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	SLEEPING IN THE CANOPY ROOM / THE HAUNTS OF WINDBER Elaine Bergstrom is a writer and old friend now. When I first moved to New Orleans (next to the Westgate Gallery) I set up shop, stepped out onto my second floor balcony, put my feet up, sat hidden from the glorious downpour of romantic Louisiana rain, and read my new friend's new book Leanna: Possession of a Woman, a New Orleans story. What a great night. Elaine also writes under the name Marie Kiraly (her book Mina, about the continuation of Dracula's wife, for instance). She contacted me requesting to sleep a night in the most haunted room in the hotel. I told her it was probably the Canopy Room. At least that's what people say... _________________________________________________ Elaine Bergstrom's bio reads: Elaine Bergstrom admits that she has always had a love for exotic and historic locales, creepy houses, twisted characters and doomed romance--all of which grew out of her youthful habits of excessive reading of gothic novels and short stories by Lovecraft and Poe, and a near-compulsive attendance at her local theater's Saturday matinee double creature features. Like many writers, Elaine began composing her first fiction while still in grade school. But in her case, she started with a novel. "It was a hybrid mystery/suspense piece, a Bobsey Twins meet Norman Bates type of story." That early enthusiasm was put on hold through high school and college, and the only writing she did for years was in advertising and newspaper reporting. Elaine returned to creative writing in the early 1980's while working as a copywriter. "I had an office, a typewriter, and often a lot of time on my hands," she explains. "I could read a book, or I could write one. I opted for writing." The result was Shattered Glass, the first in a series of vampire novels for Berkley/Jove (followed by Blood Alone, Blood Rites and Daughter of the Night). These were followed by two fantasy novels for TSR-- Tapestry of Dark Souls (1993) and Baroness of Blood (1995)--and an additional four novels for Berkley written under her grandmother's name, Marie Kiraly. The first of these, Mina was a featured alternate of the Doubleday and Science Fiction book clubs. Another work, Madeline... After the Fall of Usher (Berkley, 1996), is told from the point of view of Edgar Allen Poe. Her most recent work, Nocturne, is the fourth volume in the series begun in Shattered Glass. Her novels--part horror/part romance/part historical--defy categorization, moving her from genre fiction into mainstream. "With so many of my novels dealing with historical figures, I've become a stickler for facts. I love taking people who once lived and helping them to live again, to walk through their minds and their time and their psyches. And since I'm borrowing their lives, I owe it to them and to my readers to get the details right." When asked what motivates her writing Elaine responds, "My primary motivation is fear--fear that if I do not write the to best of my abilities and in a manner which my editor and fans have come to expect, I will have to go out and find a job not half as interesting, as surprising, or as stunning as being a novelist. When I start a novel, every day's work seems terrible to me. I hand in the finished product with hundreds of misgivings. By the time I get the copyedited manuscript, it looks pretty good. By the time the galley proofs come my way, I find the work marvelous, but if you ask me where all of it came from, in truth, I can only say that my characters wrote it." With a little help from the friend who conjured them up in the first place. _________________________________________________ So Elaine made the long journey to the Grand Midway Hotel. We had a great night. She eventually wrote a story about it. _________________________________________________ The Haunts of Windber By Elaine Bergstrom Over the years, I've developed a fondness for the supernatural. Maybe it comes from early exposure to the double matinees at an old Lowes theater, or from wandering the halls at St. Joseph’s Academy where it seems one can hear the whisper of nuns long gone who still have the urge to teach. Or maybe it’s from being born on Friday the 13th. No matter. My life has been dominated by the macabre. As an author of 12 novels dealing with the supernatural, I've been on intimate terms with werewolves, goblins, time-travelers and, of course, vampires. But ghosts, well, ghosts are special because, like so many people, I believe in them. But though I have spent more than a few nights in some allegedly haunted places, I never felt the cold draft from beyond the grave, the sense of something unseen watching me or the phantom tap on the shoulder. So when I learned that my friend Blair Murphy, a film producer from LA, had pooled his resources with a pair of equally creative partners and bought the haunted Grand Midway Hotel in Windber, Pennsylvania, only three hours away from my parents' home in Fairview Park, I knew that a visit was inevitable and Blair had plenty of rooms for guests. So, on my next trip to Fairview, I snagged my cousin, Kathy Walsh, a filmwriter and fellow "believer", and the two of us headed to Pennsylvania to spend the night in The Grand Midway Hotel. What we discovered in Windber was a town that for its size is as rich with ghost stories as that ghostly mecca, New Orleans. Though Murphy is new to Windber, residents have already consulted with him about their own home’s ghosts. A second old hotel, still in use, is also rumored to be haunted. Residents also told me the police station is as well, particularly the third floor where noises have prompted police to head up the stairs with guns drawn to flush out incorporeal intruders. Windber is in the heart of Somerset County mining country and is the site of the mining museum (the cage used to rescue the Pennsylvania miners some months ago will be displayed there). It also sits atop an abandoned mine and people occasionally discover fissures in their yards (shades of H. P. Lovecraft) that need to be filled by local “fissure-men” lest they claim a small child or family pet. A spooky thought, though my practical side makes me wonder if Prudential sells mine insurance for homeowners. Small children in the 1800’s were hired as miners because they could squeeze into places where burly adults could not. Many died from accidents and some of their bodies were never recovered. Miners working in place far from their family homes stayed in small hotels like the Grand Midway and older miners sometimes died in their beds from heart attacks brought on the by the grueling work. Then there were those who died in the mines, their names etched in marble on a plaque near the hotel. The Grand Midway Hotel has been part of the history of Windber since the1890’s. It was purchased by the Timko family in about 1914 and managed by them until sometime in the 1970’s. Agnes Timko continued to live there until the late 1980’s. Though in a nursing home, she refused to sell the building and it was only after her death that the place was put up for sale. The hotel was listed on eBay where Murphy discovered it. Murphy’s bedroom is at the front of the hotel, a place where in 1910 a young woman standing on the balcony watching a 4th of July fireworks display was killed when one of the aerials misfired and hit her in the neck. She is rumored to still be a hotel resident. Andrew Timko, the last owner’s family member, died in one of the upstairs rooms as well. His heir, the last Timko to own the hotel, joked he would not be surprised if he was still in residence and maybe Agnes as well, especially after she had to be forcefully taken from the hotel when she could no longer care for herself. “A while after we closed on the place someone in real estate told us that it was believed that a body had been buried in the basement,” Murphy said. He added that he’d also been told that there was likely some hooch buried in its dirt floor as well, hidden when the hotel was run as a speakeasy during prohibition. The Kaleidoscope Bar in the building became a hangout for local hippies in the 1960’s and 70’s and it’s possible that ghostly sitings increased then. Psychedelics sometimes have that effect on people. Agnes Timko was what is affectionately termed a “collector” and as rooms were clear and dumpsters filled, the new owners discovered artifacts of the past. A picture of Agnes and another of the young woman killed by the fireworks were among their finds. Blair added his own touches –special effects creatures from movies he’s worked on. Besides being the writer and producer for the nationally distributed film Jugular Wine, he had a small uncredited role in Phantoms. “When the sets were being cleaned up and it was time to get rid of all the creepy things, they always thought of me,” Murphy said, explaining that his own fascination with the macabre likely came from growing up in a funeral home. Murphy said that since he arrived at the hotel a number of odd occurrences have happened, most notably the TV suddenly going on in the middle of the night and lights flickering off and on. He’s also heard voices and footsteps when he was alone and the occasional classic bump in the night. After a wonderful evening of Italian food, wine and ghostly tales told by candlelight, I found myself alone in what was rumored to be the most haunted room in the hotel. In an old mahogany bed draped in mosquito netting, with a stuffed coyote for company and the loose plaster on the ceiling above me far more of a worry than any spectral presence, I turned off my light and waited. And waited. Maybe the ghosts just knew that I would welcome their appearance. And so, unthreatened, they blessed me. It was the one of the best night’s sleep I’ve ever had.