Lisa Hefner Heitz
Auteur van Haunted Kansas: Ghost Stories and Other Eerie Tales
Werken van Lisa Hefner Heitz
Tagged
Algemene kennis
- Geboortedatum
- 20th century
- Geslacht
- female
- Nationaliteit
- USA
- Geboorteplaats
- Topeka, Kansas, USA
- Woonplaatsen
- Topeka, Kansas, USA
Leden
Besprekingen
Statistieken
- Werken
- 1
- Leden
- 44
- Populariteit
- #346,250
- Waardering
- 3.8
- Besprekingen
- 1
- ISBNs
- 3
Another theme is the recasting of widespread folklore as a local legend. The New Mexican La Llorona, a spirit of various attributes who roams around wailing after her lost children, has been transformed in the Kansas to Theorosa, who lurks under or around a bridge over Jester Creek in Valley Center, Kansas, supposedly searching for her drowned children. (Interestingly, Theorosa is most likely to appear to Valley Center High School students who have parked near the bridge for impromptu nighttime biology lessons). In 1996, students in an English class at Valley Center High collected over thirty versions of the Theorosa story. (In an example of ghostly cross-fertilization, the Albino Woman mentioned above also sometimes materializes under a bridge. Perhaps Theorosa gets a night off every once and a while).
A few of the stories are genuinely mystifying – not that Ms. Heitz (or I) believe in ghosts but that there’s no obvious rational explanation for the phenomenon. The ghost of Julie, a young prostitute who used to work out of room 20 in a hotel in Wichita, has appeared to several people as an apparition described as a “floating pile of baby blue handkerchiefs”. I can think of lots of ways to explain the traditional transparent ghostly shapes, but an optical illusion that would appear as a pile of floating blue handkerchiefs is beyond me.
Interesting in its way; doubtless if I ever visit Kansas again I will check out some of the haunted locales. Especially if I can come up with a back seat necking partner.… (meer)