Appleton, Wis., is a midsize city in the heart of Middle America, as homespun and unpretentious as bread pudding or apple pie. Like other such cities, it has collected some singular claims to fame. Appleton, residents like to note, is the home of Lawrence University. It nurtured Novelist Edna Ferber and Senator Joe McCarthy. It also boasts the first house in the nation to light up with hydroelectric power. But what an outsider finds chiefly remarkable about Appleton is the ordinariness that spreads over the place like the warm October sunshine.
Appleton's leading citizens are the sort of folks one expects to bump into at a bridge party, a church service, a Rotary Club meeting. They are not the kind of people likely to show up for, say, a seance. Yet, on Oct. 31, the night souls of the dead are said to roam the earth, that is just where a visitor found the chairman of Lawrence University's psychology department, the president of a local construction company, the CEO of a large paper company, the executive director of the county's Outagamie Museum, the city's director of planning and development and about 200 of their friends, neighbors and out- of-town guests.
Under other circumstances, the vacant downtown storefront where the seance was held might have managed a sedate sort of spookiness. But any potential eeriness was quickly overwhelmed by the mob of cheerful Appletonians, sipping wine, munching on cheese and -- zounds -- even joking. "I see his shoes," giggled one onlooker, peering at the floor as the medium began his performance. "But where are his feet?"
Ignoring such distractions, Medium William Monroe managed to groan, grimace and hiccup his way into a trance. In the process, he took on an uncanny resemblance to Rock Singer Elton John. In front of Monroe was a black- draped table laden with miscellaneous memorabilia: a manila envelope containing a letter from Arthur Conan Doyle, two pairs of handcuffs, a selection of lockpicks, a yellowed photograph. Monroe's task: to contact, on the 60th anniversary of his death, the ghost of Harry Houdini, master escapologist, prestidigitator and Appleton's most celebrated son. While Monroe writhed and jerked, it must be noted, a block away the sign outside the Valley Bank effortlessly blinked out the message: WELCOME HOME HARRY HOUDINI HAPPY HALLOWEEN.
To no one's surprise the seance flopped. No handcuffs opened. No lights dimmed. No furniture levitated. No unearthly dust blew through the room. What is more, the Houdini contacted by Monroe bungled the answers to questions posed by members of the inner circle. "What was your favorite dessert?" Marie Blood, the great magician's niece, wanted to know. "Strawberry," gasped Monroe. "Wrong," chided Mrs. Blood, who traveled all the way from Pinehurst, N.C., for the occasion. "It was bread pudding," she informed the audience, "with Bing cherries on top."
Bread pudding. That's about as exotic as Appleton, Wis. This lack of sophistication may be why some historians insist that the great Houdini was born in Budapest. Still Houdini always said he was born in Appleton, observes Outagamie Museum Curator Mary Mergy, and that's what she likes to believe. "It adds," she says, "a little zest to life."