top of page
58AB6717-12B1-41B8-AEDF-020AFF65E33E.jpg
Jul 17, 20238 min read

Calvary Cemetery Investigation

This blog post was written by Whitney Dankemeyer.


Founded in 1857, the Calvary Cemetery in Milwaukee is the oldest Roman Catholic cemetery in Wisconsin. It is named Calvary after Calvary Hill; the hill Jesus is believed to have carried the cross on. With architectural work done by Erhard Brielmaier, this place became a designated Milwaukee Landmark in 1981. The Gothic Revival Gate House and Romanesque Revival Chapel (designed by Brielmaier) are still standing to this day. There was originally a large cross where the chapel stands before it was built in 1899. Today, it is currently one of the ten most endangered buildings in the state.

In 1903, Rev. Idziego Tarasiewicza, founder of St. Casimir’s Parish, passed away. He was buried in the vault directly beneath the altar in the crypt below the chapel. He was the first and last entombment in the crypt. Today, the crypt is walled up and abandoned. No one knows for sure why the crypt was closed, but it is rumored it was due to not having climate control. It is said the Wisconsin weather made it difficult to keep the crypt open, so it was closed in the 1950s.

The Calvary Cemetery is a final resting place for a lot of victims of tragedy. In 1883, a fire took place at the Newhall House. 76 of these victims were Catholic and buried at Calvary. The non-Catholic victims killed were buried at the nearby Forest Home Cemetery. On September 8, 1860, another 300 lives were taken when a steamer named Lady Elgin collided with a schooner. The steamer sank into Lake Michigan, taking all of its passengers with it. The victims of this wreck are also buried at Calvary.

In addition to these tragic stories, there are another two that caught our attention. The first story is of Father Walter H. Halloran, who is buried at the bottom of Jesuit hill. When he was a young priest, he was asked to partake in the exorcism of a young boy named Ronald Doe in 1949. He was the strong male presence that held the boy down while the others exorcized the demon. Halloran went on to live his life teaching at Marquette University in the 60s. He passed away in 2005, never completely weighing in on whether he believed there was actually a demon possessing the boy. This is one of two exorcist stories that inspired the movie “The Exorcist.”

The other story we’re going to share is of the Horan family. In 1880, The Horan family moved to Whitewater, Wisconsin from the Koshkonong area. Within four years of the family living there, all but the daughter Nellie were dead. Judith, the mother, who started experiencing great agony and was the first to pass in 1882. Physicians later found her pain to be consistent with poisoning. Six weeks after Judith passed, the father Joseph died. He was experiencing severe spasms and convulsions leading up to his death. When he died, he left the money to his four unmarried daughters.

Between the sisters, there was Agnes, Anna, Bridget Ellen (Nellie), and Gertrude, who did not live in the Whitewater area. Agnes was the youngest and expected to receive the most money out of all of them. However, just two months after Joseph passed away, Agnes died at the age of 17. In 1884, two years after Agnes died, Anna fell ill. After Nellie had visited her, she passed away a few days later. People began growing suspicious of Nellie, so when a woman came forward and said she saw Nellie buying Strychnine from a nearby drugstore, they immediately ran tests. It was discovered through chemical analysis that Anna had Strychnine in her stomach. Nellie was immediately prosecuted for the murder of her family.

There are rumors that Nellie confessed to killing her family and one other unknown victim, but some say it was falsely reported. She ended up not serving any jail time, was acquitted, and married a man named John Byrnes. She lived into her 70s before she died of natural causes on October 23, 1938. She was buried next to the rest of her family.

There are no reports of any serious hauntings at Calvary Cemetery, but we were intrigued by the story of Father Halloran and Ronald Doe. When we arrived on Saturday, July 8, 2023, that was the first plot we went to after scanning the premises. Halloran was at the bottom of the hill the chapel stood on, amongst all the other priests on each side of him. We immediately pulled out our dowsing rods and asked if he would like to speak with us. We told him to cross for yes and very quickly, the rods separated and bounced off Swan’s shoulders. We asked one more time for clarification, and the dowsing rods would not budge. In fact, they never crossed. It is said he didn’t answer many questions about this exorcism when he was alive, so we respected his decision to not speak about his experience in the afterlife too.

We decided to explore the area a little more, so once we did that, we ended up at the bottom of the other side of the hill. We pulled out the dowsing rods again and, to be respectful, we asked who in the cemetery wanted to have a conversation with us. The rods would guide us in multiple directions, but we told the spirits to cross them when they wanted us to stop. When the rods crossed, we were standing in front of the Drew family plots. This family was born in Ireland and died in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

After getting confirmation that this is who wanted to speak with us, we set up our cat balls and the Estes Method. We placed a cat ball in front of the mother’s plot and on each of the ledges of the staircase in front of their headstones. The left ledge of the staircase is where we also propped up the spirit box, in case any spirits wanted to utilize the temperature gauge feature while communicating.

Not even a few seconds after Swan put the blindfold and headphones on, she reiterated one of the spirits saying, “Talk to them.” Nicole and I decided to jump right in. She had her phone set up to record the three of us while we surrounded the spirit box.

We asked them if they wanted to talk to us and they said “Yeah.” Before we began our session, we set boundaries with our guides to only allow the Drew family to communicate so there were no interruptions. Whichever one of the Drew family members this was, they said they had an album taken. We tried to ask them which one it was, but they never shared more details with us.

They at one point told us to listen, and while saying, “One of the listeners,” the temperature gauge on the spirit box sounded. Eventually, Swan said “Wife,” and we remembered one of the cat balls was placed in front of the mother. I asked for confirmation that it was the wife we were speaking to, and Swan responded, “Well yeeeeeah.” The Mother and wife's name was Ellen Brown Drew.

Further into the conversation, Swan heard Ellen say, “Up on.” Nicole asked if she meant up on the hill, but I thought maybe she was referring to the spirit box on the ledge of the stairs. I pointed at it, and Swan said “Meee.” Without much pause, we got “Can we talk about this?” We told her yes and right away received “How could you?” I asked, “How could we what?” and Nicole suspected there was spiritual conflict going on. The spirit responded, “He borrowed money.”

Ellen wasn’t the only person we continued to speak with because Swan did say she thought she heard three people speaking at the same time. The temperature gauge went off after that. We made sure to clarify our boundaries and asked that only one person in the Drew family spoke to us at a time. I then asked if whoever was coming forward could say their name over the spirit box. We never got a response.

Randomly, Swan said the word “Sunday.” Nicole brought up that the next day was Sunday, and I followed up by asking the spirit if they went to church. Unsure if this is still Ellen, they responded, “Easy” and “Providing.” I asked if they provided for their family while Nicole asked them if they provided for the church. They responded, “African wildlife.” We thought this was a strange response at first, but Nicole mentioned that some Catholics will go to Africa to spread the gospel. We were never able to find further research on Ellen, her family, or if they ever went to Africa, despite Ellen telling us she went “For one.”

I tried asking who the other two people were. At that same time, Nicole said she was going to get up and make sure the phone was still recording our session. While Nicole was getting up, the spirit said “Go ahead” to her. Spirit never did answer the question I asked about the other two people being present.

The sun was beginning to set, and the spirits said, “Wrap it up here” and “Aren’t very fast.” We asked if it was because of the time, and they threw out some numbers. We believe the numbers could’ve been military time now, but during the investigation we thought they were dates from their time period. They also said, “Ready for home, free” and “Did you like it?” As in their cemetery. We told them we loved it.

To our surprise, the spirits started to get physical, but not in a bad way. Swan said she felt fingertips touching the top of her head. At the same time, the word she heard come through the spirit box was “Touching.” I did think a spirit touched me, but when we looked back at the footage there was a fly that landed on my tooshie. Debunked.

I asked if anyone had anything they wanted to say before we left, and Swan said, “The downside.” I asked, “Of what?” and Swan said, “Love.” My follow up question was what advice they had on love. They insisted I needed a boy, but I respectfully shut that idea down. That was our indicator that we were still speaking with Ellen.

This is when things started to get physical again. Swan swore up and down that she heard Ellen whisper into her ear. Even with the female spirit whispering, she still heard the words “And now!” come through. Nicole teased “For the grand finale” and the spirit said “Wait. Fool!” In that exact moment, from the opposite side of the path in a cemetery alone, a spirit tossed a pebble in our direction. Luckily for us, we also captured this on camera.

While the rock was being thrown, the word Portland was said. We skipped over this during the investigation, but later researched possible places in Ireland with the name Portland. The only thing we could find was Portland, County Tipperary in Ireland. We have not been able to link this location to the Drew family.

I asked Ellen if she threw the rock, and the response was “Me” and “Wanna have fun?” We asked her to move one of the cat balls next and she teased “Oh come on, what are we?” We joked back saying they were our friends. Ellen even said “Friend” back to us.

We let Swan have her body back and thanked Ellen and the rest of the Drew family for speaking with us. We appreciated them giving us something extra to remember from our trip. We are not sure if there are other families at Calvary that are just as active as the Drew’s, but there’s only one way for you to find out! Make the trip yourself!

Thanks for reading!


Supporting Links:

Comments

Coven.png

Who is Two Halves and Nicole?

Two Halves and Nicole is a midwestern paranormal group who uses history to validate the paranormal on their investigations.

Let the posts
come to you.

Thanks for submitting!

  • Instagram
  • TikTok
bottom of page