Collection Sheet

1) Jessica Buchanan

(2) This project is based on a local legend. Brunvand states "Local legends are closely associated with specific places, either with their names, their geographic features, or their histories" (Brunvand, 219) This house is a local legend because of its location, farther away from the busier part of Pickerington, and because of it's suspected history. I'm not sure if the legend is true, but its one that is passed from one person to another, making it a legend. "Presumably these legends are unique regional creations, but in reality many of them are simply localized versions og migratory legends; even a story that originates from a local feature or event tends to spread outward, changing and being localized as it moves." (Brunvand, 219) This legend is not only known to Pickerington, it has spread to other cities nearby. When I learned about it, I lived in Whitehall. The person who showed me lived in Reynoldsburg. Two people I've shown have lived in Heath and Youngstown. The legend is shared with people who live all over Ohio.

(3) Informant one was Aydon Rhoades, 23, male. Aydon is a college student with a focus on photography. Informant two was Brittany Wycuff,20, working female. Informant three was Ryan Clark, 21, college student with a focus on the sciences. Informant four was Rachelle Burgett, 20, female, an OSU college student majoring in English Literature.Informant number five was Kari Thompson,22,female, a college student at Franklin University, majoring in Allied Healthcare Management. Informant six was Amber Walker, 21, female, military.

(4) The Heimberger House was built in the early 1800's, before slavery was abolished, which was in 1865 with the Emancipation Proclamation. The house was owned by a family who unfortunately owned slaves, slaves that they treated horribly. The slaves tended to the crops, two large cornfields that still yield huge stalks of corn today, in front of, and next to the house. For years, the family mistreated the people forced to serve them, until one day, the family vanished. They had grown tired of their people telling them that having the slaves was wrong, and the way they treated them was inhumane. They picked up all of their belongings, save a piano, and the stove, and left. But before they left, the father found the eldest slave, a man, in the field taking care of the corn. After finding him, he shot and killed him. The father ran inside where he found another person he called his slave, coming up the basement stairs to see what the noise was. He shot her in her tracks, leaving her to die on the stairs, alone. And last, he killed the mother of the girl he killed on the stairs. He found her standing in the dining room, looking out the window. Legend says she didn't turn to look her killer in the eye, she knew what was going to happen, and did not want the last thing she saw to be the man that had kidnapped her, ruined her life, and killed her family. Instead, she gazed out the window at the peaceful scene of grass and a beautiful sunset. Those were the last things she saw. It is said that the family that were once slaves, stayed in the house, and can still be seen taking care of the corn that rises every year, walking through the home, and playing the piano that has managed to have been tipped over some years ago. There are now other houses built near it, but at a safe distance. In the photos of this website, you'll see that no other houses are too close to this house. People are wary, and do no want to disturb the people resting their souls. "

(5) The oral folklore was collected through a face to face meeting where I discussed with the informants their experiences and their thoughts on the house. I asked them to verbally tell me their story, and I would write it down. My next step was to get the name of the person who showed them, along with their contact information. I contacted them and met them, and repeated what I had done with the person before them, and kept going up the line as far as it would let me. The material lore, such as the photos, were taken by me, and Aydon Rhoades. The ones taken by me were more recent, and the ones by Aydon had been taken about three years ago. I got in contact with Aydon right after I had started my project not only to get his story and Brittany's contact information, but to see if he could dig up any photos that he had taken my first time in the house. Unfortunately, he only found two. I took the video of the house recently as well, but the other video, of the ghostly face in my Dad's office at home, is a video from 2009.

(6) One function of this particular folklore would be entertainment. People go to this house for the same reason other people watch a scary movie. People generally like a good scare, and this house provides that, with its gruesome past and its haunted presence in the community. For me personally, I was more interested in the real history behind the house. After the first time I went I spend hours trying to find out who owned it, when it was built, who had lived there, and so on. That was the purpose it had served to me. The final puprose I think this house serves is a feeling of togetherness, and comradery between those who have been to and know about the house. The house is like a special secret that only certain people know about. I'm aware that more people know about the house than I would ever get a chance to interview, but there are way more people that don't know about the house than those that do.

The folklore reveals the appreciation of history for some, and appreciation for adventure for others. Maybe a little of both for everyone who has been there. It seems like there isn't anyone in their thirties, as far as my research could take me, was interested or had been to the house. The stories were all from twenty-somethings. I feel that maybe the older we get, the more we realize we probably shouldn't mess with something that obviously doesn't want messed with. When you're younger, that doesn't seem to matter as much. Doesn't everyone know? From birth to roughly twenty five, you're invinsible.