Fri 10/13 @ 5-7PM
At one point the House of Wills on East 55th Street was one of the Cleveland Black community’s premiere funeral homes, providing lavish “homegoing” events in ornate, themed viewing rooms and chapels. It was also known as an organizing headquarters for the 1960s civil rights movement in Cleveland.
The business closed in 2005 after 101 years, almost 65 of them at that location which opened in 1901 as a German Jewish social club. It was purchased by Eric Freeman in 2010 and since then its evocative decay has provided the backdrops to ghostly parties and haunted tours.
Daryl Marston, a paranormal investigator on A&E’s Ghost Hunters and host of the podcast The American Ghost Hunter Show, was attracted by the stories about the House of Wills’ haunted potential and spent thirteen hours there checking it out as well a interviewing other people who’d had firsthand experience with the building. He brought it all together in his book The Horrors of the House of Wills.
“It’s been six years since my terrifying night, and I still remember it like it was just hours ago,” he says. “I buried a lot of my memories of it deep down inside of me. At first, I found it hard to dig those memories up. After several weeks of writing The Horrors of the House of Wills, it all started flowing out, all the emotions and feelings I felt that night and for many months after that,” an experience he describes as a “life-altering haunting.”
He’ll be hosting a Cleveland-area book launch at Oktober’s Occult Shop, 12611 Madison Avenue, Lakewood. It will be preceded by Oktober’s Witches Night Market from 5-10pm.
keepclevelandcreepy.com/houseofwills
12611 Madison Ave, Lakewood, OH 44107