This is an article from Carl's previous blog, Conversations Across the Table, originally posted on Friday, February 18, 2005
I have written some about my Dad’s interest and experience with ghosts, mental telepathy and spiritual phenomena.
He was a very interesting man. Aside from making his living as a business man and investor, he was an inventor, a musician, a singer, a wonderful story teller, a wrestler, an athlete, and a devoted horticulturist.
He loved trees. And he talked about the tree elementals he felt and sometimes saw. He was a natural pagan and he would sometimes go naked except for a pair of rubber boots and run through the trees during rain storms.
Over the years he hybridized many varieties of nut trees – walnuts, hickories, pecans, and most especially that which he named “Hazelberts” – a cross between varieties of the American Hazel and the European Filbert. The Hazelbert was hardier and a more prolific producer of high protein content nuts than either of its parents. It was his hope to introduce a new agricultural crop into the United States that would out-produce corn and wheat, be more resistant to disease and drought, require less labor and be organically raised.
For a number of years we marketed a Hazelbert nut butter – like peanut butter but a lot tastier. But we lacked the ability and capital to turn the invention into a true field crop.
Aside from nut trees, he planted and later hybridized varieties of apricot, peach, and plum, and we had an orchards of apples, figs, grapes, cherries and mulberries. He went further and developed new varieties of nut pine and spruce. We had just about every kind of tree that would grow naturally in the environment, and some that shouldn’t have survived our winters – like the fig in particular.
He eventually wrote about it and self-published his book, Growing Nuts in the North.
It was early in his adult life that he bought several hundred acres of mixed farm and wooded land near River Falls Wisconsin, and founded the Hazel Hills Nursery Co. He then built a large log cabin – bringing in huge pine logs from northern Wisconsin and having them cut and treated on the premises. The foundation was made of native stone, and he did all the electrical and plumbing work, and crafted all the hinges, locks and door handles of wrought iron.
This became our summer home. We had a swimming pool, a tennis court, riding stables, a herd of goats which were the source for the goat milk we kids consumed. He added an artificial pond stocked with fish we caught on vacation trips, built his own wind generator, a water turbine, and we had a huge steam engine in a sub-basement that likewise produced electricity stored in banks of batteries so that we had electric power back before the time the REA brought it to the surrounding area.
What does all this have to do with Mrs. Penny’s Rocking Chair?
Long before the log cabin was finished, he had a small house on the property, and would spend weekends and much other time living there during all this activity. It was pretty primitive (no plumbing, no electricity, and a wood stove for heat and cooking) and my Mom and us kids mostly lived in St. Paul. He commuted back and forth every week – so that he could work in the family pharmaceutical business.
Well, it can get lonely out in the country, and he developed a friendship with the nearest neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. James C. Penny. No, not THE J. C. Penny of department store fame, but a hardy farm family mostly running a small dairy herd and raising vegetables.
One of early memories is of Dad and Mr. Penny sampling from a huge garlic – cutting into it with a pocket knife and smacking their lips while chewing large pieces! And Dad later confessing that "it was awfully strong!"
Mrs. Penny was a spiritualist and a natural medium. She had the heavy build that seems a characteristic of many physical mediums – those that produce physical phenomena. In the living room was a rocking chair, and when Mrs. Penny felt the spirit, that chair would start rocking, and would spell out the answers to questions – just like the table tipping that I described previously.
Mr. Penny did a lot of work at our place during the early years, and Dad would often have supper with the Penny family. Then they would commonly retire to the living room to talk about things. And sometimes the rocking chair would start rocking and Mrs. Penny would talk about spirits and receive messages.
It was a “mood setter” for the long walk back home through the dark woods!
Dad told of one time he was startled to see a green glow in the woods beside his path, and that he was frankly scared out of his wits and ran the rest of the way home! The next day he returned to the spot, and found a rotting tree stump. He broke pieces off it and returned to the house, and that evening he saw the same green glow emanating from the pieces. A natural phosphorescence.
It was a fascinating story, and I would always look for rotting wood on my many kid-exploration of the woods as I walked the old stream bed to find agates. I never did find any with that green glow. I did find Indian graves, and hoped to see the spirits of the people who lived before. I never did.
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