About 5 weeks ago I had the sudden urge to pack up things from my parents’ house.  I just knew it had to be done.  About 3 weeks after I packed they listed their house for sale.  I was a bit freaked out by this and so was my brother and sister-in-law because I had given them some of the packed items that they were storing at my mom and dad’s.  The reason for the move was not only because they needed less room!   My father listed shortly after my sister-in-law was attacked by something that wasn’t there.  It even left marks on her leg.  I was a witness to the scratches.  Whatever it was that jumped on me must have got her too.  I guess two people saying that they were attacked by something that wasn’t there (most possibly a ghost or demon) was enough for my father to go bye bye lol  I hope whatever it is doesn’t follow them to their new house!

I’m not sure if anyone has ever seen that SNL video featuring Justin Timberlake and a cast member singing Dick in a box lol  Anyways the following is the paranormal version

 Top tourist attractions a matter of some debate

July 24, 2008 12:02 PM  insidetoronto.com

 While there is not an official list of Toronto’s Top 10 Tourist Attractions, given the difficulties measuring attendance at some venues compared to others, many lists and online surveys feature the same “must sees” for both visitors and residents. Here is Toronto Community News’ list of attractions, compiled from information from Tourism Toronto and a number of other tourism websites, and presented in no particular order.The attractions we list are located within the geographic boundaries of the City of Toronto:

• The CN Tower: Once the world’s tallest free-standing structure (that honour has recently been taken by a building in Dubai), the CN Tower dominates Toronto’s skyline and is an obvious magnet for visitors. Standing more than 500 metres tall, the tower receives approximately two million visitors annually. Address: 01 Front St. W.; visit www.cntower.ca.

• Toronto islands: Made up of Wards, Hanlan’s Point and Centre islands, the Toronto islands have been a playground for generations of residents and visitors. The islands can be accessed by ferry boat rides from the terminal at the lake just west of Yonge Street and feature numerous activities for visitors including an amusement park on Centre Island. Visit www.centreisland.ca.

• Ontario Place: Opened in 1971, the 96-acre facility south of Lake Shore Boulevard and west of Bathurst Street features water parks, a concert theatre, activities for children and the iconic golf-ball shaped Cinesphere theatre. Address: 955 Lake Shore Boulevard W.; visit www.ontarioplace.com.

• Toronto Zoo: Located on Meadowvale Road, north of Hwy. 401, the zoo opened in 1974 and is home to some 5,000 animals. The 710-acre facility receives about 1.2 million visitors annually. Address: 361A Old Finch Ave.; visit www.torontozoo.com.

• Black Creek Pioneer Village: This recreation of a Canadian pioneer settlement from the 1790s to 1860s is located in the Keele Street and Steeles Avenue area adjacent to the York University campus. Address: 1000 Murray Ross Pkwy.; visit www.blackcreek.ca.

• Casa Loma: Built by Sir Henry Pellat starting in 1911, Casa Loma took three years and more than $3 million to build. Today it stands as an imposing castle the city. Address: 1 Austin Terrace; visit www.casaloma.org.

• Ontario Science Centre: Opened in 1969, The Ontario Science Centre provides a wide variety of experiences for visitors young and old. Along with exhibits, there is also a domed IMAX theatre. 770 Don Mills Rd.; visit www.ontariosciencecentre.ca.

• Royal Ontario Museum: Now featuring the new Michael Lee Chin Crystal as part of its dramatic new facade, the ROM has been Toronto’s museum since 1914. The ROM features numerous displays and exhibits. Address: 100 Queen’s Park; visit www.rom.on.ca.

• Hockey Hall of Fame: A mecca for fans of the game from around the world, the facility covers all aspects of hockey’s history, including the honoured members of the Hall of Fame, and features numerous interactive exhibits. The Hockey Hall of Fame is also the permanent home of the Stanley Cup. Address: 30 Yonge St.; visit www.hhof.com.

• Rogers Centre: When it first opened as the SkyDome, the stadium drew crowds just to experience its retractable roof opening and closing. The stadium is home to the Toronto Blue Jays of Major League Baseball and the Canadian Football League’s Toronto Argonauts. The facility also features restaurants and a hotel looking onto the field of play. Address: 1 Blue Jays Way, visit www.rogerscentre.com.

Last night hubby and I were running a bit late and didn’t end up going out for dinner until past 9:30pm!  We headed downtown looking for a place that serves Steak & Seafood.  I suggested the Keg Mansion because the food is good, there is a lot of history, the ambience is wonderful and it’s said to be haunted!  My husband loved the idea too so we drove right over.  Parking for customers is free so that was great and we were seated right away, but not before I got some information from the hostess.  I asked her where the most activity was.  She answered casually stating that we would find some if we went up the staircase to the second floor by the bar.  I was like no I meant paranormal activity.  She responded so did I!  She told us that we could eat on the main floor and then go upstairs to see.  She went on to tell us that the 2nd floor lady’s bathroom is another spot and that sometimes woman have been locked in the stalls becasue that is where Mrs. Massey died.  She said to go up to the 3rd floor and take a peek too even though it is locked.  I was so excited and I couldn’t wait for dinner to be over!  The meal was very good and the room we were in was amazing with detailed wood work, stain glass windows, a fireplace encased with glazed colorful tiles.  Every inch of the room had such  handcraftsmanship that I couldn’t stop looking around.  The feeling I was getting was very strong energy and I felt very alive!  I wasn’t afraid at all and I kind of felt that the spirits there liked all the attention the Keg patrons were giving.  After our meal we were left to venture about the mansion!  It was so wild and such a trip.  I went to the ladies room and instructed my husband to save me if I wasn’t back in 5 mintues lol  Nothing happened and I met him outside.  I was very drawn to this oval like vestabule that overlooked the main entrance.  I referenced Haunted Toronto by John Robert Columbo and found out that’s where one of Mrs. Massey’s maids had hung herself after finding Mrs. Massey dead.  Then after our look around the 2nd floor we headed up to the 3rd.  A couple of fellows were right behind us and talking about how the Keg Mansion is haunted.  I was right up front in centre peeking in the locked glass door, it was dimly lit and I could make out a large painting and a couple other rooms.  My husband was right behind me shining his cell phone over my head to help me see better.  The two gentlemen asked if we saw anything… I responded nope.  Even still just being in such a grand and charming home like the Keg Mansion was enough for me.  Next time maybe I’ll bring my Ouija  and go up to the middle of the 2nd floor, by the window, and have a seat at the built in cushioned bench. lol  Anyways I rate the Keg Mansion 4.5 stars out of 5!  I will be back and if you see someone with a Ouija there you’ll know who it is :D

For more information on the Keg Mansion please pick up a copy of Haunted Toronto or visit the links below

http://en.kegsteakhouse.com/locations/Ontario/Toronto/Mansion_Keg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keg_Mansion

Visitors to Lily Dale seek connections with the other side

Jul 05, 2008 04:30 AM

Comments on this story (2)

Benjamin Gleisser
Special to the Star
Lily Dale, N.Y.– A gentle breeze sways the 30-metre treetops in Leolyn Woods, the virgin forest that surrounds Inspiration Stump, a huge, concrete-topped hemlock stump.

Other than that, there’s dead silence.

That’s because, during summer months, visitors gather here twice a day to hear mediums from around the world deliver messages from beyond.

The benches that face The Stump are filled with people eager for news from deceased relatives and friends.

To increase your chances of having a medium make a connection with your own personal afterworld, it’s said, sit near the front and wear brightly coloured clothing.

Carolyn Molnar, a visiting medium from Toronto, paces before the crowd and scans her psychic radar screen trying to catch incoming blips from the spirit world.

“I’m getting a Don or Donald,” she says, searching the audience. “I’m seeing a blue uniform. Can someone take a Donald – Uncle Donald?”

A woman in the second row hesitantly raises a hand.

“Donald was my great-uncle,” she says. “He was in the Air Force during the war, but I don’t know a lot about him.”

Molnar pauses a moment, as if listening to a thread of music running through her head.

Then she says, “Donald says he is the one who has appeared to you during times of great stress and he will always be there to help you.”

The woman smiles and begins to weep.

But clearly there are skeptics in the crowd – such as the man, two rows away, with a grumpy expression and his arms crossed over his chest.

This is the largest Spiritualist community in the United States, based on the belief that death isn’t final, that the soul not only continues on, but that loved ones, friends and even long-lost acquaintances who have gone before are available to help and support those left on Earth – if you welcome them.

Believers in the afterlife, and those who aren’t sure what they believe, have been visiting Lily Dale since the gated village was founded in 1879, including notables such as author Arthur Conan Doyle, activist Susan B. Anthony and actress Mae West.

From the last weekend in June through Labour Day, Lily Dale offers visitors intriguing programs that run the gamut from fun to philosophical to woo-woo.

This year, for example, there are workshops on reiki, dream interpretation and how to meet your angels.

Wayne Dyer and Deepak Chopra often lecture here; John Edward got the idea for his TV show Crossing Over after guesting at The Stump.

Thousands of Canadians visit every summer, but most come for Canadian Weekend, held on the August Civic Weekend, when Lily Dale features Canadian mediums, healers and an ol’ fashioned sing-along.

Lily Dale is home to 45 registered mediums and other folk, but during summer months, the population grows to about 600.

And like the people who live here, the village is eclectic – a collection of 16 narrow streets where a quaint bungalow stands next to a Victorian house complete with turrets and bay windows.

One street over, paint is peeling off a white clapboard house that sits next to the kind of place where the Keebler elves would rest their weary little heads after a long day of baking cookies in a tree.

Cats of all colours – not just black – are everywhere.

The best time to enjoy Lily Dale is just after sunrise, when the morning mist lifts off nearby Lake Cassadaga, and the family of trumpeter swans glides across the water.

Beyond the lake are grassy, rolling hills. The air smells small-town fresh and the day feels full of possibilities.

The Maplewood Hotel, a rebuilt horse barn, hasn’t changed much since it opened a century ago.

Locals swear the place is haunted; stories abound of horse whinnies in the middle of the night, and a lady in Victorian dress that floats up the second-floor stairway.

Otherworldly shenanigans aside, people visit Lily Dale mainly for the peace and quiet.

Healing services are held twice-daily at the Healing Temple, a plain building where soothing music plays while white-shirted spiritual healers stand behind backless benches with their heads bowed.

Healing comes in the form of a sort of touchless massage, aimed at bringing a sense of peace.

“A lot of people say this is their favourite spot on the grounds,” says Barbara Sanson, who runs the Healing Temple.

“People often tell me they leave the service with less emotional stress.”

That pretty much describes, as well, how people leave Lily Dale.

Benjamin Gleisser is a Toronto-based freelance writer.

By KEN BROWN, SUN MEDIA

For California resident Ted English, yesterday’s 200th anniversary of Toronto’s oldest building meant even more for him because it involved the celebration of family.

The western end of Toronto Island is home to the 200-year-old Gibralter Point lighthouse, and English is a member of the Durnan family, which has a long history with the island and its lighthouse.

“It means an awful lot,” said English, 79, who organized a reunion of more than 50 of his Durnan relatives, some of whom he had never met, to coincide with the event.

Completed in 1808, it’s the oldest working lighthouse on the Great Lakes and the second oldest in Canada. (The Sambro lighthouse in Nova Scotia began operating in 1759.)

The third keeper of the Gibralter Point lighthouse was English’s great-great-grandfather James Durnan.

“It’s much more than a lighthouse,” said English, a former Toronto Island resident himself. “It’s a keystone of the whole family”

There is more than 170 years of Durnan history on the island, English said, and for some of his ancestors the lighthouse acts as a headstone.

“You walked over Durnans there,” he pointed out.

Yesterday’s celebration was co-hosted by Heritage Toronto and Toronto Parks, Forestry and Recreation.

Ceremonies began with a theatrical account of the lighthouse’s history by Shadowland Theatre. The crowd of a few hundred were then marched over to the landmark by fife and drum.

Behind limestone walls 2 metres thick rises an 80-step spiral staircase, and visitors were invited to climb to the top after the ceremonies.

Ray Skema, 53, was in the first group to make the ascent, and he said as a Torontonian it felt great to be up there.

“This is like the best time ever just to be in this historic building,” Skema said. “It was cool to be here for the anniversary and be part of the first 10 people to tour it.”

The building is said to be haunted by the ghost of John Paul Rademuller, the lighthouse’s first keeper.

City Councillor Pam McConnell said the Rademuller haunting is a great story for kids, but the building means a great deal to the city.

“It isn’t just a children’s story,” she said, adding it’s great to bring Toronto’s stories to people in a simple way. “It really is about the beginnings of our city of Toronto.”

Heritage Toronto unveiled two commemorative plaques at the base of the lighthouse.

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For the actual article and video clip, please see the link below:
http://www.torontosun.com/News/TorontoAndGTA/2008/07/06/6078306-sun.html

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I was at a couple thrift shops yesterday and I happened upon something really great.  It was a circa 1960 talking board by Canada’s own Copp Clark.  They were making boards since 1861!  They started with a wood board and then hardboard like the one I have newly acquired.  It has a genie on the box cover and even comes with instructions.  The planchette is wood and has 3 removable legs.  I have tried to find the exact date of the board, but have had no luck.  I did find out; however, that William Fuld, the original creator of Ouija, contacted the Copp Clark company himself in 1960 demanding that they not use the Ouija name.  His lawyers tried even way before that in 1919, but they ignored their request.  They are no longer in existance though.  For more details please visit Mr William Fuld’s website!   http://www.williamfuld.com/ouija_factories_international.html  I don’t have my camera on me yet but I found the exact same board featured on  www.graveaddiction.com  They have other cool ouijas on there too so it’s definitely worth a look.

 I’m not sure if I want to keep the board at this point though.  I have 2 others so that is more than enough, but it’s so unique and special.  My dad actually found it accidentally lol  I swear I went over the board game section with a fine tooth comb and never saw it.  The employees were also putting out things at the same time so that might explain it.   Ouija boards are abundant on Ebay if you would like to buy one right away because they don’t always show up at thrift shops that often.   Please see below for current Ouija auctions on Ebay Canada.  I also found some books on Amazon Canada that deal with Ouija.  Haunted Toronto and A Haunting DVD is also included as well. 

Press Release - Monday evening, June 30th (for our Australian listeners, Tuesday morning, July 1st), A Global Focus interviews Victor Viggiani (first hour) and Mary Rodwell (second hour)

Posted by UFG-ts at 6/29/2008 7:36 PM and is filed under Press Release

June 28, 2008

(Metropolitan Washington, D.C.)

Monday evening, June 30th (for our Australian listeners, Tuesday morning, July 1st) A Global Focus  interviews Victor Viggiani (first hour) and Mary Rodwell (second hour)

The program, A Global Focus, can be heard on:   Station UPRN 105.8 FM - New Orleans, the Paranormal Radio Network (broadcasting across our beautiful nation to more than 170 cities and worldwide to 71 countries), Station WPRN – New Orleans, Live 365 (www.live365.com/stations/jojomon1), the PalTalk forum (www.paltalk.com), Aussie Cast and ubroadcast.com.

Victor Viggiani, B.A., M.Ed.  – Guest for the first hour: 7 - 8 PM Central, 8 - 9 PM Eastern/Toronto Time

Victor Viggiani, B.A., M.Ed., serves as the Director of Media Relations for Exopolitics Toronto (www.exopoliticstoronto.com).  Victor also is an educator, researcher, author, journalist, radio program co-host, and an Advisory Board Panel Member of the Exopolitics Institute (www.exopoliticsinstitute.org).  A recently retired Toronto school principal, Victor now serves Medaille College of Buffalo, New York, as their Faculty of Education Advisor.  A graduate of York University (B.A., Sociology and Psychology) of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and Brock University (M.Ed. - Educational Administration and Curriculum Development), St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada, Victor incorporates his academic insight into his innovative research, journalism, dynamic presentations, and leadership in the domestic and global exopolitical fields.

For more than 30 years, Victor has studied paranormal subjects, including anomalous aerial phenomena, the geopolitical aspects of an extraterrestrial presence, and the crop circle phenomenon.  While on sabbatical, during a year-long Australian lecture and research tour, Victor Viggiani presented his research in Brisbane, Sydney, and Adelaide, Australia.  In addition, he assisted the Australian Disclosure Project in its initial development and investigatory efforts.  The extensive scope of Victor’s investigative research in ufology includes in-depth study at such American Southwestern locations as Corona, Roswell, and Socorro, New Mexico, Area 51, Groom Lake Nevada, and White Sands, Los Alamos, Dulce, and The Very Large Array, New Mexico.

In a dedicated effort to inform the Canadian and global community as to current developments on UFO sightings and exopolitical subjects, Victor Viggiani serves as co-host and radio journalist on the popular The Richard Syrett Show, broadcast on CFRB 1010 AM - Toronto, Canada (www.richardsyrett.com/index.htm).  In his radio program segments, Victor interviews experts in ufology and related fields and produces audio material.  In addition, Victor has appeared as guest on both television and radio in Canada, the United States, and Australia.

Moreover, as Director of Media Relations for Exopolitics Toronto, Victor Viggiani coordinated the 2005 event - A Symposium on UFO Disclosure and Planetary Directions, held at the Convocation Hall of the University of Toronto.   This Symposium witnessed the historic presentation of a former Minister of National Defense of Canada.  Victor also served on the distinguished panel of speakers at this Symposium (www.exopoliticstoronto.com/archives.html).   Victor’s most recent presentation in the United States was a powerful address given as a member of an expert panel at the PRG Press Conference, April 21st, at the National Press Club, Washington, D.C. (www.paradigmresearchgroup.org).  That prior weekend Victor Viggiani and Mike Bird, both panelists representing the Exopolitics Toronto organization (www.exopoliticstoronto.com), gave informative and compelling presentations at the 2008 X-Conference held in Gaithersburg, Maryland (www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/X-Conference2008/X-Conference2008-2.htm).

Victor Viggiani’s published works encompass not only professional articles in educational journals, but also such analytical articles as:

Disclosure:  The Ultimate Terrestrial Imperative (www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc314.htm);  Area 51:  A Desert Journey; Exopolitics and Global Warming:  A Cosmic Connection; (www.agoracosmopolitan.com/exopolitics.html); and Alien Abduction Symposium, Boston, Mass. - “The Abduction Experience:  A Dialogue in Boston” - A review of Alien Abduction Dialogue Between Dr. John Mack and Budd Hopkins  (www.alienjigsaw.com/Articles/TheAbductionExperience.html).

Mary Rodwell, RN – Guest for the second hour:   Monday evening, June 30th,  9 - 10 PM Eastern, 8 - 9  PM Central Time; and Western Australian Time, Tuesday morning, 9 - 10 AM, Tues., July 1st

Mary Rodwell is a registered nurse, multi-credentialed author, researcher, therapist, counselor, metaphysician, producer/director, and principal of the Australian Close Encounter Resource Network (with acronym ACERN - www.acern.com.au), and Advisory Board Panel Member of the Exopolitics Institute (www.exopoliticsinstitute.orgwww.exopoliticsinstitute.org).

Mary Rodwell’s numerous achievements include her book:  Awakening: How Extraterrestrial Contact Can Transform Your Life, and her award-winning documentaries available in DVD or video  format: “Expressions of ET Contact . . . . A visual blueprint?” and “Expressions of ET Contact – a Communication and Healing Blueprint?”  In addition, Mary has produced the meditation series:  Journey to the Stars and Inner Alchemy, a metaphysical series available in CD form.  Mary Rodwell’s published articles include:  “Star Children,” “Counseling the Abductee, “The Abductee Support Group,” “Awakening to Contact,” “Why did you take my son?,” “Honoring Multidimensional Realities,” and “The New Human (2005).”

An international speaker at academic, conference and media program venues, the very extensive list of Mary’s speaking credits include (and this list represents but a fraction of her appearances):   Oxford University, Oxford Union, United Kingdom (April 2006); Murdoch University Perth, Wandjina, Australia; Institute of Integral Human Sciences – Montreal, Canada; UFO International Conference 2002 at Leeds University, United Kingdom; UFOR Sydney; UFOCUS, New Zealand; the Extraterrestrial Civilizations and World Peace Conference, Hawaii 2006; and National Radio ABC.

The ACERN website offers several informational pages, including an ACERN’s Resource Center category.  Included in that material you will find a webpage, “Conversations with Mary,” with responses to frequently asked questions on phenomena subjects:  http://members.iinet.net.au/~starline/.  The Website addresses for both ACERN and Mary Rodwell are located at www.acern.com.au and members.iinet.net.au/~starline.

T.Sheridan

 A Global Focus

Jun 22, 2008 04:30 AM

LESLIE SCRIVENER
FEATURE WRITER

The child’s canvas shoe, entombed for decades, has the grey, dead look of a flattened mouse. Holes in the toe and the heel are roughly stitched with red thread, and a scrap of dark cotton has been poorly sewn to the rubber sole.

I’m loath to touch this object, which my husband found within the plaster walls of the small house in Etobicoke we’re rebuilding, and long to throw it away. Yet there is mystery to it. Who did it belong to? Why was it hidden? Was it lost or put there purposely? If the latter, for what reason?

We’d found other discards in the course of construction. Whisky bottles from Gooderham & Worts fell out of the eaves. Vanilla extract bottles, mustard tins and an OXO mug were retrieved from beneath the floorboards.

Most often we found what we took to be remnants of workers’ lunches – milk bottles, the remains of a pork chop, magazines (we presume they were used to wrap food) including Canadian Motorist, Live Stories (sentimental tales for women readers) and a cowboy adventure periodical called Ace-High Magazine. They are all from June 1925 – we can imagine a family 83 years ago doing what we are doing this summer, building a house.

But there was something poignant and haunting about this shabby running shoe – its poverty, of course, but also the fact that a child, perhaps a 6-year-old, had worn the life out of it.

A visiting friend with some knowledge of folklore believed the shoe had a function. She was familiar with the centuries-old English superstition of secreting shoes during house construction for good luck. They have a name: “concealed” or “concealment shoes.”

A call to Elizabeth Semmelhack, curator of Toronto’s Bata Shoe Museum, provides details. She gets inquiries from homeowners who have found shoes while renovating 19th- and early-20th-century houses. (In Britain, the practice is so common there’s a registry of concealed shoes.) The Bata, the world’s largest shoe museum, has one concealed shoe – a desiccated man’s work shoe – in its collection of 13,000.

Strangely, when she talks about the most common concealed shoe, it seems she’s describing the very one we found. “Typically, it’s a child shoe and it’s well-worn, extremely well-worn,” she says. “Who had the money to put a brand new pair of shoes in a wall? Often, it’s a single shoe, put in to keep away bad luck, though it’s morphed into a symbol of good luck.”

The metal aglets – sleeves on the tips of the laces – are a clue that our shoe dates from the Twenties or Thirties. Eventually, looking at a photo of it, Semmelhack can’t say definitively that the shoe is of that vintage or is indeed a concealed shoe, but it seems likely.

The shabby patch job is another hint. “It looks like the repair had nothing to do with making the shoe more wearable,” she says. “That makes it more likely it was repaired to function in an apotropaic role in the wall rather for the child to wear it again.” “Apotropaic,” she explains, is the term for an object used as a talisman to ward off evil, like a charm bracelet. By stitching the shoe, it became more of a vessel to contain bad spirits.

When she renovated her Danforth-area house, Semmelhack concealed a pair of her husband’s shoes with a note explaining why his Kenneth Coles were in the walls.

Most often concealed shoes are placed in chimneys or over doors and windows – “areas of the house considered susceptible, or weak, where something could come into the property,” says Josephine Hickin, shoe heritage development officer at the Northampton Museum and Art Gallery in England.

She adds that shoes are one of the few personal items that retain the shape and, according to some beliefs, carry the spirit of the owner. The concealed shoe is connected with the animist notion that the shoe is “protected by the spirit of the owner. And children are believed to have a stronger spirits than adults.”

Traditionally, shoes have been symbols of authority also linked to fertility – remember the old tradition of tying old shoes to the car bumper of newlyweds – and good luck.

The study of concealed shoes began in 1957 when June Swann, keeper of the boot and shoe collection at the Northampton Museum, and a fellow curator each received a half-dozen shoes for identification. Most had been hidden near chimneys. Swann could find no literature on shoes concealed in houses. She wrote in a 1996 article in Costume Society Journal about how her curiosity was piqued especially by the discovery of a pair of child’s boots in the thatched roof of a cottage in Northamptonshire. “I had this vision of a tiny child on the thatched roof,” Swann, now 79 and retired, told the Star, “and I wondered, `What kind of family does this?’ … Not being superstitious, it took me a long while to convince myself that all my finds were (put there deliberately).”

Since then, the Northampton Museum has become a repository of concealed shoes. It has a collection of 246 of them and a database recording some 1,700 hidden shoes found around the world. Some are from Ontario – including a pair of brown boots, from 1830 to 1845, discovered in a house in Palgrave, and six ankle boots, dating from 1870, from a house in Kincardine.

Most of the shoes in the index are from Britain, but concealed shoes have been reported in Germany, France, Australia and the eastern U.S., especially the New England states. While a few date from the 15th century, the practice appears to have grown more common after that, peaking in the 19th century and then falling away after the 1930s.

Almost all are thoroughly worn, most beyond repair, and suggest working-class owners; nearly half are children’s shoes. Some have been found with knives or other sharp objects, chicken bones or cat bones and may be linked to some kind of ritual sacrifice. (We also found a pair of skate blades in our walls.)

Swann notes in another article that the study of concealed shoes is incomplete, in part because of the “reticence of the finders of footwear, which is usually in a disgusting condition,” and because tradesmen working on old houses will discard shoes, not knowing their significance.

We know, from searching property records, a farmer named William Golding owned our Etobicoke house in the early 1920s. But by 1925 it belonged to Thomas Bruce, whose name appears on the magazine labels. and who was a stock keeper and salesman for Hyslop Brothers, a bicycle manufacturer at Victoria and Shuter Sts. Golding may have left the house unfinished – some dwellings in the area were built as cottages – and Bruce may have put in the plaster walls.

Following the Northampton Museum’s recommendation, we will likely return the shoe to the walls, not out of superstition, but in the spirit of continuity. And we will adopt a new perspective on the shoe as suggested by Elizabeth Semmelhack, who says, “Think of it as a symbol of a new beginning for those people. They have a child and want to keep bad luck at bay.

“The shoe is devoted to hope in the future.”