Post by Joanna on Jan 5, 2015 17:26:22 GMT -5
Phantom Black Cat Prowls Ohio Mansion
The people who operate Perkins Stone Mansion in Akron, Ohio, are used to things that go bump in the night. But things that dart into people’s paths and brush against their legs are another matter. For about a year and a half, staff members and volunteers at the Summit County Historical Society have reported encountering what they believe is the ghost of a dark-colored cat in the reputedly haunted mansion just west of downtown. Sometimes they see a cat’s form. Sometimes they hear a meow or a distinctive sneeze. One felt something brush against his leg during, of all things, a paranormal tour.
They think they know the identity of the mysterious resident: the spirit of Simon Purrkins, a black cat that once prowled the mansion’s grounds as the historical society’s unofficial chief executive. The sightings started around June 2013, some eight months after Simon died. “I just thought that was coincidental,” said Leianne Neff Heppner, the society’s executive director and one of the many humans Simon once held in thrall. However, Simon’s return makes perfect sense to her: from the time employees rescued him as a skittish kitten in 1998 until he moved east with his owners, he spent most of his time in the historical society’s offices and on its grounds. “He was such a fixture on the property,” she said. Besides, the mansion is reputed to harbor visitors from the spiritual realm. Simon was a social cat who might have wanted company in the afterlife. Heppner has not crossed paths with Simon’s spirit, but she’s heard about enough experiences to give her pause.
Volunteer coordinator Melinda Sedelmeyer’s first encounter came this fall as she was turning off the lights after a tour of the mansion – a home built for Col. Simon Perkins and a place his feline namesake once roamed. Sedelmeyer looked down and saw a cat, but in that first instant, it didn’t seem unusual because she’s a cat owner. “And then I realized I’m at work,” she said. She turned to look again and the cat was gone. A couple of weeks later, she was going through the same lights-out routine when she heard meowing. She figured it was a volunteer teasing her, so she yelled to him to be quiet, but he swore he hadn’t made a sound. According to Sedelmeyer, on another occasion, she almost fell trying to avoid the apparition when it shot past her in a doorway. And she said a motion-sensing alarm sometimes detects unexplained movement in a back bedroom that cannot be entered without going through another room. Well, at least that’s the way mortals have to get in.
All this intrigues the society’s previous executive director, Paula Moran, who took Simon into her family not long after he came to live on the historical society’s grounds. He was dumped on the property as a kitten, one of a litter of four. Animal control officers rounded up two of his litter mates and a third was hit by a car. Moran plied the elusive kitten with food and water with the intention of turning him over to a rescue organization. When the group told her it didn’t have the space to take him in right away, she and others at the historical society took on what they thought would be Simon’s temporary care. They even took turns coming in on weekends to feed him, she said in a phone call from Virginia, where she is now president and CEO of the USO of Hampton Roads and Central Virginia.
Over Christmas, the society’s operations shut down, so Moran took Simon home with her. And from then on, he was part of her family. Every day, he came to work with her, happily hopping into the car for the ride. At first, he had the run of the grounds, but after he failed to return when she called him one night, Moran got scared and started keeping him indoors. He’d greet staffers in the historical society’s offices each morning. He’d drape himself over their desks and computers, demanding and drinking in their attention. With his regal bearing and sweet nature, Simon was a welcome office mate and cherished pet. “He was one of those very special cats,” Moran insisted.
She and her husband, Hank Lynch, took Simon with them when they moved their family and the family’s menagerie of pets to Virginia in 2009. Simon lived to age 14½, succumbing to jaw cancer in October 2012. By that time, his long, black fur had greyed with age, which Moran believes explains why those who report seeing a cat at Perkins Stone Mansion describe it as dark-colored but not black. According to Moran, a couple of months after Simon died, she and her husband spotted him a few times at a farm they own in Maryland. But before long, the sightings stopped. Now she thinks maybe that’s because Simon has returned home.
Sources: Mary Beth Brechenridge, The Akron Beacon-Journal, and Arizona Daily Sun, January 1, 2015.