The Ward Poltergeist

By Dara Barnwell

Hartville is a small rural town in southwestern Missouri. Some might call it quaint. A population of under 700 with most people living outside of town on a gravel road or a farm or even both. The closest McDonald’s is about 25 miles away. The nearest Starbucks is even further-they don’t even have a traffic light. Hunting and fishing is a prevalent hobby. Camouflage and boots is almost a required uniform and churches definitely outnumber the liquor stores. I lived there for nearly 20 years.

This small rural community isn’t where you would imagine a well documented case of poltergeist activity would take place but that’s exactly what happened.  In the summer of 1957, at the Ward family farm trouble was brewing.  It happened to be centered around the 9 year old daughter of the Ward’s, Betty Ruth.  

One particular day, Betty was at her grandmother’s home helping her shell walnuts when suddenly the walnuts began to float then to fly.  The grandmother reported the walnuts pelting her and almost breaking her glasses.  Walnuts rolled slowly down curtains and zipped and zoomed all over the room.  The two ran out of the house and to Betty Ruth’s family home.

Upon arriving the two distraught ladies described the peculiar happenings. As they were describing them a bowl began to vibrate, then several, finally buckets and bowls began to vibrate and zoom around the home just like the walnuts. The family was terrified.

Several days passed where the activity continued.  Betty went to school and told incredulous classmates about what happened. They didn’t believe her.   The rest of the family was perplexed and talked to anyone they believed could help.   

Soon a newspaper article hit the desk of parapsychologists in Durham, North Carolina at Duke University.  William Cox, a researcher there, along with his assistant, Jim Bethel, took a trip to little Hartville, Missouri.

The Wards were thrilled to see them and began to tell them about the activity.  On the second day of their visit the researchers began to see the activity for themselves.  A bottle of shoe polish flew out of thin air and hit Jim Bethel in the foot.  Betty was sitting on the couch with her hands together when a small rock fell from the ceiling and landed beside her.  

Activity continued in the kitchen when the researchers were questioning family members there.  Betty’s grandmother was telling of an earlier event in which a stew pot levitated off the stove, floated down the hall to a bedroom and spilled inside it.  As she was recounting her tale a heavy oil lantern tipped over.  No one was near it and it had been resting in the middle of the chair. While investigating the lamp, both Mr. Cox and Mr. Bethel witnessed a bar of soap jump off of a shelf and land in front of them.   Later on, Mr. Cox was pelted with small pieces of bark that just appeared.  

The two researchers were very excited and interviewed a number of witnesses. Lola Mae Ward, the Ward’s oldest daughter, told of a time she was outside doing the washing when a tub full of wet clean clothes flung itself off the porch onto the ground. Her family and a visitor witnessed this. Mrs. Ward was sitting on her bed when the head of the bed lifted up more than a foot off the floor with her on it. That wasn’t the first that happened either. It happened several more times, sometimes with others witnessing it.

It seemed to center around the 9 year old girl, Betty.  Once when she and her family were shopping more than 30 miles away in Lebanon, Missouri a pair of shoes floated off of a store shelf and landed between Mrs. Ward and Betty.  

I spoke with Betty’s granddaughter many years later and asked her if she ever heard about these instances.  She said she remembered her father recounting some of the same stories told here but neither her father nor she witnessed any events.  Indeed, the activity seemed to stop as suddenly as it started when young Betty reached late adolescence. 

The case was documented in The New Yorker (March 15, 1958), Haunted Houses by Larry Kettlekamp, Haunted Places: The National Directory by Dennis William Hauck, and several local newspapers.  

The Wards didn’t receive any monetary gains from the attention and newspaper reports. Indeed, they were hoping the Duke scientists would be able to solve the mystery and make it go away. The Ward poltergeist case remains one of the most well documented-if virtually unknown-paranormal mysteries to this day.

©️2023 DaraBarnwell