On the evenings of October 23rd and 24th, guests gathered in a restored 1892 Queen Anne house in Lowry Hill East to hear folklorist Trilby Busch tell ghost stories. Owners Christina Langsdorf and Ezra Gray staged the house with creepy Halloween accoutrements and set out trays of “mummies”, “ghosts”, and candy as refreshments.  The storytelling itself was lighted only by candles and a single lamp.

Ezra tells guests about the house, built by master builder P.C. Richardson–who coincidentally was born on the same day and in the same year as T.P. Healy.

Punkins tried to scare guests away–but didn’t.

Cheese ghosts.

Mummy wienies.

Creepy figures look out of the breakfront at guests.

A spooky figure keeps watch over the audience.

Trilby telling about a haunting in the Wedge.

From the front parlor.

Trilby retold ghost stories she has collected about houses in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Duluth, and smaller towns in Minnesota. One of the stories was about a ghost who had haunted a house in the neighborhood. On Saturday night, when the storytelling ended, Christina announced that their eight-day clock in the front parlor (which had been wound up that afternoon) had stopped short of 8:30, as Trilby was telling this story. The clock had worked perfectly for years without stopping. Had the ghost dropped by to alert them that he is still around?

The parlor clock, stopped at 8:29.

OMG! The photographer accidentally captured this image as he was shooting the event. Get out the EMF meter!

–Event photographs by Richard Mueller

–Decoration photographs by Christina Langsdorf.