'MY DAY WITH THE GRAVE WITCHERS'

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Posted By: Nancee Seifert (email)
Date: 10/13/2014 at 08:58:19

Subject: [IADECATU] 'MY DAY WITH THE GRAVE WITCHERS'...
Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 09:25:49 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
I've been wallpapering and my husband, demo'ing a kitchen half wall.....I
decided to take a break and get the mail -- and to my great surprise there
was a new magazine that I pretty much devoured; as it is the premiere issue
of 'Our Iowa'.. I won't try to sell this magazine to anyone, but if you're
interested, you can go to www.OurIowaMagazine.com and check it out.. I'm
going to share an article about Lucas County, Iowa:
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'My Day with the Grave Witchers'
I was spellbound by two dear ladies as they located old graves
in a country cemetery.

By Jerry Wiebel, Editor

I'D SEEN a water witcher, also called a dowser, in action before. We owned a
hobby farm in Warren County years ago and needed to drill a new well.

The first thing the well driller did as he hopped out of his old beater
truck was grab a wire bent like a forked tree branch. He marched back and
forth across the barnyard, and when the forked wire suddenly dipped toward
the ground, he proclaimed, "This is where we'll find water."

I'm sure I looked more than a bit skeptical, so he tried to reassure me.
Watch this," he said as he hung his pocketknife on the end of the wire and
held it over the spot. The knife bobbed 13 times. Then he said, "We'll hit
water at 13 feet."

I watched him drill, and sure enough, he struck water at about 13 feet!
That made a believer out of me.

So when I recently heard about two grave witchers from Chariton who
contended they could locate unmarked graves in abandoned cemeteries, it
piqued my interest...particularly when I learned they could even tell
whether it was a man, woman or child buried there.

"This I gotta see," I said, and my wife, Paula, and I soon headed to
Chariton in south-central Iowa. There we met MARY RUTH PIERCHBACHER and her
friend DARLENE ARNOLD in the parking lot of the public library..

"Hop in," said Mary Ruth, motioning us over to her car. Mary Ruth is a
member of the Lucas County Pioneer Cemetery Preservation Commission, and I'd
spoken to her by telephone a few weeks earlier (see "Taking the Long Way
Home..." on page 44).

As Mary Ruth drove us out to an old cemetery next to her family's farm,
Paula and I learned that Darlene is treasurer of the county genealogical
society. That explains their interest in grave witching -- something they
ve been doing for several years.

Not Everyone Can Witch

How'd they get started on grave witching? They'd seen a demonstration at a
meeting, and when they got home, "We just tried it," says Mary Ruth.

But not everyone can do it. "My son can't, and it really bugs him," adds
Darlene.

Their tools of the trade are two lengths of No. 9 gauge steel wire -- the
same kind of wire farmers use to mend things. About 2 feet long, the wires
are bent into "L" shapes, and the short ends, or handles, are inserted into
pieces of PVC pipe. That way, when they grab hold of the PVC pipes, the
wires can move freely.

This cemetery was established in 1851 and is a mixture of relatively new
graves and some long-forgotten ones with no trace of a tombstone. A
handsome granite headstone on a sunny slope marks where Mary Ruth's husband
is buried.

"My son says he wants to be buried over there," says Mary Ruth, pointing to
a seemingly undisturbed grassy spot. "I told him you'll have company,
because there are lots of graves there."

Mary Ruth and Darlene walked through the cemetery with a sense of reverence.
This is serious -- if not grave -- business for them, because after they
locate a grave, they're often able to match it to old records and determine
who is buried there. Imagine the joy that brings to someone who is trying
to piece together a family tree.

Men's Vs. Women's Graves

As Mary Ruth walked along, she held her wires -- one in each hand --
straight out in front of her. Suddenly, the wires began to move and
crisscrossed in front of her hands. "There's a man buried here," she
explained.

At another spot, the wires swung even further. This time they crossed
behind Mary Ruth's hands -- an indication a woman was buried there.

She said they can also determine the site of an infant burial by marking the
short distance from when the wires begin to move and when they return to
their normal position. A small burial area is the grave of a child.

Darlene and Mary Ruth sometimes put on grave-witching demonstrations at
cemeteries they are totally unfamiliar with. Before they arrive, they ask
someone to cover some headstones -- just to prove they can determine the
difference between male and female graves. "After we give our
demonstrations, we don't have many doubters," says Darlene.

But even Mary Ruth and Darlene were stumped one time. As they approached a
grave, the wires clearly indicated a woman was buried there. But after a
couple more steps over the site, the wires inexplicably moved to the male
position. It was only after they checked the headstone that they realized a
mother had been laid to rest there with her baby boy in her arms.

Can't Explain It

Nobody really knows how or why water witching or grave witching works. Some
say it has to do with the electromagnetic pull between what's in the ground
and the wire (or tree branch -- a peach branch seems to be the tree of
choice among many dowsers). But that doesn't explain why some dowsers can
locate water with their outstretched hands -- and no divining rod at all.

Others say it's a form of divination, a practice forbidden in the Bible. On
the other hand, I recall once talking with a minister who could also water
witch. He says many dowsers believe it's a gift from God, which is why they
typically don't charge for their services.

"We all have different magnetic fields in our bodies," Darlene believes.

Mary Ruth notes that one member of the Cemetery Preservation Commission can
dowse for water, but he can't locate graves. She adds that the pull in some
cemeteries is stronger than others. "We don't know why," she says.

I became a believer when Mary Ruth placed her wires in my hands. As I
approached one gravesite, the wires amazingly crossed in front of me,
indicating a man was buried there. At another grave, the wires indicated a
woman was buried at that spot. Honest -- it really happened!

Paula had the same experience. (So does this mean we're now able to find the
skeletons buried in our friends' closets?)

Tale of Frontier Justice

On the way back to town we stopped by the DOUGLASS Cemetery. Mary Ruth
wanted to show us how the Pioneer Cemetery Commission had cleaned it up.

As near as anyone can tell, this cemetery had been established around 1850,
but burial records were few and far between. Over the years, it had become
overgrown with brush. Cattle and hogs even roamed in it, and the few
headstones left were broken, scattered and strewed everywhere.

The commission cleared the brush and gathered all the headstones they could
salvage, then erected them on a concrete pad as a monument to all who were
buried there. It was a moving tribute.

Before we left, Mary Ruth and Darlene told us about a notorious man also
buried there. He'd shot and killed the county sheriff and was promptly
tried and hanged from the courthouse window. Clearly, they didn't mess
around in Lucas County in those days.

The man was buried away from everyone else in an unmarked grave in the far
corner of Douglass Cemetery. "We'll find him someday," Darlene assured me.
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MY NOTES: There are 2 pages with pictures that I would be happy to scan and
send via jpeg attachment if anyone is interested........Now, I know what
Darlene Arnold looks like...

I will also copy 'Taking the Long Way Home' on page 44 (as mentioned above.
)