The StoryCorps Mobile Tour returned to Fort Myers in February 2024 to record meaningful conversations with people right here in Southwest Florida about their lives.
Each Monday, we’re highlighting some of the compelling stories from our fellow Southwest Florida residents.
In this installment, we hear from award-winning journalist and features editor emeritus of the Venice Gondolier Sun, Kim Cool. She’s also authored several books including “Ghost Stories of Sarasota,” “Ghost Stories of Venice,” and “Ghost Stories of Clearwater & St. Petersburg.”
With Halloween just days away, we share a portion of Cool’s conversation with her friend MK Mueller, about a chilling tale from the famous Sarasota winter retreat of circus mogul John Ringling and his wife Mable Burton Ringling.
Transcript:
MK MUELLER: Do you have a favorite ghost story out of all those?
KIM COOL: My favorite one is, I called the marketing person at the Ringling Museum in Sarasota. It's all about the Ringling family. There's a wonderful art museum and circus museum there. And I said “We would like to come in and I would like to bring two psychics and see if the Ca’ d’Zan, the Ringling house, is haunted?” And the lady said, “Absolutely not. We're a serious Museum.” So, can't do that. So, I don't want to jeopardize my job as a reporter, so I put that on the back burner and didn't worry about it anymore. Three months go by and I get a phone call from the exact same lady, and she said, “Could you possibly bring two psychics? Because ABC wants to do a Halloween special on whether their house is haunted.” And I said, “Well, I'd be very glad to do that on the condition that I'd be allowed to take pictures and write about it.” Oh, yes. They sent me a formal letter saying I had carte blanche to take all the pictures I wanted and write about it. You know, they never said anything about wanting to edit it, or anything. That was fine.
MUELLER: So, these are psychics that were friends of yours?
COOL: In the process of doing the little Venice book I had found a psychic in Venice and she introduced me to another one because I thought, “If I can't find ghost stories, maybe a psychic can lead me to people that believe in ghosts,” and that did work. So, when we did go into that house that night, I met the curator for the very first time, and the house had just been through a $16 million renovation. So we go in the house and one of the psychics looks at a table and says, “Mabel is really upset because that table was not here when they lived here.” And the curator said, “Well, no, it wasn't. We just put that table in yesterday to hold brochures for tourists that are in the house.” And then the other psychic said, “But she's very happy, because that's her telephone, and she used to call her friends every day on that phone.” So that was kind of interesting. But then we walked a little further into the house, and we got into the tap room, which was a room where John Ringling would entertain, mostly his male friends. And there's still liquor remaining in the bottles from 1936 when he died, which is really interesting. It's pretty much all but evaporated. But the curator was so good because he supervised all this storage of everything while they were renovating the house, and he literally saved everything, including the mail that was delivered the day that John Ringling died. So we get into that room and it's freezing cold. And I know about cold because I've spent my life in ice rinks, and it was cold! It felt like it was about 40 degrees. And now the curator is really upset, because that room's supposed to be 70 degrees, and I don't know what the humidity was supposed to be, but all of that is carefully monitored. So he's panicking. And the psychics proceeded to say, “It's cold because there's probably 200 spirits here, and they want help crossing over and we will help them tonight while we're touring the house, and we'll come back in the house later, and it will be warmer.” But in the meantime, we ask them, “Well, who all who's here?” And they say, “Well, John and Mabel are here, and his male servant and her maid. And there are neighbors and friends that knew them, but there are also people in the neighborhood who never knew them and knew basically nothing about them, but they heard that we the psychics were here, and so they wanted help crossing over.” Evidently, they'd hung around to watch over their grandchildren, or I don't know why they'd left. John and Mabel, I could see why they didn't leave. That house is so beautiful, 54 room mansion with every accouterment you think of. So of course, they wouldn't leave, and at the end of the evening, we did go back into that room, and it was warmer. It was back to normal. One of the psychics yelled at me because she said that I had my elbow in the circus priest. He had decided to stay, and John and Mabel had decided to stay, and so had a couple other people.
MUELLER: Amazing.
COOL: So that was my best story.
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