A Ghost in the Flowers: The Haunted History of 11210 Front Street

  It’s the time of year when leaves crunch under foot, the days get shorter and monsters and goblins again make their appearance on the streets of our burg. It’s the season when it’s easy to get goosebumps; not just from the chill of the air, but also from the mysterious tales that tend make their rounds this time of year. Every town has a ghost or two, some loom prominently in the narratives of their communities, while others lurk in the shadows, and only reveal themselves to a select few who are in the know. Mokena has been host to stories of paranormal activity over the years, and there is one in our midst that is currently ongoing. Just ask Kim McAuliffe, owner of An English Garden, a quaint flower shop on Front Street. 

 

   Situated in a historic house that has seen at least 150 years in our community, more than a few unexplainable incidents have happened in the shop over the years. As Kim was in the process of acquiring the property back in 2012, more than one person in the community approached her and let her know that the place was supposed to be haunted, with the source of the paranormal activity being an upper room that had once been a bedroom. 

   After she moved in and some remodeling was being carried out, Kim McAuliffe was pushed by a pair of invisible hands while coming up the basement stairs. Not one to be scared, she immediately reprimanded whoever or whatever it was that shoved her. She told it to stop, and that this wasn’t nice behavior; after all, she was pumping new life into the property and making it beautiful. 

 

   To Kim, it’s definitely easy to feel an otherworldly presence in her shop. Despite the shoving incident, it seems happy and content there, and seems satisfied with what she’s done to the place. On the other hand, she has a friend who has felt an ominous force in the old house’s basement. This is corroborated by Ashley Schuldt, a Mokena resident and former employee at An English Garden. While generally not afraid of basements or small spaces, she reports an oppressive feeling there, specifically in the southeast corner. She also recounts how items once fell off a counter in a room in the historic house’s second floor, as if swept off by an unseen hand. 

An English Garden, a quaint flower shop at 11210 Front Street. Does this historic house have a resident ghost?

 

   If one looks closely at the past of the old house where Kim McAuliffe keeps her flower shop, one will find a long and interesting narrative. If ghosts are what we think they are, namely the spirits of people who have abruptly and perhaps violently lost their lives, some candidates rear their heads for the identity of this local phantom. The first is one Henry Miller, who owned the property as far back as 1899, at a time when the oldest portion of the house was already around forty years old. He and his wife sold the place to their daughter Minnie Crager and her husband George in August 1901; within days Henry Miller was dead after being hit by a train west of town. 

 

   Not too long after the dawn of the 20^th century, the Schenkels moved in, a family that would be indelibly linked to this property for decades. The clan’s patriarch, Conrad Schenkel, was born February 20^th, 1860 in Odernheim, a winegrowing village in Germany’s Rhineland. With his parents, he made the arduous journey to America in 1873, whereupon they settled in Chicago, a mere two years after the Great Fire. In 1881, all roads then led to Mokena. The Schenkels appear to have been a farming family at first, when later Conrad found work with the Rock Island railroad. In June 1907, he was appointed the village’s sole constable by the village board, ultimately wearing the star until 1919. In his years in this position as town lawman, he broke up countless fights, locked up many a miscreant in the village calaboose, trailed many suspicious characters, and even held watch for pranksters on many a cool Halloween night. 

 

   When Conrad’s wife, Kate Schenkel passed away in 1911 after a battle with cancer, the historic record indicates that it happened in this house. Less than a year later, Kate’s mother, Katherine Burger, died of old age on the premises, after having made her home there for the previous three years. 

 

   Another candidate for the energy that still remains in the flower shop would be Conrad and Kate Schenkel’s adult son, Edward. Having served as a village trustee from 1916 to 1928, Edward Schenkel lost his life in April 1935 when a spurned lover shot him to death in a Joliet saloon in a sensational murder suicide case.  Maybe something is keeping him bound to his family’s erstwhile home? As intriguing as Edward’s story is, at this late date it is still unknown whether or not he ever lived here during the time his parents did. 

 

   After Conrad Schenkel passed away in Chicago in 1930, the property made its way into the hands of his son John, who would keep the place until he died in 1953, who like his mother and grandmother, appears to have departed in the house. 

 

   There is much to ponder about the old place where Kim McAuliffe keeps An English Garden. Does a ghost roam the house, or is there a much more benign, natural explanation for the phenomena that has been experienced here? No matter how you look at it, just be aware that when the sun sets and you feel the cool bite of the fall air, things do go bump in the night in Mokena.