Haunted Hoosier Trails. Wanda Lou Willis
also reports odd happenings in the kitchen—pots sliding off counters and other disturbances.
A server has reported setting up the tables for the lunch crowd and hearing doors opening and closing upstairs, as if someone was going from room to room. The chef was the only other person in the house and she was in the kitchen.
Doors slam. Salt and pepper shakers suddenly fall from the tables. Lights go on and off by themselves.
Clark Valentine likes to think that Fred Pfeiffer has returned to the home he was so fond of and was so reluctant to leave, even in death.
Those who knew him believe that Fred Pfeiffer still walks through the home he loved and lived in for nearly one hundred years.
Photo by Bob Schmidt
The excitement could be felt like the electrical charged air just before a lightning-filled thunderstorm. A thunderous sound—and then—rising from the darkness below, the magnificent Page pipe organ would come into view, accompanied by the eighteen-piece orchestra. Music filled the theater and the show began. For a few cents a theatergoer could escape reality and revel in the luxury of theatrical performances for a couple of hours.
It was the 1920s when the theater first opened, the era of extravagant opulent movie and vaudevillian palaces. The 3,000-seat theater at 125 W. Jefferson Street first billed itself as the Emboyd, a name given it by W. C. Quimby, the manager, to honor his mother Emily Boyd. French marble trim covered the walls, an Italian vaulted ceiling soared above them, and mirrors on the landing reflected patrons as they ascended the grand staircase beneath five-foot sconces glittering with crystal spangles. Moorish styled pillars led to the vestibule of the gentlemen’s lounge, which included a fireplace decorated with an intricate, ornate plaster sculpture.
Bud Berger believed himself lucky when he was hired as the Emboyd’s first stage manager. He took his responsibilities seriously, making certain he was at the theater and ready to assist the director during rehearsals and performances long before anyone else arrived. He’d stay long after everyone else had gone home, reviewing every detail, checking every prop. One job that he paid particular attention to was managing the lights around the stage, and especially the ghost light, the subdued spotlight above the stage that allowed the vaudeville performers to find their places without tripping. Bud was fascinated by it all and it became his life. He had fallen in love with the Emboyd.
His days—and nights—were spent almost entirely at the theater. It occurred to him that he could be more readily available by fixing a place to sleep under the stage. He’d be there whenever he was needed, and he could guard his beloved theater at all times. His employers gave him permission.
Bud was friendly and well liked by the many entertainers who trod the boards of the Emboyd’s stage, such as Bob Hope, Donald O’Connor and Fort Wayne’s own Marilyn Maxwell. The walls of the dressing-room area were decorated with his growing collection of autographed photos.
The Alliance Amusement Company bought the theater in 1952, changing the name to the Embassy Theater. It continued to operate primarily as a movie theater. And, even then, Bud slept there and tended the building.
Thirteen years later Bud left the theater at last—he died in 1965.
Without the love Bud had lavished on it, and in a downtown where times and theater-going habits were changing, the theater declined. The owners announced in 1972 that it would be more profitable to demolish the building and create a parking lot.
Bud’s spirit of love for the Emboyd may have reached out from beyond the grave to touch the hearts of the community and raise the funds to save the old landmark. Steve Toor, Embassy management, feels strongly that Bud Berger rescued the theater. “He’s a guardian-angel ghost,” Toor believes. He is positive it was Bud who helped save the Embassy. “It was going to be torn down in sixty days. It was real close.”
The Embassy Theater Foundation was created, and through its efforts the theater has been restored to its original beauty and is considered to be Indiana’s largest and most opulent historic theater. Ballets, operas, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic Orchestra, concerts, Broadway Musical Series and theater organ popular music programs appear on its stage.
More than thirty years after his death Bud still seems to reside in the theater he loved more than any woman. Many have felt his presence. Toor and several employees believe he’s responsible for doors suddenly closing and theater seats folding and unfolding.
This ghostly presence even likes to play a prank from time to time on the current stage manager. During a final stage check for a holiday presentation, the stage manager realized the Christmas tree was missing from the set. No one admitted to removing it. In a panic all stagehands searched frantically. Just before the curtain went up it was found in a place no one would have expected. Was Bud playing a prank?
Many who work in the theater say some of the incidents attributed to Bud can be easily explained; other occurrences are more mysterious.
There is one telling sign that he is around and about: Sometimes, late at night, the pipe organ will start playing. Whether one note or a melody—it’s definitely Bud.
Bud Berger, stage manager for the elegant Embassy Theater, spent his days and nights in the theater. Even after death he seems to look after the theater and play the pipe organ.
Photo by Bob Schmidt
FULTON COUNTY
Fulton County, named for the inventor of the steamboat, Robert Fulton, was formed in 1835 and organized in 1836.
The Potawatomi Indians inhabited this area in a series of camps above the many lakes and rivers. The land was swampy, making the county one of the last to be settled in the state.
Commissioners appointed by the legislature designated the town of Rochester as the county seat. Alexander Chamberlain, a local mill owner originally from Rochester, New York, had laid out the town in 1835. The town’s name probably was borrowed either from New York or Rochester, England, or possibly from another early mill owner named Rochester.
The county takes pride in its history, which is demonstrated by the many historical markers dotting the landscape. The Potawatomi Indians were removed from the county in the 1830s, to take their infamous “Trail of Death” west, now commemorated each fall with the Trail of Courage rendezvous at the Fulton County Historical Museum.
Some of the many famous citizens of Fulton County, past and present, are Clyde Beatty, wild animal trainer; Floyd J. (Jack) Mattice, who in 1903 became the first sports broadcaster in the nation; the first Tarzan (1918), Elmo Lincoln; and Dr. Otis Bowen, Governor of Indiana (1972–80), Cabinet member under President Ronald Reagan and Secretary of Health and Welfare.
The Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Fish and Wildlife recognizes Fulton County as having seven good fishing lakes. Lake Manitou, 731 acres, is the largest lake in the county and supports a population of largemouth bass, bluegill, crappie and northern pike. Other fish which can be found in the lakes are yellow perch, hybrid stripe bass and smallmouth bass.
