Tales from the Mysterious Side

The Vintage and Thrift Lifestyle is an acquired taste or hobby.  Sometimes it is born out of necessity.  In my case, I grew up in a family that didn't have a lot of money.  When I was done with college (after paying for most of it at a state school myself), I began to quickly acquire a few things to furnish an apartment from garage sales, hand-me-downs, or just simply thrown out items that I refurbished before I left home, shortly after college.  I was able to acquire a few tables that I refinished and used for a kitchen table and storage unit.  Here is one item that was thrown out that I painted green and put decals on and still use to store my work-out clothes in.  The lamp on top was a $1 at a garage sale and I rewired it.  The other items are a Victorian era mirror (recently purchased) and two angels from the dollar store. I still have an old Victorian era trunk that I use to store old dresses and items in.  I used to have an old Singer sewing machine (pedal driven) th

Portrait of Jacob Beilhart, founder of the Spirit Fruit Society. 1904, Cincinnati Enquirer When you start looking, you find all kinds of things.  A Utopian commune started by Jacob Beilhart moved from Libson, Ohio to Ingleside, Illinois to live their lifestyle of spiritual development and free love.  For the year 1905, it was pretty scandalous to live a "free love" lifestyle and produce love bomb children, but they did it.  After the founder's death, the group carried on for a bit and moved to California. There is nothing new under the sun.  What is more interesting to me involves my research of the mound builders that lived in the same area and all around Lake County.  Some say there are mounds that still exist unnoticed in Ingleside, Illinois today.  I'll be looking for them. https://wikivisually.com/wiki/Spirit_Fruit_Society

A very twisted tale of inappropriate affections led to murder on November 22, 1863 in Lake Zurich during pioneer days.  The murder of a sixty year old woman, Ruth Briden, by a hired hand who had the hots for her teen-age daughter and a disgusting plot to take the daughter as a bride and inherit the land from the elderly widow concocted by William Bell, led to the first execution in Lake County in the summer of 1865. Mrs. Ruth Briden was found dead by the neighbor, Mr. Morley, who found her lying dead in the cow-yard near her house on her farm.  One side of her head had received a stunning blow from the flat of ax and the left side of her neck was severed at the jugular vein.  Part of the head was decapitated.  A razor that belonged to Mr. William Bell, was in her hand. Tracks were found leading from the front yard in the light snow to the place where William Bell was chopping wood.  William Bell tried to deny it and blame it on the neighbor, but the tracks proved otherwise.