Woman dreamed of buildings while in Utah
Owners of Arcadia Academy consider building ‘mystical'
Monday, October 30, 2006
By CHRIS CLINE
Daily Journal Staff Writer
One-hundred and fifty years have passed since the Arcadia Academy was erected in Arcadia. The academy was originally built in 1846 as a Methodist High School. During the Civil War, enrollment at the school declined and the government turned it into a Union hospital from 1861-1863.
The Ursuline nuns bought the academy in 1877 and turned it into a girls' school. The academy served as a convent for nuns until 1985.
Now the academy is privately owned by LaMar and Brenda Oyler, who operate a bed and breakfast, an antique mall and a restaurant in the complex. The academy is also a popular site for weddings and receptions and is listed on the National Historic Registry.
“This place has quite a history,” said Brenda. “I never thought or wanted this place portrayed as a haunted place. This is more of a mystical place because we have good spirits here. I believe that all the spirits are righteous and they don't allow evil spirits or evil people to come here. Since we bought the academy we have tried to keep things in perspective as to what we feel the sisters would have wanted.”
Brenda said she feels that spirits at the academy protect her family and her from anyone or anything that are evil.
“They (the spirits) look after us,” Brenda said. “If people are in a spirit of righteousness, than they feel very comfortable here. Evil people don't want to stay in the priest house (bed and breakfast). There is a righteous spirit that prevails here.”
Melanie Oyler, LaMar and Brenda's daughter, said the way her parents came across the academy was mystical within itself.
“My family is from Utah, but my mother dreamed about these buildings and this place since she had been a little girl,” Melanie said. “She never could find out where the buildings were. As she got older, the dreams kept getting stronger and stronger. She never felt at home in Utah. She told my father that he was either going to have to make the dreams stop or find the buildings.”
Melanie said her mother was a school bus driver at the time.
“At the time the company was getting different school buses,” Melanie said. “They were sending out drivers to pick these buses up across the country. My mother was 10th on a list to pick up this bus. One by one, things happened to each person on the list until my mother was number one. The school bus was in Georgia and the company told her as long as she was back by the start of school she could take her time bringing the bus back.”
Melanie said her brother-in-law worked for AOL at the time and pulled up some cities and some real estate listings.
“He pulled up the town of Irondale and printed off some listings,” Melanie said. “My mother went to Ironton and went to a real estate office and said I am here to look at these buildings. The agent started laughing at her and said ‘look lady you're in the wrong town'. She asked the agent to show her some property anyway so he did. He showed her a three-story home and she asked don't you have anything bigger. He said ‘lady you want big, I've got big' and was kind of rude about it. He brought her over here and when they pulled up she started crying because she recognized the place from her dreams. She started telling him from that point what they were going to find inside.”
Melanie said her mother told the agent that she wanted the property and she immediately returned to Utah.
“My parents didn't have any money to buy the property,” Melanie said. “They (parents) borrowed $3,000 from my grandmother. They used $1,000 of it to travel on and they went back to Missouri. The man that owned the academy took $2,000 down and carried the loan. My parents had some properties back in Utah which they needed to sell. Finally they sold them, but they were at a severe discount. The previous owner then called the loan due early. It was down to the courthouse steps.”
Melanie said there was an attorney who had temporarily moved into the academy.
“The attorney was from Florida and had moved in to work on some bookwork,” Melanie said. “He looked up some law in the lawbooks that said if the property was sold on the courthouse steps we could buy it back within so many years. They held off selling it because my parents got a business loan. The weird part is my parents got the loan on a $16,000 income. My dad had only worked a couple of months that year.”
Melanie said the loan was for enough to purchase the academy.
“We actually went to refinance it later on,” Melanie said. “The loan officer looked at the loan and said ‘you should have not gotten this loan in the first place. I can't refinance that'. We said we know how we got the loan. It was the Lord. It was a miracle.”
The family has admitted to experiencing certain supernatural phenomena since moving into the academy.
“My mom and dad were working on the old dorm rooms,” Melanie said. “My mom saw a guy walking up the hallway. He walked right into the room where my dad was working in. My mom then walked into the room and asked where the man went. Dad said ‘what man?'”
Melanie said her mother described the man as someone with sandy blond hair who wore plain clothes and appeared to be 30-40-years-old.
“We hosed a reunion for the nuns earlier this month at the academy,” Melanie said. “One of the nuns knew who the man was. He was related to one of the nuns who was at the academy. He was killed in 1908 when a train decapitated him across the road. The relative nun has passed on, but the rest of the nuns felt they were obligated to care of him because he had worked at the academy. So he was buried in the cemetery.”
The man's named was Monroe Schutte.
Melanie said in addition to Monroe sightings, her ex-brother-in-law was also awakened on several occasions due to his bedroom door opening and closing unexplainably.
“This would occur in the middle of the night,” Melanie said. “They were the only ones living on the fourth floor. My father also has awakened to the sounds of children running around his bed.”
LaMar said he could hear the nuns tell the children to hush.
“I told the nuns that's OK, let them play,” LaMar said.
Melanie said when she first came to the academy she had been living in Spokane, Washington.
“There were actually things that my sister and I recognized when we came here that we had never seen before,” Melanie said. “I stayed in a room with my sister. I could hear a choir singing. I asked my sister what that was and she said ‘it's the nuns, they sing every night'.”
Melanie said she now knows that the nuns are still there and she knows that they are there to protect the academy and her family.
“When my parents first moved here, they were taking care of my grandfather,” Melanie said. “They kept a baby monitor in his room at night so if he needed something, he could tell my parents. One night it wasn't an hour after my father went to bed, the baby monitor went off. My grandfather on the other end said ‘bathroom'. Before my father's feet could hit the floor to tend to my grandfather a woman's voice came over the baby monitor which said ‘it's OK Howard, what do you need'. They kept trying to figure out who the lady was. The same thing happened three to four times that night. Grandpa never bothered to open his eyes.”
Melanie said her grandfather said he was very tired and just wanted to sleep.
“The next morning his eyes were bright blue and he was wide awake,” Melanie said. “He wanted to know where the lady was that had taken care of him. He said she was really nice. My mom and dad said ‘that's what we would like to know. We wish she was here every night'.”
Does the ghost of Monroe still roam the halls of the Arcadia Academy? Do the nuns still have a mystical hold on the complex that protects the Olyers and the historic site? In Tuesday's edition of the Daily Journal, the Missouri Paranormal Research group will try to answer some of these questions.
Reader Comments (2)The comments below are from readers and do not represent the views of the Daily Journal
Leon posted on Monday, January 21st, 2008 at 7:43 pm
The photos are of Arlin when he was 17 years old.
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Karen B posted on Monday, April 9th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
That Mom is no crackpot. If it were my child, I would search for him for the rest of my days, relentlessly. After all, how would Shawn Hornbeck have felt if he knew his parents had given up? I can imagine that just seeing that webpage that his parents had gave him hope to keep on living.
My heart just goes out to that mother, who has lost her husband and both her children. I hope she is able to find peace, and that her son will eventually be restored to her or at least they will find the truth of what happened.
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