Ku Klux Kindling

by Virginia Aabram, Head News Editor 

On the night of June 3, 1922, the Ku Klux Klan held an initiation rally at Fraser’s Wood in Plainfield, Ill.  About 50,000 Klansmen began arriving at the location, which was chosen for its ruralness and proximity to highways, at around 4 p.m.  The ceremony of initiation began at midnight with the arrival of the Grand Wizard and a cross burning – 3,000 people were accepted into the Klan that night.

A few hours after the rally in Plainfield began, the largest Catholic church in DuPage County went up in flames.  Sts. Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Church in Naperville was completely destroyed in the early hours of June 4 in what Naperville Sun writer Genevieve Towsley called, “Possibly the worst fire in Naperville history.”  This was the second time church property had been damaged by fire: the parish school was badly burnt in 1911. 

The June 8, 1922, edition of the Naperville Clarion newspaper described the scene that woke residents that morning: “Shortly after four o’clock last Sunday morning, June 4th [Pentecost Sunday], fire was discovered in the S.S. Peter and Paul Church by Miss Bertha Keller, whose home is just east of that structure. The alarm was spread to the pastor, Rev. B.J. Schuette and to nearby members of the parish, and the fire department was summoned. When Father Schuette opened the church door the flames had already developed into a roaring furnace, and the sanctuary at the east end of the building was practically destroyed. Nothing from the main building was saved… The statuary, paintings, altar and church furnishings, all of great of intrinsic value, as well as priceless from association, were destroyed. [sic]  When firemen arrived it was evident it would be impossible to save the church building… As the flames began to eat into the tower, the eyes of hundreds or onlookers were fixed upon the spire… the spire swung slowly to the north, then with a twisting motion turned toward the east and fell squarely between the standing walls.”

The KKK rally and the church burning were never formally connected: the cause of the fire was never proven to be arson, though investigators ruled out electrical and heating causes. However, inferences can be made due to the political climate of the time.  The early 1920s were a time of anti-Catholic and nativism movements.  An influx of Catholic immigrants from eastern Europe prompted the revitalization of the Klan, which (along with holding the racist views for which it’s most famously known) was fervently anti-Catholic and anti-immigration.  It isn’t too far-fetched to believe that some Klansmen may have gotten drunk on supremacy ideology and decided to burn the largest Catholic church in the county.

The church was rebuilt into the massive gothic revival structure that today stands on the corner of Benton Avenue and Ellsworth Street.  The bells that were destroyed in the fire were only recently replaced in 2013.  The largest bell, weighing 2,500 pounds, bears a Latin inscription that translates to “I, having been destroyed by the terrible fire, rose in honor of the princes of the apostles to call the faithful.”

Budding Bewilderment

by Riddhi Andurkar, News Editor

In 1993, Joe and Kelly Tiberi had a dream to open an art gallery somewhere in Downtown Naperville.  

There were a number of strip shopping malls created, leaving many of the shopping areas in Downtown Naperville in economic doom.  In the Mid 1970s, the city council made a bold and controversial decision on removing all the parking meters in downtown and offering free parking for all its customers.  This decision not only allowed Naperville merchants to survive, but thrive.  

When the Tiberis saw the 100-year-old, four bedroom, white stucco cottage west of the Washington and Benton Streets intersection, they knew that this was the place for them.

Once they had occupied the cottage, they completely transformed it into an inviting gift shop called the Red Geranium, named after Kelly’s favorite flower.  

The Tiberis decided to live in the basement of the cottage, which was conveniently finished and had been rented out by the previous owners. Despite Kelly’s bright decorations, the room carried a murky, cold atmosphere that gave them goosebumps for no reason.  

Their white Persian cat hated going down to the basement and needed much persuasion to go downstairs.

The first signs of paranormal activity began within the first few weeks of the grand opening of their shop.  

Objects disappeared, reappearing in places they were unexpected to be found.  This was not like the typical situation where people forgot where they put something and later found it.  For example, Kelly would set down a pair of scissors while wrapping a gift and turn around.  When she turned back around, she found  that they disappeared, and when she went to look for them, found them in odd locations like down in the basement or perfectly in the middle of their bed.

The oddest disappearance was of Kelly’s 30inch by 30inch painting that she had created herself. The Tiberis kept the painting on an easel toward the front of their shop.  One night, as the Tiberis were going through their nightly routine of closing and locking the shop.  The painting was still on the easel.  They came back up the next morning and the painting was gone.  The windows and doors were locked, the money in the cash register was still intact and nothing else in the shop was touched, showing no sign of forced entry.  They never saw the painting again.  

Another odd situation showing signs of paranormal activity was when Kelly began to occasionally see a dark silhouette of a tall man lurking at the edge of her vision.  The moment she turned toward the figure, it vanished from her sight.  This would give her alarming jolts, and she initially blamed it on her vision playing tricks on her.  A visit to the doctor told her that nothing was wrong with her vision.  More often than not, she spotted the man next to her stove, watching her.

She had many arguments with her husband over this topic, and she finally called her friend who was an expert in feng shui, the ancient Chinese art of detecting positive and negative energy flows, for a grand tour of the shop.  As soon as the friend entered the Red Geranium, she stopped in her tracks and she knew something was wrong about the house.  She did not say anything because she did not want to disappoint her friend, but when she was being led down to the basement, she could not go any further as she sensed a lot of negativity.  

Kelly then called in a psychic to further investigate whether the reaction that the feng shui expert had was real or not.  She did not say anything to the psychic, as her decision needed to be unbiased.  The psychic too stopped in her tracks immediately after entering.  

She marched to the basement, went right to the stove and declared “A man committed suicide here.  And I can tell that in the last moments of his life, he changed his mind.  He realized what a stupid idea this was, and he tried to stop it, he wanted to live! But he was too late.  His body was dead but his dark, despairing spirit was… and still is… fighting to live.  And now he is trapped, grounded here in this house, unable to move on.”  

Kelly was very upset and called members of the Naperville Ghost Society for an investigation.  They used an infrared camera to attempt to take pictures of paranormal activity in the Red Geranium.  They found the shadow of the man the psychic was talking about.

As soon as the Tiberis heard that there was a ghost living in the house, the Red Geranium was up for sale.  The sold it quickly and moved out.  

A few weeks later, Kelly got a call from the Naperville Police Department saying that one of the windows in the Red Geranium basement was broken.  When Kelly visited the house, she found that the window was broken, but the shattered glass was spread out on the outside of the house not the inside.  

She concluded that the ghost was trying to escape from the house, but did so unsuccessfully.  A number of psychics have sensed the presence of the man, and his shadow was captured many times by infrared cameras.

Information for this story was collected from Haunted Naperville by Diane A. Ladley.

Off Track

by Zain Habib, Co-Business Manager

The Advance Flyer made an unscheduled stop at the Naperville Train Station because of mechanical issues. Minutes later, an unexpecting Exposition Flyer flew down the tracks at 80 mph when the conductor noticed the dormant Advance Flyer a quarter mile down the tracks.

What followed in the next minutes will go down as the single most tragic event in Naperville history.

The Exposition Flyer rammed into the waiting Advance Flyer at a speed of 45 mph, which resulted in an explosion that caused 45 deaths and over 100 injuries. A fire raged on in the front passenger cars of both trains, while the cars in the back derailed and spread out in different directions. People spilled onto the tracks from all sides, many of them carrying critical injuries. People from the surrounding area rushed out.

The April 25, 1946 tragedy is considered the worst in Burlington Railway history. For years, the crash had been forgotten. Maybe it’s because none of the casualties were Naperville natives. Or maybe because it didn’t receive much media coverage due to the celebrations of the end of World War II.

Either way, the news of the crash disappeared from media sources after two weeks, and the crash itself became all but forgotten. For years, the track went on as normal, as if the wreck never happened, until one man spoke up for the people who died there.

Author Charles Spinner recently wrote a book describing the event. “Tragedy at the Loomis Street Crossing” recounts the day the crash occurred and the events following the crash.

This book, considered his seminal work, is five years’ worth of research put into about 200 pages. The book was released quietly but quickly gained popularity, especially in the Naperville area.

With Spinner at the lead, a committee decided to construct a memorial for the victims.

De-bunked

by Riddhi Andurkar, News Editor

Rumor has it that a bomb shelter exists underneath the football stadium at Naperville Central.

According to the Daily Herald, there were myths that there was an underground tunnel leading to the football stadium, but those were debunked by dean of student activities Lynne Nolan. The article mentions that there is in fact a space that was used as a bomb shelter, but never mentions its location as being under the football field. The bunker is said to be similar to other bomb shelters in the United States.

Social studies teacher Jane Thompson says that there is no traditional bomb shelter under the football field, however, the basement of the school was designated as the community fallout shelter. She said that the myth that there are tunnels from the school to the football field has been around for a long time.

“During the early years of the Cold War, the U.S. and the Soviet Union both possessed atomic weapons,” Thompson said. “The fear was real for the time period and the practice of ‘duck and cover’ was as normal as a fire drill.”

The bomb shelter rumor may have started when coaches started calling the basement “the tunnel” and the athletes thought they were really going to an underground tunnel to get their equipment.

When the old building was being renovated, architects noticed that the windows were leaded, preventing flow of radiation into the building. They had said that having leaded windows was common in most school buildings built during the 1950s in case there was an atomic attack nearby.

In summary, the rumor that a bomb shelter existed somewhere underneath this school in preparation for possible atomic attacks is true, but myths that say that the shelter existed beneath the football stadium or that there were tunnels leading to the football stadium have been proven to be false.

All art by: by Sanya Rupani, Head Photo/Art and Features Editor