Scary tales add to farmhouse mystery
Haunted Deseret storytellers relate ghostly goings-on
"It's supposed to be the most haunted house in Utah," said Michael Bennett, a professional actor who helped write the scripts and train actors for the storytelling experience for the park's Halloween event. And whether or not you believe in ghosts, "We've taken those little adventures and turned them into a great story. It's a new way of doing the haunted house a classic ghost story."
Guided by the glow from a lantern and the faint lights of downtown, guests take a hayride through the park, stopping at three historic homes along the dark, tree-lined route. The apparition of Young's 19th wife, Ann Eliza Webb, purported to be lingering in the old farmhouse, is just one of the myths, legends or ghost stories actors tell in first-person accounts.
If anything, the 76-year-old Bennett says, "we give them an alternative to the murder and mayhem" Utahns can find in local haunted houses. There's a truly spine-tingling chill in an old-fashioned ghost tale, he said.
"We might not have told the stories as scary as they could have been told, but (the guests') minds make it much, much worse," said Curt Lytle, one of the storytellers. Lytle's deep voice, trembling laugh and story "Undertakings" (which begins: "I have an obsession with coffins") put guests on the edge of their seats during one storytelling session.
A Young Women's group from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Winder 9th Ward found the evening entertaining. Festivities start with music from a live band, square dancing, hot cider and warm doughnuts. But once the sun begins to set, the park is transformed from a historical village into a spooky ghost town.
"It's so scary because it's possible it could be real," said Kathryn Klossner, 13. Friend Chelsea Gourley, also 13, agreed: "It's something you'll be thinking about later."
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