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THE STAR: THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1987„ I |l | | , ................................. I i ■ 11 wii .mi —C-l ★★★★By ELIZABETH BETTENDORFThose who remember August 1948 will tell you it was hot. Searing. A heat wave steamed across the Midwest, pushing temperatures into the upper 90s.It was also the summer that strange things started happening out at the Willey farm.Despite the eventual confession of a troubled 12-year-old girl, the story of the “mysterious fires” continued to circulate for years.THE FARM, about 12 miles southwest of Macomb, was isolated. Nothing but level rows of corn and flat, boxy patches of farmland for as far as the eye could see. When the wind picked up, it tumbled across the sun-scorched fields and moaned through the wide, heavy branches of the old shake trees.It was a small farm that had belonged to Willey’s grandfather — with a modest house, a couple of sheds, a stable and two barns. Willey lived there with his wife, Lou; his brother-in-law, Arthur McNeil, and McNeil’s two children, Wonet, 12, and Arthur, 9.From the beginning, the Willeys thought the fires were peculiar, indeed. Patches of wallpaper ignitied. Floorboards suddenly burst into flame. Clothing left on a bed would begin smoldering, seemingly without cause.In fewer than 10 days, the house and two barns burned to the ground, and small fires broke out in the chicken house and milk house.“I’M NOT superstitious, don’t believe in ghosts or anything like that, but there sure is something wrong about the place,” Lou Willey told the Macomb Daily Journal,In one week, about 200 fires broke out in the house. Mrs. Willey discovered the first fire smoldering behind the kitchen stove. On another occasion, she found papers in the chicken house and the milk-house cupboard burning — both at the same time.Fear spread quickly to the nearby farms.According to local newspaper reports, fires began igniting simultaneously all over the house: upstairs, downstairs, even between the plaster and the outside wall of one of the rooms. Neighbors were summoned to keep vigil.THE WILLEYS became so fearful that they pitched a huge canvas tent and began sleeping in the yard.“We were afraid it might burn us up,” Mrs. Willey said.“We could hear the fire crackling about the place while we were out there in the yard, but the fire never broke out.”A 1948 newspaper photo from the Journal shows the Willeys posed in front of the tent in wooden rocking chairs — the men were dressed in heavy overalls and work boots; the women in simple cotton dresses. Everyone looked hot and startled.WALTER STONEKING, a friend from a neighboring farm, helped extinguish one of the small fires. He told the Journal that he draped a curtain over the head on a bed near one of the windows, and in a matter of minutes the curtain burst into flames and spread to a window shade. Stoneking extinguished the fires, but remained shaken.“If I had been the only one to see them (the fires), I wouldn’t say anything about it because no one would believe me. It’s just fantastic,” he told the newspaper.“Stoneking's word is backed by that of a number of neighbors who saw the fires, and others, who did not see them, vouch for his veracity,” the report continued.Early on the morning of August 13, the house burned to the ground.IT MUST have been a sight — the orange, fork-tongued flames lapping at the prairie sky, the family watching, helpless, as the fire devoured their small farmhouse.Deputy State Fire Marshal John Burgard of Macomb pursued theories that insect spray or wallpaper paste used in the home might have caused spontaneous combustion.The Willeys and their neighbors described round, scorched patches blossoming on the wallpaper, followed by surges of blue flame.“Some of the neighbors thought it was something in the wallpaper because the fire broke out on it a lot of times,” Lou Willey told the Journal. “But I know it isn’t, because it would break out in other places where there was no paper. It would break out on a plain board like it did on the porch floor once.”THE CASE received wide media coverage.Life magazine chartered a plane to Macomb. The local newspaper dubbed the chain of events the “Phamtom Fires” and “Mystery Blazes.”Theories ranged from ray-gun conspiracies to organic matter in the soil to mischievous children playing with magnifying glasses.A spokesman for the arson division of the National Board of Fire Underwriters told the Associated Press that he had “never heard of anything like it.”ACCORDING TO local newspaper accounts. Air Force officials from Wright-Patterson Air Force base near Dayton, Ohio, theorized that the fires might have been sabotage tests conducted by an unfriendly foreign power. A technical expert from the base was sent to Macomb to conduct a series of tests in the area to determine whether high or shortwave frequencies were being used“Suppose you had some material that could be ignited by radio and you wanted to test it for possible sabotage value. Would you pick a city? No. You’d pick some out-of-the-way place like the Willey farm,” Air Force technician Lewis Gust told the Journal.The far-fetched theories didn’t stop there.Letters from all over the country poured in to Macomb Fire Chief Fred Wilson.“YOU ARE dealing not with natural but with supernatural forces,” a man from Silver City, N.M., wrote.A Portland, Maine, man wrote: “Have the Willeys been attending any spiritual meetings or have they been going to fortune tellers or trying to talk with the dead?”Another letter writer suggersted that bats with a flammable substance attached to their claws might be touching off the blazes.“It is quite apparent that silver iodide has been used in that area incloud tampering, otherwise known as artificial inducement to provide rainfall,” wrote one man from Chicago.DR. A.D. Singh, an expert on volatile fuels and combustion, was sent by the Chicago Herald-American to Macomb to investigate. Singh immediately suspected arson.“I am convinced that the so-called mysterious fires’ that have broken out on the Charles Willey farm over the past two weeks are a planned and deliberate attempt on the part of some person to confuse the issue, he said.Despite Singh’s warnings, the out-(Please turn to Page C-4)xperiencece to have the Jaycees in munity, and I think the appreciate that we’reGROUP, incidentally, with the Frankfort Area in 1985, for a unisex ef-mbined projects, rorked out great,” Gerarhile, in addition to serv-;rms as the Jaycees’ presi-a also has been vice presi-state director, istant engineer for Illinois ■phone, he enjoys basket-ley and watching the Chi-irs and White Sox games ation..SO plays a lot of softball ;hts a week”) with the Tin-Bucks.the number one team on iwest side,” Gera said, ave one more game, the
Newspaper Details
Frankfort Star
Frankfort, Illinois, US
Thu, Nov 19, 1987
Page 27
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