Broken down, haunted and loved [video commentary]

Last summer, I moved into an apartment that took up the entire main floor of what used to be a very large Queen Ann style Victorian house. It's the most amazing apartment I've ever had, with huge windows, stained glass, intricate details in the wood work and door knobs and extremely high ceilings. Best of all, the walls aren't painted a simple boring white like most apartments; instead, they're a bright happy yellow.

Despite being slightly more expensive and further away from campus, I chose this apartment over the others for its beauty and comfort. I had become attached the moment I stepped foot into the vacant living room, and I simply couldn't turn it down.

I have never lived in a really old house before, but I learned quite quickly old houses have a personality of their own. For example, what I didn't know before living here, is that any doors that open to the west will never stay shut because the house is crooked. It's sliding off the foundation so much that even the windows are crooked, which I only noticed after hanging up my curtains.

I didn't care, though. This apartment had charm, and I was enamored.

But the house's bad condition couldn't be ignored once the crickets started creeping in from the break with the porch, once the winter winds began to blow and we could feel the subzero breezes in all rooms of the apartment, or once the small stained glass borders around the big windows began to shatter.

It seemed odd to me that a house which must have been absolutely amazing back in its day was being left to fall apart. I mean, what happened to the family who lived here? There are so many other historic houses in the neighborhood, yet this house is in the worst shape of them all. Why is that?

Since I only plan on living in the apartment for one more year before leaving Kearney behind, I didn't give much thought to the state of the house at first, but as I grew to love it more and more, I grew concerned.

That concern lead me to begin researching the history of the house, as well as the people who lived in it. What I've been able to find so far is that Dr. Cornelius Van Dyke Basten and his wife, Adah, lived here with an adopted daughter. They were active upper class citizens in the very early days of Kearney, living in this house from 1889 to their deaths in 1935. Adah died of heart problems, and Cornelius died of cancer only one month later.

I have to wonder, did one or both of them die in this house? Did they actually take their last breath in one of these rooms? I don't know why, but thoughts like these can consume me.

Adding to that history is an alleged ghost who haunts the attic and part of the second floor. A girl who lived in the apartment grew curious about a mysterious door that would not open, and after somehow forcing it aside, she and another person discovered that the door led to an attic filled with antiques, including a sink full of dishes, late-1800s style dresses and a delicate but decaying chair. The attic was also encircled with old police tape, or so they say.

The girl swears she was haunted every day after that, and she moved out not long afterward. Another girl moved into the apartment and left shortly afterward as well. Now, the apartment remains vacant.

So after a year of living in this historic and troubled house, I've begun to reexamine the passion I have for this place. I mean, what's there to love about a broken down haunted house? What's there to love about a broken down haunted anything?

Well, it might be hard to believe, but I still wouldn't trade this apartment for the world. After learning of the history and imaging the lives of the people who lived here, I fall in love all over again. This place is older than any human on the planet. This place has a story to tell.

I was never able to find any information about what happened to the house after Cornelius and Adah died, and my searches for their adopted daughter and her family ties all came to dead ends. As for any terrible occurrences warranting ghostly activity, I have no idea if something happened here or not.

Will anyone ever step in to fix this place up like it deserves? Once again, I don't know. Just as much of this house remains a mystery, so does its future.

Research for my next column

So I've been doing a lot of research lately for my video commentary, the next and last assignment of the semester for this blogging class. Unfortunately, I didn't have a lot of time to start the research until a couple of days ago, but since I've gotten to it, I have been absolutely taken by digging this stuff up.

To explain, I have been wanting to do a blog post on the house I currently have an apartment in. It's old and fancy, and that's all I've known about it. My idea was to blog about all of the architectural details of the house ...

... Until a friend of mine told me this amazingly scary ghost story! According to him, his brother's girl friend lived in one of the smaller apartments upstairs, and that apartment has a door that leads to the attic. That door is impossible to open, but we know it goes to the attic because the closet next to the door has a slanted ceiling, like it's supporting stairs above it. Also, when you look outside, you can see a small window that is part of the area behind the mysterious attic door.

Supposedly, the girl friend of the brother of my friend would hear things at night, but since it's an old house, she didn't think much of it. For whatever reason, her and her boy friend/my friend's brother decided to investigate the attic, and they somehow beat the door open (I think, these details weren't clear at the time I was told the story). Anyway, when they got to the attic, it appeared to be a sort of house worker's quarters, like the maid or someone lived up there. They said there was a sink full of dirty dishes, a piece of furniture that was falling apart, and some dusty old clothes ... all lying amongst old school police tape!

After they did this, the girl friend started having really vicious nightmares and feeling like someone was choking her in her sleep. She moved out not long after.

The apartment I live in, which is on the main floor of the house, is not haunted to my knowledge. Nothing strange has ever happened there, and I've never gotten any weird feelings. However, if you think about it, if there was a person who kept to the house like a maid or something, they probably wouldn't haunt the main floor ... they'd haunt wherever it is they spent the most time, which is the attic.

So maybe the attic of my house is haunted, I don't know. But the girl who moved into that apartment about a month after we moved into ours ... she didn't stay long. She was there at first, then she stopped coming back home at nights. There were times when we didn't see her for weeks at a time, and then she just moved out earlier this month. Why didn't she stay there? What possessed her to break the lease (expensive to do!) and leave so quickly?

I'll never know, because I never talked to her. For all I know, it could be something personal, maybe a family emergency ... but I have to admit, ghosts and ghost stories fascinate me, so the theory she was haunted out of the apartment is the one I've focused on the most.

I will not give away my secrets, but I was able to get into the apartment after she moved out to make a video of this mysterious door and its location. It's not long, because that apartment freaks me out.

I was in that apartment before that girl moved in and before I ever heard the ghost story, just to check it out since it was vacant. Both apartments upstairs were vacant, and my boyfriend and I enjoyed looking at them and seeing the various architectural details inside that are different than downstairs. Since our property manager is kind of intimidating (she's not mean, but we know we'd never want to piss her off), and since it was night, we made absolutely sure to shut off every light before we went back downstairs. Everything was fine the next day, but as the sun started going down again, we realized that a light was still on upstairs ... and it was in the bedroom of the allegedly haunted apartment! It was weird because I know we turned it off, we double checked everything.

Another time, when my parents were visiting, we heard voices in the stair well. They only lasted for a few seconds, like a short part of a conversation. The thing is, no one else was in the entire house except for us. That was also weird, and it creeped us out for a second, but we brushed it off later.

Anyway ... so I was going to research to see what exactly might have happened in that house. Did they even have a maid/house keeper person? Was someone killed? Did someone die violently? What were the lives of these people like?

As I've gotten deeper into my research, I've come across nothing that suggests anything terrible happened in the house. It is interesting how old the house is, though, because it was built in 1889. Here's some history about the people who lived in it first:

From Buffalo County and Its People (1916):
Dr. C. Van Dyck Basten, a prominent and valued representative of the medical profession in western Nebraska, who has practiced continuously in Kearney since May, 1883, was born at Kingston, Ulster county, New York, on the 25th of May, 1859, and is one of the three surviving members in a family of five children who were born of the marriage of George W. and Esther (Bevier) Basten. He was reared upon his father's farm with the usual experiences of the farm lad and acquired his early education in Ulster Academy. For two years he read medicine under the direction of Drs. Crispell & Smith, at Kingston, and later continued his studies with Dr. W. C. Goodno, of Philadelphia, as his preceptor. Still later he entered the Hahnemann Medical College in 1879, remaining a student in that institution for two years, but owing to failing health was compelled to relinquish his studies for a time. Later he went to Iowa and completed his medical education in the medical department of the State University at Iowa City, receiving his degree in 1883. Since that time he has taken numerous post-graduate courses in New York, Chicago and elsewhere, and by continued study and investigation keeps abreast with the most scientific research and progress.

Dr. Basten began the practice of his profession at Kearney in May, 1883, and has since here remained, winning early recognition as one of the foremost physicians of this part of the state--a position which he has since retained. He is ever careful in the diagnosis of his cases and his judgment is seldom at fault in regard to the outcome of disease. His professional duties are most conscientiously performed and his sympathy and consideration are elements in his popularity as well as the skill which he displays in practice.

On the 24th of November, 1885, Dr. Basten was married to Miss Adah Seaman, of Kearney, and they have an adopted daughter, Mary Edna. The religious faith of the family is that of the Methodist church, and Dr. Basten is connected with the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks and with the Masonicúfraternity, in which he has attained high rank, being now a Knight Templar. His political allegiance is given to the republican party, and although he keeps well informed on the questions and issues of the day he does not seek office. His membership along professional lines is with the Buffalo County and the Nebraska.

So now I'm less interested in the ghost story and more interested in the history of the house in general. For example, there are lots of very nice Victorian and Queen Anne style houses in our neighborhood, but ours is the most rundown and one of the very few that have been turned into apartments. What happened? Who owns the house now, and is it still in the family? If not, why not? I just have so many questions about why the house, which was big and beautiful, has been left to basically fall apart. I know it's falling apart because I live there and have to deal with the crooked windows and the porch boards being shoved out of place due to the house basically sliding off the foundation. There are cracks all over the walls, though they are covered in a bright shade of yellow. It's sad, but I feel a connection to this house because it's just so beautiful. If I had the money, I'd buy it and put it all back together again.

Here are some other documents I found about the house and that family from Historic Houses of Pioneer Park Neighborhood. Clicking on the images will make them bigger.

The local music scene

My boyfriend and I went to the Holobora music and art festival on Saturday. We probably would have gone anyway, but we had to go for my zine, The F.Y.I., since I did an entire issue dedicated to the festival and the bands participating in it. We got there early and set up a booth, then sat there to observe as the entire evening went by.

Together, we came up with a few conclusions about Kearney's music scene.

First of all, there was a great scene here about two years ago, but many of the best local bands took off to Portland, Oregon, where there is a much better scene. I have no idea how they're doing today, but I definitely miss them. Other bands simply broke up because people graduated from college and moved on.

It was pretty lame around here for awhile, but the void left room for other bands to come forward, and the music scene is finally growing again. Even better than before, there is a wide range of genres here, from rock-hip hop and indie to metal and industrial.

You'd think that would be a good thing, right? Well, instead of letting the scene grow into something amazing and diverse, there are a number of bands who either have members or a strong following of fans that apparently don't appreciate this diversity.

Conclusion #1: The scene is divided.

For example, I'm going to point out the worst offenders. Mortal Dezire. They're a very talented and popular metal band from Kearney. They were the last band to play for the night, kind of like a headline band, yet they didn't even bother to show up until about one hour before they had to play. When they did show up, a hip hop group was performing, and the guys simply put on their head phones and stood by the door, loudly proclaiming they wanted to "tune out this noise" (though in not-so-nice terms).

Another example, once again pointing out the worst offenders, were many of the fans of the industrial/experimental rock group Beta. They showed up only to see Beta, and they made it known. While other groups were performing, they sat in the back of the venue and complained that everyone else was taking too long, that it was Beta's turn, that they only cared about seeing Beta.

People. Seriously. What is the deal? Attitudes like these cause huge rifts in the local music scene. It was especially telling when Clozerock and Upset from the Ivyleague and Ryan O'Connor from Beat Continuum took a break from their hip hop performance to pump up the crowd for the bands coming up. When they yelled, "... and Mortal Dezire!" the venue went quiet. People were looking around. "Mortal Dezire? Are they here? ... Oh, nevermind, they're outside."

Outside in the freezing cold, because they would rather stand out there than have to integrate with us mere mortals. The fools!

That small part of the night really sucked, because the divide between Kearney music lovers only grew bigger at that point. Not only did the people watching hip hop not cheer for Mortal Dezire, but Mortal Dezire and their following weren't even inside to support the hip hop anyway. It's a lose-lose situation.

Observation #2: The scene is terribly unorganized.

While putting together the zine, I had almost nothing to go on besides the flier for the festival. I contacted every band on the flier, and about 75% got back to me with interview information, and about 10% actually got back to me with photos and other media to include.

This alone made the zine especially difficult and time consuming to put together. When I finally finished it and had it distributed, I had about five different bands/musicians ask me why they weren't in the issue, to which I had to reply, "No one told me you'd be here."

Also, the Holobora festival puts a good deal of emphasis on local artists, and they all wanted to know why they weren't in the issue, to which I had to reply again, "I had no idea you would be here, the organizers never gave me the list." And actually, the one artist they said would be there, wasn't.

Also, two bands who were included in the issue never showed up to play at the festival. And one band actually had the audacity to complain about the picture I had to pull off the internet since they didn't send me one. What the hell. Needless to say, it was frustrating.

Over all, I love doing the zine, and little set backs like this don't make me love it any less. Most people had a great response to the Holobora issue, and many of the bands that were included and who gave me their information thanked me generously for printing them. It feels good to have people appreciate the work, especially when I do it all by myself and pay for it out of my own pocket.

I don't want to complain, and I don't really want this blog to be seen as simply venting. I think the facts that the scene is so divided and unorganized really do hinder it and should seriously be considered worth fixing. I don't know who will step up to do the organization part, but the rest of us can start by supporting local music - all local music.