Sonya: Master Wings Publishing. Books that inspire, educate, and last. Welcome to the Master Wings Beyond the Page podcast.

In this special Halloween episode, we will be exploring the mysteries of the supernatural, going from ghostly encounters to unexplained phenomena with authors Lita Thomas and Jean-Marie McNamara. I'm Sonya Sindberg, Associate Publisher here at Master Wings Publishing, and today I am joined again by Lita Thomas and her daughter Jean-Marie McNamara, military veterans and co-authors of the award-winning memoir Lita and Jean, Memoirs of Two Generations of Military Women. We had some serious conversations the other day about your experiences and your military services, what it took to get stuff on the page, and I thought maybe we could have serious in another way, maybe.

We could explore one story from the book that's a little trickier to explain or understand in a different way. Well, yeah, welcome back, by the way.

Lita: Thanks for having me.

Jean: Thank you for joining us for this spooktacular episode.

Sonya: I'm referring again to, of course, the story that you tell in the memoir about when you were stationed at Fort Riley in Kansas. Lita, could you maybe paint the scene for people who might have been a minute or who haven't picked up the book yet?

Lita: Sure, we'll start with that incident and then we're gonna backtrack a little to the first incident that I've ever had, and then we'll continue on to another one.

Sonya: Love it. Spectacular.

Lita: Okay, so when I was first stationed at Fort Riley, I was renting a mobile home, three-bedroom mobile home.

I had a roommate, another girl that was stationed with me. I didn't know her, but you know, you kind of make friends quickly in the Army, and she wanted to move off base, and I said, hey, my trailer's got three bedrooms. I only need two. You can rent one of the bedrooms from me. So that worked out great. Saved me some money.

Sonya: Lovely.

Lita: And my daughters were still, at that point, still going back and forth to Chicago. The girls were in Chicago visiting their father, and it was just me and the roommate. We're sitting there. We did not have a TV. I think that's kind of a weird thing, but we did not have a TV.

Jean: Or cell phones.

Lita: Right. Well, they weren't even invented. We're talking 1977 or 78. But you know, most people had TVs by then. We just sat around and talked. That was our thing to do after work. So we were sitting on the couch, having a beer, and we noticed out of the corner of our eye, because we were like sitting cross-legged faced each other, there was a cabinet door in the kitchen, which was, it was an open floor plan from the kitchen to the living room, and there was a cabinet door that opened, and we both kind of caught it out of the corner of our eye, and we didn't think anything of it. We're thinking, well, you know, houses settle.

This is a mobile home. It probably settles more. But then the cabinet closed, and I'm like, well, that's unusual, but okay, it happens, I guess. And then the next step was the refrigerator door opened, and I'm like, well, that's a heavy door. Now this doesn't make sense. You know, I could kind of see a cabinet, but a refrigerator, and then that closed, and I'm like, oh, what the hell? And that was it.

That was it for that day, and we just kind of laughed it off, and we're, but we did kind of look at each other like, what the hell was that? So now we're, that night we're both in bed, you know, like I said, we're in separate bedrooms, and there was a knocking, I mean, like an obvious knocking on the wall, the exterior wall, at my headboard height. So actually, I woke up, and I'm like, damn kids, what are they doing? You know, I'm thinking, blaming it on somebody's kids in the neighborhood.

Sonya: Someone was pranking you.

Lita: Yeah, right. Messing around. Yeah. Right. So I went to the front door, which was also on that side of the mobile home, and I looked around. I did not see any kids. I'm like, well, that's good. They went home. They just, they probably, what was, what do they call that nowadays?

Sonya: Ding dong bitch.

Lita: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Ding dong bitch. But we didn't have a doorbell, so they just knocked on the wall.

And when I told my roommate about it the next morning, she said, oh, I didn't hear anything. And her headboard is also on that side of the trailer home. So didn't think any, I really didn't think anything of it, because I really did think it was just kids playing around.

Now the next day, we're sitting in the living room, and the refrigerator door opens and closes, opens and closes, opens and closes. I'm like, well, we'll each have another beer, if, as long as you're there, you know, like joking, right? I think you'd kind of make a joke out of things that scare you, because it's less painful. And nothing happened, but the door closed and did not open again.

Sonya: Did you get closer to it? Did you stay where you were? Was it like a freeze sort of thing? Or?

Lita: I did not go to investigate. I sat there. And like I said, we were making jokes to try to ease the tension.

Yeah. But by this point, we're both thinking, okay, something's going on here. The camper was owned by a military, an army reservist that was stationed at Fort Riley.

And he was friends with our company commander. He, the reservist was a major. And he was friends with our company commander. And that's how we ended up getting this trailer home in the first place. You know, he said anybody looking for a place. So, I called the major.

And when you're thinking you're an E3, which is not very high up on the ranks, right? And you're calling a major, I use the, I use the office form. You know, that's kind of like, a little picked up. Yeah.

Yeah. But I said, I've been having problems at the at the trailer home. And he said, Oh, and I'm like, Oh? The way he said, Oh, made me think, Oh, this has happened before.

Yeah. So I asked, I asked the major, I said, What happened? Why? Why are you sounding like this isn't a surprise for you? And he said, “There was a old wives tale, I guess, that that this trailer might have been haunted.” And I'm like, bingo.

Bingo. Yes, I think it is. And he said it supposedly it was an indigenous person that lived in the trailer for a very short period of time.

And he was very disgruntled with the military and he took his life. And I'm like, Oh, that's deep.

Sonya: And this is coming from your commanding officer.

Lita: Right. So there's no this was from the major that owned the trailer on the trailer. Right.

Right. Yeah. But you know, nobody mentioned this to us before. So I'm like, All right, well, I guess now we know the answer. What do we do about it? He said, It should it should go away on its own. And like, Oh, okay, that what's happened with your last how many other people live there.

But the next week, it was kind of calm that week. But just before I went to see the kids, it was knocking again. And it was backing a lot. And it was keeping me awake. Yeah. So and I still thought these were kids. I didn't know it was connected to the refrigerator in the cabinets. And this time you thought we're gonna catch him. Right? Yes. Yes. So I had my roommate in my bedroom. And she now she could hear the knocking on the wall.

And I said, Okay, when you hear it knock, I want you to, you know, call me or you know, just say my name or something. Yeah, I kept the door closed. He said knocking, I opened the door, I looked, nobody's there. Close the door, knocking, open the door, nothing. I'm like, what the crap? So I said, I'm gonna go outside. So I go outside. And I'm standing outside the bedroom window. And she said, it's knocking again. And now my hair is all standing up on end. I said, there's no body here. No body here. So I went back in the house. I'm like, I so this is also connected to the ghost, I guess.

Jean: Did you ever look under?

Lita: Yeah, I did. Okay. I looked everywhere. Okay, but I would have looked like underneath and on top. Yeah, there was no skirt on this mobile home. So it was very easy to see underneath. You didn't have to kind of like move any panels or anything. It was all just open and jacked up. So now we have a ghost that knocks on your wall and opens cabinets and refrigerators.

Sonya: I mean, you're telling it in a in a very bemused sort of fashion, Lita. And it was very, you know, what, like, were you scared?

Lita: Yeah, it was not really scary. Because at this point, it really didn't bother me.

Jean: Because I think if you're an E3, you're new to the army, you're kind of, you must be somewhat emboldened to even you went out there. Yeah, right. Right. To take on, you know, an occupation as a mechanic at that time, when women were just introduced into the, you know, regular army, a tank mechanic. Yeah, I think you have to have a very brazen demeanor about you. And you see one person that would would not shy away from.

Sonya: Yeah, from a willingness to engage.

Lita: Yeah. Right. Right. So now, at one point when the girls were not with me, and the roommate was not with me, okay, I'm laying on the couch. And all of a sudden, and like I said, we don't have a TV.

So I must have been reading a book or something, laying on the couch, all of a sudden, this black cloud type form, almost human shaped appears at my near my feet at that end of the couch. And, again, the hair is standing up on my arms. And I'm like, Hey, I'm okay with you being here, you know, we got to get along right.

And it started moving up toward me. Now, it's like hovering over me. And either it stopped me from breathing, or I was scared to death, and I stopped breathing.

But whatever case may be, I was, I was like, getting dizzy from not being able to breathe for so long. So finally, I bolted up right, and ran outside, and just kind of shook it off. And basically, I said, All right, the girls are coming back next week, I got to do something about this.

I don't want them to get freaked out, you know?

Sonya: Yeah.

Lita: And I went back in the house, I, the thing was gone, thank God. And I went to bed.

Okay, no, no knocking this time. It was just that dark, humanoid type. It wasn't like a whole human. It was just like a shadow. Yeah. And it was like, it's not like you could see arms or legs. It was just like a blob. And it was standing at the foot of my bed. It floated over me, and seemed to settle on my head.

And now I cannot breathe again. So, I started praying every prayer I ever learned in eight years of Catholic grammar school. I even I even think I was blessing it, like in in Latin at that point. And when I was done with the praying, it disappeared. And I'm like, well, that worked. Hey, we got some we got some and we got some ammunition here. That'll work. I go and get the kids and bring them back. And I figured it was better to tell them about it in case they noticed it.

And I didn't want them to get freaked. And I told them about it. And I don't know if it was Jean, or Kim that said you mean the one that plays with our toys? Or can you go into that thing?

Jean: Sometimes at night, and I was four at the time. I would hear my toys, you know, somebody playing with the toys at the because they were in our room. But they were at the base of the bed. So I would hear the toys moving around. So I would get I would, you know, crawl at the edge of the bed and look down. And there was no one there. And then I would go and I would check it, my sister was still in bed.

And I would think, well, that's odd. And then I'd go back and lay down. We didn't think anything of it at the time. I mean, being young, it was just like, yeah, that's the the whatever it is that plays with the toys.

Lita: Well, I know that I in the book, I wrote that the toys were actually in the air at some point, without anyone holding them. Was that me seeing it? Or you?

Sonya: Jean, I think, I think I saw it.

Jean: Yeah, just toys moving.

Lita: Okay. Okay.

Jean: All right. And I don't know, you know, maybe we were the, the house that we were in, or the dwelling we were in was located over some sort of gas. Maybe we were eating interesting mushrooms in our salad it was unusual.

And we've had several unusual things occur. When we moved to a house in Oakbrook. That was, you know, it was a house. It had a pool, it had a pool house. It was a regular house.

Lita: nice house

Jean: But the north side of the house, there was a drop off from the neighbors. And it was probably a good 10 feet.

Lita: I'm thinking six, six feet.

Jean: Okay, so it was a six foot drop off between our property and the neighbors. So the neighbors house was significantly higher.

And we had a very short strip of that taller part. Yeah, it was probably it went the whole length of the property. But it was it was unusual that it was fence.

Yeah, there was a fence that was on that area, six feet tall as well. So you would have to scale 12 feet to get to this raised area. And we you know, started gardening elsewhere at the house.

And it was just but it was unusual to have this very odd shelf of land.

Lita: Yeah, that wasn't really used.

Jean: And it was fun stuff.

And we were just getting ready to put in a vegetable garden. And the neighbors in the everyone area was wonderful. You know, we got welcome baskets and the neighbors to the north of us and we were at 13 was our address.

And this was approximately 13 years ago. Which is just another weird coincidence. They came by and they said, Oh, you know, like, how's it going? And we said, Well, you know, everything's great. We're putting in a vegetable garden. And they were like, they took a deep breath and said, Oh, where? And we said, Well, over there. And they said, Oh, okay.

And they were very relieved. We said, Why? And they said, Well, don't do anything on that fenced off area. And we're kind of confused.

You know, why? Why wouldn't we do anything over there? And they said, Well, that's where the bodies are. And of course, of course they are. Oh, yeah.

So we inquired further. And it turns out that when the area was developed, there was a cemetery. And rather than reenter the remains of everyone that was there, they simply removed the tombstone.

And it was a 19th century cemetery. So the relatives were not, you know, frequently visiting anymore, and no one was maintaining the cemetery. So we contacted a professor of archaeology and asked, What do we do about this? Because we were a bit concerned that there were bodies in the yard.

And they said, Well, we can come out and do ground radar and determine if he said, you know, maybe there's nothing there. You know, chances are there's nothing there.

Sonya: Yeah, coming to me to tell me all my neighbors. Yeah, yeah.

Jean: Yeah. I mean, maybe it's just a funny practical joke in the neighborhood.

You know, everyone, they live at 13. Tell them there's bodies up there. I mean, why else would somebody have that area fenced off in such an unusual way? But it was a Dr. McGowan.

And he was USC or the director and public service for director of public service archaeology and architecture program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. And he and his son came out and kind of explored. And they said, Yeah, there's there's a cemetery here.

Lita: And, and they could tell because of the way the bodies were like placed.

Jean: Yes, everything they could find, they could, you know, determine it was, it was a cemeterian. And there were apparently over 400 remains originally for the cemetery. And then most of them were moved in the 1960s.

Lita: Because they made a road, right?

Jean: They put down Midwest Road. So this is Midwest Road and 31st, right in Oakbrook. And Midwest Road went right over the cemetery. So those bodies were reinterred. The bodies just off of Midwest Road on Kimberly circle.We're not all reinterred.

Lita: You know what was lucky, but that they, they didn't bury them further south, because then they would have had to get them up to go through the to put the pool in. Right, then they would have been reinterred when they put the pool in.

Jean: Right. But so yes, so we moved. But in in 2014, a number of archaeology students came out and did reinter the ones out of the those individuals that were still there. And at the neighbor's house.

Lita: Yes. I think there were like seven left.

Jean: So it was unusual.

Jean: Yeah, it's an unusual circumstance.

Sonya: Did you are you leading to say that you saw some like activity

Jean: Because of while we were there, it was in it's very similar to the home we are in now. There was a circular path to take between it was a three level home. And on the first level, there was a circular path. So you would go through the living area past the bar area into the kitchen, past the steam room and then back around again.

And so there were it was, you could be on one side and not see some of the other side and a very young relative who was there with me. We were the only two people on that level. And he came up to me and he said, Who is this? Who's this strange woman that I keep seeing? And I was like, you know who I thought he would meant that he was seeing the person on TV.

And he said, No, they keep coming out of the kitchen. And it's like, no one I was. I was like, No, there's no one coming out of the kitchen.

So there were incidences where people would say they saw something. And again, it was, you know, we it was individuals that we didn't care to tell, you know, by the way, don't, you know, there's bodies. But it was a little disconcerting.

Sonya: Yeah,

Jean: Once again, I didn't see anything. But it was a bit creepy swimming in the pool. Because if you've ever seen I'm trying to think of the movie. Very similar situation. There's a movie from I want to say the 1970s. Where the homebuilder simply removes the tombstones and leaves the bodies. And then they have issues. And there's a very creepy scene where a woman swimming in the pool with the body. So I was always a bit creeped out.

Lita: Yeah, well, you just went in the pool.

Jean: Yeah.

Lita: Oh, well, I was gonna say the reason I think we tolerated the issue in the issue in Kansas and in Oak Brook is because I had a pretty well balanced idea of afterlife. And the fact that it's nothing to be afraid of. Now I'm going to take you back before I joined the army. In the early 1970s, or the mid 1970s.

It wasn't that, you know, maybe five years before I joined. And my dad, he was fully Italian, loved his pasta, and was a rather big man because he loved his pasta. You know, he was never a drinker, though.

Jean: No, but he used food as a coping mechanism.

Lita: Yeah. I mean, you know, eight kids, I guess you're gonna use something.And he was in his, I'm gonna say, 50s, maybe then?

Jean: 40s.

Lita: 40s. Okay. And he, he had a heart attack. So we were living in Oak Park. And the closest, the only I should say only the only hospital that was doing any heart surgery at that point was Loyola Hospital.

And they said, John, you need coronary bypass surgery. And luckily, we have the premier, the first doctor that did it in our area, Dr. Amir Parvez, here at our hospital that can do that for you. And then he explained what he was going to do, they're gonna brand new surgery, you know, like, it's not like today, where, of course, you're going to go in for a bypass.

So they explained what's going to happen and all that. He says, “All right, I'll try it.” Yeah, they didn't do anything with the catheter, it was all cracked the chest.

So they said, We can fix it. And he said, “Okay, I'm on board.” Now he's in his hospital room, waiting for a month before they could schedule him in.

Because that's how it took them like a week or four days to prep each patient and get them through the surgery. So they were only doing like one or two a week. And my dad just had to wait in line.

So he's in the hospital for a month. And the day finally comes where he is going to have a surgery. Now he's in surgery, and they take them up. And they said it's going to take about 18 hours. And we're like, "Oh my God." So, we went to the cafeteria a couple of times.

And I mean, we're doing everything we did not want to leave the hospital. But we're trying not to just stay in the room also.

Jean: And I do picture the horror that the staff had to endure with that many little kids running around. I don't worry about their parents.

Lita: I don't think I don't think grandma let everybody come.

Jean: Okay.

Lita: I was there because I was the oldest. But one of our trips over to the cafeteria, all of a sudden, all the hair stands up on my arms. And I could, I swear to God, my dad was standing next to me. And I said, Dad, what the hell? You can't be here. You have to go back. And then he was gone.

And I just kind of stood there shaking a little bit. This was the first time I've ever had anything like this happen to me. And but the hair was still standing on edge. And my mom didn't, he didn't notice anything. She didn't even notice me talking to myself. And we got our trays.

We're sitting there. I'm having a coffee. And I'm pretty, you know, shaken by all this.

And we go back to the room. And the nurse said, “Oh, I'm glad you're back. John coded on the table.”

And we're like, what is coded? He died. But we got him back. We got him back.

It's okay. We said, What happened? They said, Well, we got them all put together after the bypass. But we noticed that his blood pressure kept dropping and dropping.

And we checked and his volume was was dropping. So we thought that there was something that was cut that wasn't put back together, right. So we opened him up again.

And his, his body cavity was full of blood. And here, it turned out that after waiting for a month in the hospital, he ended up developing a bleeding ulcer that actually, I guess, cut right through the whole the wall of his stomach. And he just, he bled out.

And he lost so much volume of blood that he died temporarily until they could start, you know, squeezing the bags to get them filled again. And when my dad came out of surgery, and out of recovery, and everything was kind of okay. I kind of looked at him. I was waiting for him to say something. Yeah. And I said, Dad, do you remember what happened? He said, Yeah, you told me to go back.

Was the hair on the arms.

Sonya: Jean, I think you were trying to start one and call another Halloween time that happened to you.

Jean: I will say I did. I died once. Oh, yeah, that and I'm coming to you from the great beyond. But when I had my second, brain surgery, there was a, an intern there, and or he was working towards residency, or resident, I'm not entirely sure, as I wasn't conscious at the time.

But my surgeon was overseeing the procedure, and the other individual nicked an artery and I lost my entire blood volume and coded. And apparently the surgeon was able to step in and repair the artery and they were able to get replacement blood into me quickly. But he was so rattled by the situation, that he came out crying to the waiting area, which is not something you typically want to see when your daughter’s in surgery to have the surgeon walk out in tears.

And he was visibly shaking. And he actually went and sat down with someone else that was waiting to speak with him about an upcoming procedure. And it was a fellow neurosurgeon who was having a procedure and just had a question. So he went and he sat down and tried to calm himself and my mom was a little bit upset because she knew that I was the one in surgery and was wondering what was going on. And once he had been able to maintain a sense of calm about him, he went on to proceed and you know, inform my mother as to what had happened and how he was very very sorry. But they were able to rectify the situation and that I should be just fine. So, I don’t remember anything from the incident as I was unconscious at the time. But, I you know, do appreciate that every moment is precious and we can’t explain everything out there in the world because there’s still so much that we don’t know and our mind is such, mind is such a complicated system of chemicals and you know electrical impulses and you know it can misfire, especially in stressful situations. And I think also our mind is there to protect us and so it will fill in blanks when it thinks that we need those blanks filled in and it can be quite unusual. And unfortunately, sometimes it does raise the hair on the nape of your neck, but you know that’s where we’re coming up to spooky time which is…

Lita: And Halloween has always been Jean’s favorite holiday. I mean her dollhouse had to turn into a haunted house.

Jean: It’s a dilapidated house, so it has water leaks and things of that nature, but it does have cockroaches in the sink.

Lita: So, that’s it for our Halloween recap.

Sonya: Yea, they’re very good, they’re very compelling. You know? I think we have a couple of like lightening round questions we could ask and see if we wanted to do. So, would you, I can guess answers, but I’d like to. Would either of you spend the night in that trailer again, if it was still standing?

Jean: Sure.

Lita: Yeah.

Sonya: What about just a haunted house? Would that be something you’d do?

Jean: Yeah

Lita: Sure

Sonya: That’s great! That’s fantastic. I think that that spirit of engagement is what has led you to all of the successes and trials that you have had through your life. So, cool. Okay, I mean that’s everything I wanted to hit! I think it was fantastic. And for people that enjoyed that, you can read more similar stories from these wonderful individuals in Lita & Jean: Memoirs of Two Generations of Military Women. It’s available through Master Wings Publishing, us here, and wherever books are sold. And if you haven’t heard our other conversations, you can listen to previous episodes of the podcast. And thank you, Lita and Jean for really making my hair stand on the…

Lita: I was going to say, I hope, I hope the hair stirred up on your arm.

Sonya: Well, well, thank you very much

Jean: Thank you for having us!

Sonya: Happy Happy Halloween to everybody out there and hopefully you can face whatever supernatural things come your way.

Jean: Absolutely.

Sonya: And find your own mystery. So thank you very much. Before we go, don’t forget to follow, subscribe, rate and share the Master Wings Beyond the Page podcast. Until next time, keep exploring, keep learning and keep the spirit of storytelling alive.