Shadow People Lurk in a Sears Vallonia

Spectral, shadowy beings are the new boogeymen.

Shadow people are dark, humanoid figures that manifest just outside a person's vision. Some people insist they are ghosts or demons. Other people suggest they are hallucinations caused by schizophrenia, dementia, or drug use.

Illustration from psychonautwiki.com.

Author Jason Offutt recounts the story of Lisa Falour on his website: From the Shadows. As a teen, Lisa lived in a Sears Vallonia in South Euclid, Ohio.

4522 Telhurst Road, South Euclid, OH. Capture from Google Streetview.

Sears Vallonia from the 1936 Modern Homes catalog.

As Lisa sat in the kitchen doing her homework, she would regularly see shadowy figures in the adjacent dining room.

As Offutt relates in his story, "The Thing on the Stairs", Lisa said:

“I constantly saw shadow people walking around in the dining room while I sat at the kitchen table,” she said. ”They were normal sized and silent, and though usually out of the corner of my eye, when looked at straight, they would just quietly move on. It wasn’t a trick of the eye.”

If she turned on the dining room light, the shadow people disappeared.

At nights, Lisa would hear footsteps advancing up the stairs. Then, she would feel a presence standing at her bedroom door. 

Art from imgur.com.

Lisa also saw a door in the dining room that wasn't actually there. From "The Thing on the Stairs":

“I repeatedly saw ‘another’ door,” Lisa said. “It may have been at another point in time, as the house was constantly worked on and changed. It was just slightly to one side of the ‘real’ door leading to the bathroom, cupboards, TV room, closet …”

The Vallonia floor plan. Was Lisa seeing the original door to the staircase that had been later moved? 

Lisa was unaware if any other family members saw the shadow people. She moved from the house at age 18, but continued to see the shadow people on later visits.

From "The Thing on the Stairs":

“I never heard a sound from the shadow people, and didn’t feel particularly threatened, but I did feel uneasy and not happy they were there,” she said. “It made me not like the house. All I can say is the house was creepy.”

Lisa's family owned the Vallonia from 1967 to 1975. She claimed that the house had numerous owners before 1967 (presumably because of the hauntings).

I couldn't find any evidence that anyone died in the house.  Lewis Noll, a carpenter, built the house in the mid-1920's. 

The Sears House Where President Gerald R. Ford Lived

1960 Prospect SE, Grand Rapids, MI. 

Sears No. 124.

An older, different view from Google Streetview. The house even has the rectangular cutout over the front porch that is shown on the catalog illustration.

Gerald R. Ford was born Leslie Lynch King, Jr., on July 14, 1913 in Omaha. He would become the only president of the United States not elected by American voters.

Ford's mother, Dorothy Gardner, grew up in Harvard, Illinois and  attended Northwestern University. In September 1912, the 21-year-old Dorothy married Leslie Lynch King in Harvard. The couple then moved to Omaha.

Dorothy Gardner.

After the marriage, Lynch became abusive. A month after her son's birth, Dorothy fled Omaha with her mother and the baby. They moved to the Sears house in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where Dorothy's parents, Levi and Adele Gardner, lived.

Dorothy and little Leslie Lynch King, Jr. on his baptism day in 1914. Photo from the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum. .

1974 photo from the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum. The house was built about 1912, and was listed in the 1913 Grand Rapids city directory.

Toddler Leslie in front of the house. Photo from the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum. 

Sears Roebuck in its Modern Homes catalog stated that a No. 124 was built in Grand Rapids. This is likely the house.

Photo from Realtor site.

Photo from Realtor site.

Photo from Realtor site.

Dorothy was granted a divorce in December 1913. In 1917, she married Grand Rapids businessman Gerald Rudolph Ford. She and Leslie moved out of her parents' Sears house. 

Almost immediately, they started calling Leslie the name Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr.  In 1935, Leslie legally changed his name to that of his stepfather.

Ford served 25 years in Congress. From 1965 to 1973, he was House Minority Leader. 

Ford became vice president in October 1973 after President Richard Nixon named him to succeed Spiro T. Agnew. Agnew had pleaded no contest to a single felony charge of tax evasion and resigned from office. 

In August 1974, Vice President Ford became President after Nixon resigned. Ford nominated Nelson Rockefeller to fill the Vice Presidential vacancy.

Ford served until January 20, 1977 as the 38th President of the United States. In 2006, President Ford died in California. 

Sorry, Not a Sears Magnolia in Batavia

In 1990, Thomas A. Mair published a book called Batavia Revisited. In it, he wrote that the house at 223 Batavia Avenue was a Sears Magnolia.

233 Batavia Ave., Batavia. Claimed to be a "Sears Magnolia". Photo from Mapquest.

The Sears Magnolia as it appeared in the Modern Homes catalog

I don't see even a remote resemblance, but many locals in Batavia insist that the house was changed over time. By "changed", they mean the front entrance looks completely different, all the windows have been altered, the pillars have been removed, the dormers changed from one to two. Is it impertinent to suggest that just maybe this house is not a Sears Magnolia?

An excerpt from Mair's book in the local paper.

Evidently, Mair heard from someone that the house at 223 Batavia Avenue was ordered from a catalog and he assumed it must have been a Sears model and the Magnolia was close enough.  As researcher Andrew Mutch wrote: "In the context of the millions of houses that were sold between 1908 and 1942, Sears houses make up a tiny fraction of that total. If a house is identified as being from Sears, it should match the catalog image or be pretty darn close. "

In 2005, author Rebecca Hunter dropped a truth bomb and informed the Batavia Historical Society that the house in question was actually a Vernon model from Sterling Homes of Bay City, Michigan. 

This is a proper identification.  The house in Batavia has a reversed floor plan, so the porte-cochère is on the right side rather than the left.

Did Hunter's identification put an end to the misinformation? Of course not. Since the book was published, the myth of the house on Batavia Avenue being from Sears Roebuck continues to be propagated even in 2024.

The Vernon was about 2,250 square feet and had four bedrooms. The Vernon was an upscale house, but not in comparison to the Magnolia. The price reflected that--the Magnolia cost about twice as much as the Vernon.

Few interior photos are available. The Vernon holds offices today. The entry hall was probably dark originally which is why fluorescent lights have been installed. Photo from attorney Brad Covey's website.

Photos of a Vernon from the Sterling Homes catalog. I think this might be the Vernon in Bay City, Michigan that was built around 1914.

Photo from attorney Brad Covey's website.

In April 1921, Ira E. Seymour purchased the plot of land for $3,500. It is doubtful that the Vernon was included in that price since the price of the base house with no upgrades was significantly more than that.

Ira had recently been named the president of the Household Journal Co., a publisher. 

 

Ira and his wife Maisie chose the Vernon from the Sterling Homes catalog, and the house was completed by 1922. 

Ira died in 1932, but Maisie and two sons continued to live in the house. The Seymour family owned the property until at least 1973.

Batavia has a notable number of Sears houses (23) in addition to the Sterling Vernon. Many of these houses have been authenticated through mortgage and deed records.