Ohio
is not a state thought of as a getaway destination. When most people think of
Ohio, if they think of it at all, they imagine farms and fields, not Hollywood
icons. But for a period in the 1940s, Ohio was a destination for some of the
biggest names in movies. James Cagney, Tyrone Power, Dorothy Lamour, Clark
Gable - who, incidentally was born in Cadiz, Ohio - they all came and spent time there
and when they came, they came to a farm.
Louis
Bromfield was born in Mansfield, Ohio in 1896. He grew up on a farm like the
typical Ohio boy. After high school, he went to Cornell University and studied
agriculture, but eventually left for Columbia to study journalism. His studies
were interrupted by World War I. He enlisted as a ambulance driver just as
another famous author, Ernest Hemmingway, had. His efforts earned him the Croix
de Guerre and the Legion of Honor medals. After the war, he returned to the United
States and lived in New York City working as a reporter.
In 1924, he wrote his
first novel, The Green Bay Tree, and in 1927, he earned a Pulitzer Prize for
Early Autumn. In 1925, the
Bromfields left the U.S. for a vacation in France. They ended up living there
for the next thirteen years. During that time, one of Bromfields books, The
Rains Came, was made into a motion picture, and he was introduced to
Hollywood society. Two more of his novels were made into movies, Mrs.
Parkington (1944) and The Rains of Ranchipur (1955). The latter
starred a young Richard Burton.
 |
| Louis Bromfield |
When
the dark clouds of war began to build over Europe, Bromfield and his family
returned to America and Ohio. He purchased a farm outside of Mansfield and
began to work it as his father and grandfather before him had worked the land.
He named the farm Malabar after the Malabar region of India, the setting for The
Rains Came. Bromfield had made many friends in Hollywood, prominent among
them was Humphrey Bogart. Old timers will tell you that it wasn't unusual to
see Bromfield and Bogart walking the streets of Mansfield. Bogart loved Malabar
so much that he chose the farm to be the site of his marriage to Lauren Bacall
in 1945.
The Hollywood elite began to come
to the farm as a spot to get away from the paparazzi and bask in anonymity for
a time. But they did not lounge around. Bromfield put them to work doing
chores. The old timers remember seeing James Cagney selling produce from the
farm at a market in Mansfield.
By
the 1950s, Malabar Farm had become the standard for soil conservation and
innovative farming practices. Bromfield had moved from fiction writing to
writing about the land and how to preserve it. In 1952 Bromfield's wife, Mary,
died of cancer, and Bromfield himself passed away in 1956. The children - three
girls, Anne, Ellen, and Hope - moved away and began their own lives, and the Big
House, as it was known, stood empty.
 |
Bogart & Bacall, at their wedding
at Malabar Farm in 1945 |
In 1972, the state of Ohio acquired the
farm and created Malabar Farm State Park. The Big House was restored to the way
it looked when the Bromfields lived there, right down to Louis' crumpled hat on
the grand piano in the foyer. Over the years, many visitors came to the farm to
see the house and barns. Some of them saw things that weren't on the tour. The
rumors began that Malabar Farm was haunted. People, including the park rangers
who worked there, saw Bromfields long dead boxer dogs. Some heard conversations
in empty rooms.
In
2005, the Central Ohio Paranormal Society (COPS) was contacted by Malabar Farm to
investigate the alleged hauntings. The group, based out of Columbus, was
founded the year before by Mike and Gena Robare and use the scientific method
of investigation, i.e. debunk everything that can be explained rationally. The
first investigation yielded many EVPs (electronic voice phenomena) that could
not be attributed to members of the team. Subsequent investigations found many
more, including a voice that said, “tapes' done” a second before the click of
the recorder stopping was heard. Gena Robare photographed a shadow figure
standing in the doorway of one of the upstairs bedrooms. All attempts made to
reproduce the photo were unsuccessful.
Eventually, C.O.P.S became the
paranormal investigation group of record for Malabar Farm and conducts
investigations once a month, from May to August, that coincide with the Night
Haunt event hosted by the park. Almost every investigation has yielded a
result, whether it is electronically documented or a personal experience.
 |
Myrna Loy & Tyrone Power in The Rains Came,
based on Bromfield's book |
The
group has concluded that Malabar Farm is indeed haunted. Most of the activity
is considered “residual,” that is, like a tape recording that plays over and
over again. The group also believes
there is an “intelligent” haunting occurring. This is a spirit and/or energy
that is aware of its surroundings and interacts with the living. This
conclusion was reached by the many voice recordings that answer questions
posed, the instances of people being touched, and objects that move to
different locations when there is no living person present.
Alas,
to the hopeful, I have to say that none of the spirits haunting Malabar Farm are
the Hollywood legends whose pictures adorn the wall of an upstairs
hallway. The ghosts are of the people
who lived there day in and day out. Mary Bromfield still lives in her room, and Louis is usually in his study or sometimes in the living room. Anne, a rather
tragic figure in that she may have had some mental health issues that resulted
in her remaining upstairs most of the time, can be felt in her bedroom where
the sadness is palpable. Occasionally, a invisible cat will mew and brush up
against a leg. Still, for the movie buff, a visit to Malabar Farm will bring
back the Golden Age of Hollywood and the beautiful rolling hills of Pleasant
Valley will soothe away the worries of modern life.
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Andrea McEnaney grew up on a farm in Eastern Ohio that wasn't a bit haunted. She is a medical assistant, a cartoonist, and a paranormal investigator and lives in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio with her husband, two cats, and a flatulent Beagle. She can be reached at scarlet_termite2003@yahoo.com.
