymore?” As my photographer held me inside the chamber, he snapped several photos of me along with the caskets of Garfield and his wife. Since the lighting was dim, Rasmussen used the flashlight on his phone to help illuminate my body while it was inside the crypt. Tom had hoped that some sort of orb or shadowy figure would appear in the digital images that he captured of me.
In a final effort to entice some ghostly action, my cameraman slid me under the bars and left me on the floor inside the chamber. I was scared as I wasn’t in the protective grasp of my photographer anymore. When Tom repeated his questions and taunts towards the Presidential casket, he had hoped that something would make my head move or knock me over onto the floor. I knew that my photographer didn’t want me to be damaged, he had simply hoped that whatever or whomever removed my head the first time would do it again.
When ten minutes or so had passed without any type of encounter, my photographer took a quick look at the images before he slid me back into the camera case. When Tom didn’t see anything unusual on the photos, he carried me along the passageway to the opposite side of the room. As we neared the exit door, there were two women standing alongside one of the viewing windows. Both looked as though they were in their early thirties; one had short blonde hair and the other was a brunette with medium length hair. I heard the blonde say to my photographer: “Well, did you see anything in there? Anything unusual? Did you hear any noises?” Tom replied: “Oh, you heard that? No, we didn’t see a thing.” That’s when the brunette said: “Cathy, show him the pictures you took of us a few minutes ago while all of that was going on.” The short petite blonde opened the photos on her cell phone and showed Tom three ‘selfies’ that they had taken while Garfield was being taunted. The first and third image looked normal – just a picture of the two women as they posed with the crypt in the background. But the middle picture was different; there was something else on the image that had obstructed a portion of the brunette’s face and upper body. “Do you see that? That’s a blob of something in front of her and we have no idea what it is or how it got there. It’s not on the other two pictures; only the one in the middle.” said Cathy. “We think it had something to do with you talking to Garfield and antagonizing his spirit. You must’ve made him upset.”
My photographer told the two women that he had planned on analyzing his images when he returned home. He also mentioned that he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary when he took a quick glance at the pictures a few minutes earlier. After my photographer shared the story of what had happened to me in the tomb in 2013, he carried me up the spiral steps and out of the crypt. Both of us were a bit “creeped out” by the image on the blonde’s phone.
After a brief visit to the outdoor observation deck of the memorial, my photographer returned to the first level where the Garfield statue was located. As soon as he captured an image of the white marble statue of the 20th President, the blonde woman walked into the area. “Have you seen anything out of the ordinary yet?” she asked. After Tom assured her that he hadn’t, she proceeded to tell him that she has had the ability to detect the presence of spirits since childhood. Cathy said, “Ever since I was a young girl, I’ve been able to feel when a spirit is nearby. It’s hard for me to explain, and you may or may not believe it, but when the spirit of someone is nearby, I can feel the energy that it emits. There was something in that tomb, I could feel it.”
At that moment, a new idea popped into my photographer’s head. Tom thought of a new scheme to get Garfield’s spirit to mess with me. My cameraman said to Cathy: “Since you can feel when a ghost is near, would you go back down to the crypt with us and hold the bobble head next to the chamber while I take photos and antagonize Garfield?” “Why not?” said the ghost-whisperer; and the three of us ventured back down the spiral stairs. My photographer removed me from the case and carefully placed me into Cathy’s hands, which was quickly followed by an obvious “Please hang on to him carefully and do your best not to drop him.”
I was placed into Cathy’s left palm and her right hand steadied my body as she held me up to the bars of the chamber. Once in place, my photographer began his verbal barrage at Garfield: “Come on James, you wouldn’t do anything when he was in my hands; do something now while she’s holding onto him. You were so tough two years ago when you took his head off, do it again. What’s the matter James, are you too weak? If you can’t remove his head, let’s see you make his head move, just once! Was Jefferson a better President than you were?” At that moment, Cathy told us that she could feel the energy at the end of her fingers. “It’s right there, I can feel the energy. It’s right at the end of my hand. My God that’s strong,” she said in an excited tone.
Over five minutes of taunting had gone by and nothing. My head didn’t come off or even wiggle for that matter; and the digital images didn’t capture anything out of the ordinary either. Cathy affirmed that the spirit was there, but she said for an entity to move a physical object it takes a lot of energy; maybe more energy than it possessed at that moment. As disappointed as I was about not getting “assaulted” by Garfield, I figured at least I was still in one piece. At least for now.
I know for a fact that I was one exhausted bobble head as I had just gone through an amazing ordeal. My photographer found Aaron and Jason standing outside of the tomb and the four of us went back to the Equinox. Tom told our two companions what had just transpired in the crypt with “Clairvoyant Cathy” and that they had missed the excitement. Then my photographer told them that we still had one Garfield tomb left to visit in Lake View – his temporary tomb.
With a map of the cemetery in hand and an idea of what Garfield’s temporary tomb looked like, it only took about 15 minutes to find the elusive mausoleum. Following James Garfield’s death on September 19, 1881, his body was brought to Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland and placed in the public receiving vault seven days later. His body stayed in that vault for about a month until it was transferred to the empty mausoleum owned by noted local architect Levi Schofield. Garfield’s body rested there until his permanent memorial was finished on May 30, 1890. During the nine years that Garfield’s body was in the Schofield vault, the mausoleum was guarded 24 hours a day. I posed for a photo alongside the ornate tomb before my photographer balanced me on the knob of the vault’s door. At that moment, I was worried that I would slip off and fall to my death.
In total we spent about ten minutes at the Schofield mausoleum before we boarded the Equinox and left Lake View Cemetery. Jason did a good job navigating the 38 miles of winding turns and heavy Monday afternoon traffic to get the four of us to Hiram, Ohio. Once we arrived in Hiram, Jason parked in front of a two-story house where Lucretia and James Garfield had lived from 1856 until he left for the Civil War in 1861. Not only was I excited to visit that home because a President once lived there; I was also thrilled because the house was reputed to be haunted. I thought to myself: ‘Here we go again’!
The Garfield house in Hiram looked quiet and pleasant as I posed for my first few photos in the front yard. Then my photographer carried me up onto the front porch; all I could think about were the ghosts. And why wouldn’t the thoughts of spirits be in my head? After all, it’s been reported that the house was haunted by the ghosts of James and Lucretia Garfield, Marcia Henry, Almeda Booth, and a boy named Andrew.
Marcia Henry was an owner of the home and also a Hiram College professor who taught English, Latin and Greek. Henry bought the house in 1907, and she died in 1958. Almeda Booth was a teacher and a very close friend of James Garfield; so close, in fact, that Mrs. Garfield despised her. Booth died in 1875. Andrew was a sickly boy whose father was a doctor and a friend of Garfield.
My photographer had hoped that somehow we would be able to enter the home, but the doors were locked and there was no one home; at least no one alive. Tom held me up to one of the front windows and I could see into the parlor where there was a piano situated on the far side of the room. As I peered into the window, I had hoped that I would see something out of the ordinary or perhaps we’d get a whiff of cigar smoke on the porch; but nothing happened. It had been reported that James Garfield loved cigars and people in the home had smelled the strong aroma of cigars; even when no one was smoking. There was no doubt that the 20th President’s spirit was unhappy and restless; that was because Garfield felt betrayed by his friends who he believed were behind his assassination.
We struck out in our search for Garfield’s ghost; although I may have been really close to his spirit when I was in the hands of the woman at the tomb. I was placed back in my camera case and the four of us headed back to the North Olmsted Radisson Hotel near the Cleveland airport. My photographer placed me on the desk that was situated alongside the entertainment center and I stayed there until we left on Friday August 21, 2015.
During our three-day stay for the safety conference, I heard that my photographer and his friends had a lot of fun. Not only did Tom celebrate his August 19th birthday on an excursion ship off the shore of Cleveland, but he also helped recreate the Winter Dance Party concert at the Surf Ballroom and the subsequent plane crash during a safety skit. At one point on Thursday evening, I also heard my photographer say that his highlight of the conference was when he met Bob Gilbert from Hutchinson, Kansas. From what I had heard, Gilbert made his impression on Tom with his portrayal as the Big Bopper during the skit. Gilbert danced around the room with a telephone as he sang the famous Bopper lyrics: “Oh baby, you know what I like!”
What I like is visiting Presidential sites, but unfortunately when Jason Rasmussen dropped us off at home around 5:00pm, that trip to Cleveland marked my final adventure of 2015. Although I had been doing the Presidential site gig for three years, 2015 was arguably my worst year of the three. But that would all change by February 2016 as Tom began planning our next trip; a trip that would take me through the Plains States and back for a return visit to Dallas. “Oh baby, he knows what I like!”
