Interview with Dorothee Gossel about ghosts at the Inselhaus in Macomb, Illinois. Interview conducted by Dr. Michael Lorenzen, University Archivist at Western Illinois University. Original transcript available at WIU campus at Archives and Special Collections at Malpass Library. Discuss the history of the Gossel family immigration from Germany, establishing a farm and the Inselhaus, and the ghosts that haunt the inn.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
Hi, this is Dr. Michael Lorenzen. Today is the 21st of August, 2022. We’re in Macomb, Illinois, and I’m at the Inselhaus, and I’m going to be talking with Dorothee Gossel, and I’m going to go ahead and let her introduce herself.
[Dorothee Gossel]
My name is Dorothy Gossel. It’s spelled D-O-R-O-T-H-E-E. Gossel, G-O-S-S-E-L.
And, yeah, I’m here at the Inselhaus, and we run it since 2003.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
So can you tell me about yourself? When and where were you born?
[Dorothee Gossel]
I was born on the island of Fehmarn in Germany, the northern part of Germany, at the border to Denmark. And, yeah, I was born and raised there until 1988 when we came to the United States.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
Can you tell me about your childhood a little bit? My childhood.
[Dorothee Gossel]
I was born on a farm, and my parents had four children. I was the middle child, the troubled child. And I went to school, to a one-classroom school in town, Niendorf on the island of Fehmarn.
And it was just easygoing. It was an easy life. And then I went to a nearby town on the mainland for some schooling, and then I went into hotel business.
And I loved it. It was always my dream. So here we go.
I was living my dream. Did you go to school for that? I did an intern for one year, and then I went to school in Bavaria, Tegernsee.
And then after that one year, I went back to work. So I always worked.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
Okay. So how did you decide to come to the U.S.? Why did you decide to do that? How’d that work out?
[Dorothee Gossel]
Well, I married my husband, another farmer from the island of Fehmarn. And in 1980, we were married in 1978. In 1980, he took me to the United States.
It was always his dream to live in the United States and to farm. So he took me all through the United States, six weeks. And then when we came home, he said, could you live in the United States?
Well, my English was zero. I didn’t go to school for a long time, so no English anymore. I said, well, if you’re not going to China, yes, United States, it’s okay.
So in 1987, we sold the farm, which he inherited. And then in 88, we moved to the U.S. to adjust. And we had two children.
Helen was nine, and Ruth was six. So it was, for them, was hard too. So they went to school with no knowledge of English, and they were doing fine.
It’s easy. And then my husband drove around Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa to find a farm. And in 1990, he found a farm here in Good Hope.
And we settled in September 1st. We settled in the old farm, Cody Hamilton’s farm. Kids went to school.
Oh, we had one child in Wisconsin, the third, and the fourth one here in Macomb. So now we have four children. Every time we moved, we had a child.
So you stopped moving? We stopped moving after that. And then, yeah, and then 2002, the pineapple in the old Bed and Breakfast on, what is it, South MacArthur Street was for sale.
And my husband said, well, maybe you get a job now and start a Bed and Breakfast. So I looked at it, and it was not the right thing for me. It was not the right house.
And then a friend of ours, Dorothy Curtis, showed me this house, and I fell in love with it. It was a beautiful September day, I remember. And I walked through the house, and the sun was shining through these windows as we sit here in the parlor.
And it was just perfect for me. And there I had my first ghost experience.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
Okay.
[Dorothee Gossel]
You want to hear?
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
Yeah, go right ahead.
[Dorothee Gossel]
Okay, so it had one, two, three, four, five doors to the outside of this house. And the doorbell rang. And I went, and it was not really a doorbell.
It was more like a table bell, you know, calling for the butler. So I went to every door, and there was nobody. And I said, oh, shoot, now these kids are playing tricks on me already.
So then we bought it and started working right away, and gutted the house, and put new windows in, new plumbing, new air conditioning, new furnace, new water, everything new. And then in May 9th of 2003 was the first night we were booked out, starting of Western, WIU classes started. And so we had a great night.
All the parents were here. We checked in their children at Western, but the next morning somebody came down. And I remember I was standing at the butler’s pantry in the breakfast room, and one of the guests came in, and she was sleeping in room number six.
And she said, Dorothy, do you know you have a ghost? I said, oh, no, because you cannot say yes. Then the people will get scared, or they will like it.
I don’t know. So she told me that she woke up in the middle of the night and heard a breathing right above her. She turned the lights on, there was nothing.
She turned the lights off, and there was a breathing again. And then she slept with the light on. And yeah, so we had great guests.
And this is something I really miss when I close the bed and breakfast. My guests, like you, we had a great time with them. I mean, we had artists from Western.
We had all the new coming, new incoming faculties. Even one of the later provosts came here and stayed with his family. It was a good time.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
And I stayed in 2013.
[Dorothee Gossel]
2013, the last year.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
I was one of your final guests, you told me, when I was interviewing for the job here at Western. Yeah, yeah. May of 2013.
I remember I forgot some of my socks. You did. And then you dropped them off on campus for Dr. Lorenzen, and then Billy Clow brought them to me.
[Dorothee Gossel]
Billy Clow, he was a guest here too. Yeah. Oh, we had so many nice guests.
Yeah, as I said, I will miss that. I really miss the interaction with these guests. So yeah, that’s when we came to Macomb, 2003.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
Is there anything in particular that are things that you really want to note about Macomb or Good Hope or the area or anything that you really…
[Dorothee Gossel]
When we moved to Good Hope in 1990, we didn’t know anybody. And as I said, my English wasn’t that perfect. It’s not perfect, but it’s better.
And people from the neighborhood, they came and brought dishes, and they invited us for Fourth of July parties. Very friendly. The church, the Methodist church in Good Hope, still very friendly people, I must say, very open to strangers.
We were still called the Germans, but it’s okay. They still knew. They knew our last name, but we were called the Germans.
And when we get guests, we always tell them, if you get lost, we give you direction for our firm. But if you get lost, just go to Good Hope gas station. Somebody will lead you.
Somebody knows where we live. And here again, Macomb, very friendly. And to this day, I may not know the people’s name, but they know me.
You know, because I had so many faculty members of Western, and they always went under the department name. So you were library. And of course, I don’t remember your name.
I knew you were under library. So then they still wave and say hello. And yeah, it’s very friendly.
I must say so.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
I will just point out that when I visited you in 2013, you were like the first person I got a Facebook friend request from.
[Dorothee Gossel]
Really?
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
Even before I officially started on the job. Here we go. So you were like my first local connection.
Here we go. So we try.
[Dorothee Gossel]
We try to make the guest comfortable. I treated my tenants now and my guests before as I want to be treated. You know, and I worked in this business since I was 12 years old.
My parents had a bed and breakfast. And I never had a guest in all these years I didn’t like. Somewhat different.
But I never had a guest I didn’t like. So that’s good.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
Very good. Okay. Can you tell me a little bit about the Inselhaus?
You know, when it was built, how it’s been used? How did you come to own it? You kind of talked about how you came to own it.
Could you tell me a little bit of background about the house?
[Dorothee Gossel]
The house was built 1902 by Frank Blount, who also built a house similar, not quite as big, but similar with the fireplaces in Good Hope. And two years later, he moved. I think he moved to Arizona.
So it’s all written in here so you can check. And then Ira O’Hara bought it. Ira O’Hara was a lawyer here in town and at one time also the mayor.
And he raised three or four children. It’s all written in here. And so, and then the Goodins and not many owners of the house.
And then in 2002, we bought it from, tell me again the name. Let me see here on the, it doesn’t say about here. Yeah, and it was just always kept very well.
It was spic and span. The first house I saw here in the United States buying a house was spic and span. You could eat off the floor.
The owner before me had it wonderful taken care of. Yes, we had to make some improvements. But it was good.
So that’s why we bought it. Their structure was good. And then we had guests from these former owners, their children and grandchildren.
They all came back and they all wanted to see it. They had parties here or just a breakfast or an overnight stay. It was wonderful, wonderful to bring them back and see what the Inselhaus was still, or the house they lived in was still doing.
Yeah, but it was great. How it was used, it was mainly used as a private home. So the owner before us, she was living, she and her husband were living on the first floor and the son and daughter-in-law were living on the second floor.
The third floor at one time when the Goodins owned it before the owner from whom we bought and I have to look it up and give you that information. They had also fraternities up there on the third floor, bunk beds. We still had to tear those down.
And so it was really… But Mrs. Goodin was like a housemother to the fraternity as I heard from the children. And they said whenever they were a little bit more ambitious up there, Mrs. Goodin would come up, open the door and stand there with her arms folded under her chest. And then they would just quick clean up and then they were all allowed to come down and she would feed them a meal. Perfect. This house had always a great hospitality.
What do you call it? They always were nice to people. They, you know, what do you call it?
Hospitality… Missing the word. Yeah.
You’ll find it later. Okay. But it was always, people were always nice and even the children of the owners, the former owners, they were always very friendly and very nice.
We had one person who didn’t like what we did with the house. But, you know, that’s it. And we tried to be originally as possible.
Sorry, say again? We tried to be as originally as it was built. You know, we kept the fireplaces and yeah, we did that.
We kept the old windows here. So, yeah.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
Yeah, obviously you did a good job with it. It’s a beautiful house though. I’m sure you’ll miss it.
[Dorothee Gossel]
I will miss it, yes. I have to find a job now. Yeah.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
So the people who bought it, are they going to keep it as a boarding house?
[Dorothee Gossel]
Yes, apparently yes. The gentleman is from the East Coast. And what is his name again?
I forgot what his name was. I have to look it up. Anyway, so yeah, he said he wants to keep it as a house, as a boarding house.
Nobody knows what a boarding house is. They know rentals, but not boarding house. And a boarding house is like we run it here.
You get your room with your bathroom. It’s furnished and then you share with five other people a kitchen. And that’s it.
You cook your own meal and you wash your own laundry. All you have to bring as a tenant is your bedsheets and your towels, which is really easy for professors at the university. They may live in Peoria or south of St. Louis. I don’t know. One lives in Chicago. So they quit.
They quit with that. And we tried to make it easy. In fact, today I brought two bags of tomatoes and potatoes and onions.
Hang it on their door and they will be happy.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
Yeah, they’re gonna miss you.
[Dorothee Gossel]
I will be back. I think I keep a key. Okay.
I cannot do that. I know. I know you’re kidding.
No, yeah. The police department has a key to the house. Yeah, yeah.
So maybe I’ll ask them. Would you go put some mung beans in there? Yeah.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
Tell me about the history that we had. Yeah. And you came up with the term Inselhaus?
[Dorothee Gossel]
Yes. Inselhaus is island house in German. An island house.
We came from an island in the Baltic Sea called Fehmarn. F-E-H-M-A-R-N. Thank you.
In the Baltic Sea. You look it up. And what was his name?
Jim O’Toole. Jim O’Toole was an artist here in Macomb. And no, I don’t have any pictures from him.
But he came up with the idea of Inselhaus. Because we came from an island in the Baltic Sea and ended up on an island in the middle of nowhere called Forgotonia.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
So very good. Yeah. Got the Forgotonia into there.
[Dorothee Gossel]
Yes, right. I love that. When people ask me where I’m from, I said Forgotonia.
So and then they… Fine. So no, and it took a while for people to pronounce it and to spell it.
But now they know. So hopefully the new owner will keep it. We hope so.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
Well, I know people will always call this the Inselhaus now. Yeah. Regardless of what the video else calls it.
It was named as people’s memories of this place now. So there’s been people have been in here.
[Dorothee Gossel]
Yeah, so many. Yeah. I think all the professors who have taught at Western are at least some, yeah.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
Yeah, it’s kind of a tradition. You have everybody come here for their search committees.
[Dorothee Gossel]
Yes. And when they were being considered for a job. I just talked to Bonnie Script yesterday.
She is with the Animal Shelter and Humane Society. And she watched Lars’s Dogs yesterday. And she said she came for breakfast.
Because when we had the first time we had faculty candidates for Western here, they were so nervous. I don’t know if you were nervous. Yeah.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
Of course.
[Dorothee Gossel]
Why?
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
Just it’s nerve wracking and ready for a job.
[Dorothee Gossel]
Anyway, so they were nervous. And then I had to stand next to them or sit down with them. Finally, I had it.
And I remember Barb from the English department. I said, Barb, can you not send one faculty member over for the first breakfast? One is free.
The next one you have to pay. And then I got more and more and more people wanted to eat at Dorothy’s. And I said, my breakfast is not that good.
But yeah, they like to come. And I think they like the ambience. You know, it was nice and cozy.
And most, most interviews were in the winter, January, February. And so we had the fireplaces going.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
Yeah. And there’s a lot of people who didn’t get offered jobs that still have this experience and probably remember.
[Dorothee Gossel]
Yeah, they still remember. Yeah. Number six right now, he is just took on a job here at Western.
And he was here. I don’t know when it was still a bed and breakfast. So 10 years ago or so, he was here and applied for a job.
He didn’t take it then. But now he’s back here. And you remember that?
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
Yeah.
[Dorothee Gossel]
And he’s so tall. I said, what bedroom did you take? Yeah, so it worked.
Yeah, they still remember. And I have one tenant who’s been a guest here for the year when we had it as a bed and breakfast. He lives in Peoria, his family.
And once in a while in the wintertime, he didn’t want to drive home. So then I had always a room for him. And of course, Western has special rates.
You know, they didn’t have to pay $145. So he took always a room. And now he is a tenant.
So 2013, he was my first tenant and still is. And he’s my little watchdog. He watches over the Inselhaus.
So I hope he will stay. Yeah, sounds good. I hope the new owner doesn’t raise the rates or something.
I’ll talk to him. You know, W-W-D-D.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
What would Dorothy do? Yeah, what would Dorothy do? Will a new owner have a tendency of doing that?
Yeah, but who knows?
[Dorothee Gossel]
Who knows?
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
Yeah. I think you kind of told me some of your favorite stories of owning the Inselhaus. Anything else you can think of?
[Dorothee Gossel]
Well, as I said before, the first night we had the guest who had the experience was Edith, our ghost. We called her Edith. And then I also had…
So that’s just your nickname. You have no reason to think her name might be Edith. No, we have no reason.
We don’t know who died in this house. There probably were some people. But I also had some other stories.
So for example, I had a cleaning lady who saw a little girl jumping off the balcony. And she was dressed in a white, probably around 1900 girl’s dress, white lace around and these little white boots and socks. And she was jumping off the balcony.
And we did some question the former owners if they knew of anything like that. And nobody knew. Nobody knew about it.
And she had it twice. And then one morning we wanted to change bedsheets and towels and there were no towels in the closet. They were all gone.
So we had to wash the old ones and put them back on. Next morning, they were all stuffed back into the closet. And there was nobody else in the house the night before.
Nothing. So that was kind of eerie. So we had a ghost.
Or we would fold laundry, the big bedsheets, and fold it together. And all of a sudden somebody would slap me on the back of my bottom. And I turned around and there was nobody.
So yes, we do have a ghost. Then our children experienced once. They were sleeping, our younger children, Lars and Arndt.
And Lars was sleeping upstairs on the third floor. And he saw a shadow in front of his bed. And he turned the lights on.
There was nobody. And he turned it off and he saw the shadow. Some dark body or something in front of his bed.
But nobody knows. Or somebody would turn the fan off in the bedroom. All of a sudden the fan doesn’t run.
And nobody did it. So yes, I have a ghost. But don’t tell the new owner.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
Until he hears this interview.
[Dorothee Gossel]
But don’t tell him. I will tell him a little bit about it. You have to have some fun.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
Yeah. Like I said, we’ll probably publicize this story a little bit. So people about the ghost.
I know there’s some other ghost stories in town, including the Pineapple House has ghost stories.
[Dorothee Gossel]
Yeah, yeah, they do. Did you talk to Brenda, the old owner?
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
No, I have not.
[Dorothee Gossel]
No, you should.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
I probably should.
[Dorothee Gossel]
Yeah, I think so. She’s interesting. She’s an interesting lady.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
I’ll say Dorothy referred you.
[Dorothee Gossel]
And you know, I always do what Dorothy says. W-W-D-D-D. So no, it’s yeah, those were the ghost stories.
And I don’t know. These tenants have not experienced. These tenants have experienced bats.
Bats. That’s OK. Hang in the curtains in the morning.
But they know what to do.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
Yeah.
[Dorothee Gossel]
I told them.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
So basically, it’s just felt like it’s a benevolent ghost.
[Dorothee Gossel]
It must be a ghost. Oh, and then my sister, who has her feet down on the earth. She doesn’t believe in ghost stories or believed in ghost stories.
And she was staying here for our daughter’s wedding. And her husband got a little sick. So she stayed at another room, a number six and the smallest.
And she stayed at number one. And next morning she came down for breakfast. And she said to her husband, George, what did you do last night in my bedroom?
I didn’t hear you going to the bathroom or anything. And he said, I wasn’t in your bedroom. Yes, I heard your footsteps.
You were in my bedroom. And I said, Marvin, it’s a ghost. It’s Edith.
Really? She said. I never believed in it.
But yeah, I heard footsteps in my room. And I had the feeling there was a body moving in my room. So yes, I do have.
And we had, what was his name? We had these ghost tours here once in the cold. Jared, Garrett, Garrett Muffet or something like that.
Have you looked into that? There should be some articles in the paper, in the Macomb paper in the archives. And so he came here when he had his tours.
He did cemetery tours and then house tours, some house tours. And he also picked mine. And one of the people, what do you call it?
The attendants of that tour saw a ghost and there was nobody upstairs. I had no guests, no nothing. And there was upstairs on the second floor.
There was somebody moving on the second floor while they were touring this house. And they were only allowed in the downstairs. So the group was at the downstairs and there was a ghost on the second floor.
So yeah, we do have a ghost. I believe you. And I hope she’s coming here soon.
Edith, what are you doing today?
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
I worked in a haunted library out in Washington State. And I never saw the ghost, but other people did. I even tried calling to her.
I go, Miss Wilson, this is the ghost of Wilson Library. It’s the first librarian she supposedly stayed there. She’s supposed to be there.
Yeah.
[Dorothee Gossel]
Yeah, that’s what I wanted to tell you. I got sidetracked. So we had a ghost hunter staying in number two, the red room.
And he had the same feeling. Somebody was in the room and he wanted to take a picture with his camera. And sure enough, the ghost slapped his camera and it fell on the floor.
So he couldn’t take the picture. But I should have brought him. I always forget that picture.
We took pictures of the remodeling progress. On these pictures, you have these auras. And room number two was very busy at that time.
Lots of auras. We had lots of white spots on the picture. And then this, what was his name?
Mr. Moffitt said, that’s a ghost aura. So, so number two. Which room did you stay in?
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
I don’t remember. Why not? I don’t, I’m sorry.
[Dorothee Gossel]
Welcome to the club. I don’t remember either. And maybe I have still the papers.
I don’t think so.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
Regardless where I was at, I don’t remember a ghost.
[Dorothee Gossel]
No, too bad. Six and one and two. Yeah, those were the ones.
And then, yeah, when we were in four, no five at that time, then we got the slap on the back. Yeah. But I mean, really, it kind of interesting.
Then the first time my towels were gone, I thought, what is this going on? So yeah, that’s the ghost. And what else like I like to share?
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
Anything else you want to put on this interview so people can hear it a hundred years from now?
[Dorothee Gossel]
A hundred years from now, my children, my grandchildren.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
Any other researcher coming in?
[Dorothee Gossel]
Good to see you, Tony. I’m just being interviewed here for Western Archives. You tell me when you have the encounter with Edith, with the ghost, okay?
Really, I think I have a good connection here with the city, with the town. They’re very helpful whenever something goes wrong. They’re there.
It’s a great town to live in. It’s a great town. And hopefully it stays that way.
We’ll try. We’ll try.
[Dr. Michael Lorenzen]
Okay. Well, thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it.
And we’re just short of half an hour. So that’s a pretty good amount here.
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