By Ed Staskus
The first thing Oliver and Emma’s father did when he pulled into the St. Ignatius High School parking lot on the near west side of Cleveland was park the car, get out, and take his children on a tour of the campus.
“It’s a lot different than when I was here,” he told them.
“When was that, dad?”
“The middle 1980s,” he said.
“That was another century,” Oliver said.
“That’s right.”
“That was another millennium,” Emma said. She was two years older than Oliver and knew more big words.
“That’s right, too, although both of you are making me feel old.”
“How is it different?” Oliver asked.
“It’s bigger,” their father said, looking around.
When St. Ignatius opened in 1886 as a school for Cleveland’s Catholic young men it was both a high school and a college. The college later became Jonn Carroll College and moved to the east side. St Ignatius stayed where it was in its Gothic edifice on W. 30th St. and Carrol Ave. The grounds got bigger over the years, expanding to fifteen acres. The Saint Mary of the Assumption Chapel was built in 1998 and the O’Donnell Athletic Complex was unveiled in 2001. The Welsh Academy, a middle school for urban boys, was established in the former Foursquare Church building in 2019. By then the campus had grown to nineteen buildings and three athletic fields on twenty three acres.
“Are you giving a speech today?” Emma asked.
“They asked me to speak at Career Day, but it’s not a speech, exactly, more like a panel discussion with other graduates followed up by questions from the students.”
Their father was an electrical engineer and brought home the bacon so the home fires stayed lit.
“Dad, would it be alright if we went to see the Franklin Castle while you give your speech?” Emma asked.
Oliver and Emma were the Monster Hunters of Lake County. No matter how scary, they couldn’t resist anyplace full of spooks and monsters, especially one that was old and creepy and that happened to be nearby.
“It’s not far away, so it should be all right. Be careful crossing streets and be back here in two-and-a-half hours.”
They were a block away when they found a Lime e-scooter with time still ticking on its clock. They had a short argument about who was going to pilot the e-scooter, an argument Emma won by hopping on it and grasping the handlebars. Oliver wrapped his arms around her waist from behind and they sped off in the bike lane. They went down Fulton Rd., turned on Woodbine Ave., went round at a traffic circle getting onto W. 38th St., and before they knew it they were at the Franklin Castle, which was on the north side of Franklin Blvd. They had gone about a mile.
“You’re not going to tell mom and dad we rode this scooter, are you?” Emma asked her brother.
“No way!” Oliver said.
They loved their parents more than anything, but didn’t love everything they said and did. They weren’t in love with crime and punishment, for sure. They thought it was unfair that they couldn’t discipline their parents, who made mistakes just like them, because of the size difference between them.
“It’s like Godzilla always says,” their friend Tommy One Shoe said. “Might makes right.”
Franklin Castle was a big stone house built in the early 1880s. It was built where a two-story wood house called Bachelor’s Hall had once stood before being torn down. Bachelor’s Hall was built by the Wolverton brothers. They fought in the Civil War with the Ohio Light Artillery. Only two of the four brothers survived the war. Only one came back to Cleveland. After he died and after Franklin Castle was built visitors reported seeing ghostly soldiers in faded uniforms in the backyard galloping on desperate horses.
The stone house was built by Hannes Tiedemann, a successful merchant and banker, for his family. His family was his mother, his wife Louise, and six children. His15-year-old daughter Emma died of diabetes. Then his mother Wiebeka died. In the space of no time he buried three more children who died of infectious diseases, two of them of measles. The last children, Dora and August, survived.
The diminished family lived in their new home on Franklin Blvd. until Louise died in 1895. Soon after the new century dawned Dora and August died. Their father retired to Steinberg, his sprawling summer house on Lake Erie in nearby Lakewood. He passed away in 1908, alone and worn out by tragedy. Franklin Castle became the home of the German Socialist Party. When nobody liked socialists anymore it became the German American League for Culture. Their singing club was very popular, as was the beer garden. Singing in the garden while waving a stein was always a good time. Everybody called it Eintracht Hall in those days.
After the Germans moved out in 1968 the Romano family moved in. The lady of the house was warned that “this domicile is evil and you shouldn’t have come. You should move out.” One winter day she sent her children to the top floor to play. When they came down they told their parents about finding a sad little girl in a ragged dress who asked for a cookie to cheer her up.
They searched the top floor but no child was found. When it happened again they locked the door and kept it locked. They started hearing organ music on weekends, even though there was no organ in the house. Their children woke up in the middle of the night to find their blankets being yanked off them by unseen hands. The family moved out in 1974 and the house was taken over by a man who began offering public tours of “Haunted Franklin Castle.”
“What’s so haunted about it?” Emma asked.
“Lights go on and off by themselves, mirrors suddenly fog up, voices can be heard in empty rooms, and doors fly off their hinge, for starters,” Oliver said.
“Let’s go inside and see,” Emma said.
“Does anybody live there?”
“When I asked dad, he said nobody lives there anymore.”
When they tried to get inside the house they discovered all the doors were locked. They knocked on the front door. They looked through windows. They knocked on the back door. Nobody answered.
They were scratching their heads outside the back door when Emma plucked two bobby pins out of her hair. The first pin was going to be a replacement for a key. She bent the rounded end until it was perpendicular to the two free ends. She stuck the rounded end into the key slot. It would act as a handle. She unbent and flattened the second pin, making a long straight pick. She bent one end slightly and slid the bent end into the top half of the keyhole, above the pin she had already inserted into the lock. Emma used her bobby pin to push the pins up, one at a time, until the cylinder was free to turn. She turned it with the first pin she had made into a handle. It was easy as pie. The door opened and they went inside.
“How did you learn to do that?” Oliver asked.
“It’s a secret.”
“No, tell me.”
“I’ll tell you when you’re 12-years-old like me.”
The back door suddenly slammed shut. The air got hot and gluey. It got dark as a tar pit. They heard heavy footsteps.
“Who has broken into my castle?” the voice of bad juju behind them said.
Next: Franklin Castle Walkabout
Ed Staskus posts monthly on 147 Stanley Street at http://www.147stanleystreet.com, Made in Cleveland http://www.clevelandohiodaybook.com, Down East http://www.redroadpei.com, and Lithuanian Journal http://www.lithuanianjournal.com. To get the site’s monthly feature in your in-box click on “Follow.”
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