"Gypsy Curse" is Feared

Detroit Free Press, October 22, 1913

Refuge Taken in Law to Put Stop to Mystic Passes

Fearing the workings of the dreaded "gypsy curse,' Mrs. Esther Holson, of 312 Winder street, took refuge in the law Tuesday, and got a warrant for Mrs. Mary Rylick, a fortune teller.

Mrs. Bolson and the fortune teller live in the same house. Mrs. Rylick, it is alleged, exchanged her professional services for Mrs. Holson's money at regular intervals.

Since Mrs. Holson ceased her visits to the fortune teller, she says Mrs. Rylick has stopped her in the hall, made mystic, fateful passes at her and projected evil spirits through the wall which separates their rooms.

Wife is Kept in Italy By "Witch"

Detroit Free Press, September 20, 1914

It's difficult to know whether the superstitions of old Europe which came to the new world were a byproduct of ignorance or just a predisposition against husband-husbandry. In this case it's likely a bit of both as a matter of convenience. 

Peculiar Plea Brings Husband Divorce in Circuit Court.

Because a "witch" told her not to cross the ocean, Mrs. Vito Basirico refused to join her husband in America, and the disappointed spouse sorrowfully received a decree of divorce Saturday from Judge Hosmer.

Giuseppi Basirico, the husband, said he wrote her that a much more potent American witch predicted dreadful things if she did not come, but Vito probably thought the ills he wished her to fly to might be worse than those she would not fly from. She would not leave sunny Italy, despite the three crosses Giuseppi placed on his last letter to her, which were to assure her of his undying love.

Separated From 'Hexed' Parents

Detroit Free Press, July 24, 1929 (enlarge)

So you've got a plague, eh? Well, at least you're not being pursued by a witch. Detroit of the 1920s was a mystical malaise of voodoo, occultism, cults and mob murder. Not that Detroit was alone in such incidents, as the last article shown here attests to, concerning the Burgess murder in Kalamazoo not long before this incident, as well as the Evangelista cult slayings in Detroit where the entire family was decapitated.

(enlarge)

In the summer of 1929 Roy and Della Tomlin went to Detroit police with their 5 children (Alec, 9, Elvina, 4, Evelyn, 16, Clice, 1 and Leona, 8) begging for protection from a witch and were promptly placed under psychiatric care at Receiving Hospital.

(enlarge)

According to their 16-year-old daughter Evelyn the episode started with a hex from an old Livonia woman with an evil eye near their previous home at Plymouth and Farmington Rds. She was capable of moving tables and making a broomstick dance and had warned them that perhaps she was a witch, PROOF!.

Apparently there was a ghost, too. After the family moved to Detroit a white visage appeared at a window in their home at 15016 Bramell Avenue. Roy chased the ghost down the street and struck at it but his hand went through the white figure to the astonishment of the afflicted family. Or so they said.

Detroit Free Press, July 26, 1929

Hospital officials thought otherwise and Delia was later adjudged insane, having previously suffered mental failings. I could find no determination upon Roy but his wife destined for the asylum at Eloise or Pontiac, though I can find no record of which she was eventually sentenced to.

Detroit Free Press, July 25, 1929

The Big Hill

Detroit Free Press, March 30, 1890

This story of a treasure found and lost on the "Big Hill" by supernatural means on the outskirts of old Detroit Village as foretold to three men--one later became a prominent County official--by a soothsayer, guided by a rubber ball and recounted here by Luke Sharp ("look sharp" AKA novelist Robert Barr) is probably bunkum but who can know for sure.

I included the full page below for the excellent Wonderland advert featuring the "Mammoth Hoosier Boy" Chauncey Morlan, esquimaux, Col. Fisher the prize package midget and Zip (Barnum's What-is-it?) and Ash (The Spotted New Zealander), noted freaks who made their first appearance in Detroit in a Burlesque Boxing Bout. The two semi-human, semi-savage, semi-civilized beings. Their words, not mine.

(enlarge)

(enlarge)

Wormer & Moore's Almanack & Le Loup Garou

Detroit Free Press, March 7, 1926 (enlarge)

Gundella wrote of Le Loup Garou (were-wolf) as did Marie Caroline Watson Hamlin in her classic Legends of Le Détroit but Wormer & Moore, in the February 1926 issue of their Almanack, claim to have written the definitive text of the half man-wolf skulking Grosse Pointe. Gimme!