The Roff House: Much More Than Your Typical Haunted House
By: H F Sylaj
Tags: Supernatural, Halloween, History, Illinois, Spiritualism

Mary Lurancy (Rancy) Vennum

Then, in 1877, a young neighbor by the name of Mary Lurancy Vennum (nicknamed Rancy) began to suffer the same cataleptic fits that Mary Roff had. She was only twelve (born April 16, 1864) when she began to suffer from insomnia and hear voices calling her name when no one was there. She had severe stomach pains. Trances soon followed when she would see spirits floating above her. Her body would convulse so badly that her feet would reach her head.

Rancy’s condition worsened to a point where she would be in a state of catalepsy for hours and even days at a time. She would have fits up to twelve times a day. When she would regain consciousness, she too would claim that she had communicated with the spirit world, just as Mary Roff had.

Mary Lurancy (Rancy) Vennum, photo from americanhauntingsink.com

Also like Mary, the doctors could find nothing wrong with the young Rancy. It was recommended to her parents that she also be sent to an asylum for treatment. Since no medical reason for the fits could be found, it was assumed she was insane.

During her fits, Rancy would often speak in different voices and have different mannerisms. She claimed to be a 63-year-old woman named Katrina Hogan from Germany on one occasion and a young man named Willie Canning on another.

One account I read said that some inhabitants of the town intervened and begged that Rancy not be sent to the asylum and recommended a different kind of doctor. Other versions say that Asa Roff heard of what was happening to Rancy Vennum and he knew he had dealt with this before.

Since Asa Roff’s daughter’s death, he had grown to regret that he had sent her to the asylum and felt it had led to her death. He did not want to see this happen to another young woman. He had become a Spiritualist and had grown to believe his daughter had actually been a gifted spiritual medium and not insane.

Asa Roff visited the Vennum family and begged Rancy’s parents not to send her away. He got them to agree to let her be examined by a spiritualist who was also a medical doctor, Dr. E. Winchester Stevens.

Rancy’s parents, photo from The Occult Museum

Rancy’s parents, possibly out of desperation, decided to go the spiritualist route and had her see Dr. Stevens, among other spiritualist practitioners. They were devout Methodists, so this was a hard decision for them. Spiritualism was condemned by their faith.

Stevens wrote up his findings, at the time, in The Religio-Philosophical Journal and later in the book The Watseka Wonder, published in 1887. He described the case as, “the most remarkable case of spirit return and manifestation ever recorded in history.”

photo from Internet Archive

Rancy’s symptoms grew even more strange and severe. A newspaper published an article in which they stated:

“She could also place her hand on a book and without seeing it would point to any letter that was named. These spells would last sometimes an hour or two, then she became quite rational and appeared as well as ever…This continued until sometime in January last, when, after one of those trances, she declared that she was an old German woman named Katrina, but this illusion soon vanished and she became Mary Roff, a young lady who died twelve years ago.” -“Mesmeric Mysteries,” Cincinnati Enquirer

According to Stevens, Rancy had entered a trance where she had encountered the spirit of the deceased Mary Roff. Rancy had allowed the spirit of Mary to possess her. Mary (talking through Rancy) stated that she would possess the young woman while “her [Rancy’s] soul was being healed.” When she was asked who she was, Rancy replied, “I am Mary Roff.”

The Roffs heard of Rancy claiming to be their long-departed daughter and they went to visit her at the Vennum home. When they arrived, Rancy grew very excited to see them and demanded that she be allowed to go and live with them.

Not knowing what else to do, Rancy’s parents allowed her to go and stay with the Roffs. While she was with them she was able to recognize family and friends of Mary that Rancy did not know and had never met. She was able to recognize items that belonged to the dead Mary. One time, Asa left out a velvet headband and Rancy recognized it. She declared that it was what she had worn when her hair was short. Rancy had no way of knowing about this since it would have happened before she was born.

Rancy remembered details of when the Roff family lived in Texas before they came to Illinois. Things that Rancy herself could not know of. Rancy even knew intimate Roff family secrets that the young woman could have never have known in normal circumstances. Just as bizarre, Rancy seemed to not know her own family or friends anymore.

photo from 4GirlsandaGhost Blog

Rancy continued to live with the Roff family, convincing everyone in town that she was possessed by the spirit of Mary Roff. She stayed with the Roff family for 100 days. Then on May 7, Rancy promptly stated to the Roffs that she (meaning Mary’s spirit) would be leaving on May 22 at eleven at night and would return Rancy’s soul to her own body.

At the predicted time, Rancy returned to her old self and wished to go home to her family. She did so and returned to her old life, cured of the fits that had plagued her.

According to the University of Illinois Libray, Rancy went on to live a happy and healthy life with no further issues or episodes of the supernatural. This is countered by Dr. Stevens's account in his book that claims that Mary Roff inhabited Rancy on more occasions in her lifetime. Apparently, Mary would possess Rancy during childbirth which resulted in painless labors for Rancy.

photo from The Occult Museum

Fortin, in her account in the Chicago Tribune, states that after Rancy’s possession, “her family found her healthy and well and to be more intelligent and polite than before the ghostly possession. They believed she was cured by spirit power.”

The Binning Family, photo from Pinterest

Rancy went on to marry George Binning. She moved to Kansas with her husband and had eleven children, dying in Los Angeles, CA, in 1952 at the age of eighty-eight.

Rancy in her elder years photo from alexmatsuo.com

The Roff House: haunted or not?

I am actually not sure why the house is considered to be haunted. From everything I read, the spookiness comes from the story of the girls and their possessions, nothing is due to the house itself.

Strutz claimed the house is haunted due to his interviews with the current owner and his own experiences on a visit there but other than his account, I was not able to find any accounts of hauntings. Though the house does have a fascinating history of its own, even without ghosts.

In 1868, the Roff family built the Italianate-style house in Watseka, Illinois. It was the first house to be built in the area. Watseka is a small town approximately ninety miles south of Chicago. It is situated between Interstates 57 and 65 which means that most people will never find their way there unless they mean to.

After the Roffs, C.W. Raymond owned the house from 1912 to 1939. Raymond was a lawyer and a federal judge in the Indian Territories of Oklahoma during the McKinley administration. It is said that he faked his own death and smuggled himself back to Illinois in a hearse train after receiving serious backlash for voting to implement a sales tax in the territory.

From 1930 to 1962 the Roff House was the home of Katherine Clifton who was Raymond’s step-daughter. Clifton was a wealthy farm owner, aviator, and philanthropist. From her travels around the globe, she brought back rocks that were used in the construction of the grotto behind the house.

grotto behind the house, photo from Airbnb

Ivan and Verna Looker inherited the house from Clifton. In 1999, Ivan Looker told Fortin in the Chicago Tribune, that he had never experienced anything supernatural in the house. He and his wife raised two daughters in there. They sold the house in 2005 to John Whitman expecting it to be torn down.

Whitman had other plans for the aging home. He has since completely restored it and listed it on Airbnb (starting at $204 a night). It has been included in almanacs listing haunted houses and recently was awarded a Richard Driehaus Historic Preservation Award.

Whitman seems to believe that the house is haunted. He says:

“Occasionally people will hear a voice from a room where no one is and people will get strange recordings. … People have conducted seances here to see if they can have contact with something else and from my own experience with the house, that may very well be possible.” (See Whitman’s Facebook page as well as the Airbnb listing for more pictures of the interior and exterior of the house and to book a visit.)

Regardless of if the house is haunted or not, the story of the young women involved with it was enough to grab my interest. My reading on the subject did not fail to deliver.