Dust and Shadows

May Stringer House

Dust and Shadows
May Stringer House
 
With Bonnie LeToureau
On a quiet street in Brooksville, Florida there sits a house. A quiet, quaint Victorian style house that had many residents of the past that may still reside there.
Sunday, June 12th members of Dust and Shadows visited the May-Stringer house to conduct an interview for this magazine as well as explore the house to collect evidence of the past residents that may still reside within this location. I conducted my interview with Bonnie, with the ambience sounds of the grandfather clock in the Parlor, as Cheryl and Michelle along with a friend of Bonnies toured the house running the digital recorders. 
The History of the May-Stringer House
The house was built in two parts, hence the adopted name May-Stringer. First four rooms were built by May in 1856; Thirty years later Dr. Sheldon Stringer added ten more rooms. 
There are only a few original pieces of the house left. After years and years of abandonment, the vagrants and the curious teens had ruined the inner structure. With love, faith and determination, and wonderful generosity of donors, the house was bought by the Heritage Association and the renovations began. 
In 1843 Richard Wiggins was deeded 160-acres under the conditions of the Arms Occupation Act. Wiggins stayed five years, cultivated the property, as well as built a dwelling. John May came with his wife from Alabama with their two children, Matilda and Annie. John May bought the property in 1855 from Wiggins. May being a contractor, built several houses in Brooksville, but took house in this current location; May built the first four rooms of this house. 
The original land was occupied by the Seminole Indians, and detrained by the white settlers. Early records of the property had been burned down in the Courthouse fire in September 1877, so little information can be provided.
A year after the house was built, May died from consumption, (TB) at the age of twenty-five. Mays funeral took place in the very spot I was having my interview with Bonnie, The Parlor. He was buried close to the house; the location of his final resting place is still unknown. They kept their burials close to where they could see them for fear that the Seminole Indians would desecrate the graves.
Marena is left to tend the property with her two children at the age of twenty-five. John May when resided in the house was a slave owner; he was the second largest slave owner in the Brooksville area. She ran the property for the next nine years with the company of her slaves. By the end of the Civil War, Marena, from what is known, freed her slaves. Some slaves stayed on to help Marena with the duties and some carried on with their lives.
Frank Saxon one of the original founders of Brooksville came into town after the Civil War as a wounded Confederate hero. He married Marena in 1866 and they had two children. The little boy, Frankland only lived to be around the age of five weeks old. Marena and Frank had another child, Jesse May Saxon. Marena died in the upstairs bedroom from childbed fever, before Jesse was even three weeks old. Frank stayed on in the house with the girls, Jesse May and her two half sisters. Jesse passed away at the age of three. Her death photo still hanging on the parlor wall is the only known photo of her. 
* photo next page of Bonnie in the Doctors office

There are four burials on the property, John May, Marena May Saxon, the little boy Frankland and Jesse May, the exact location of these burials are still unknown today.
Frank remarried three years after Jesse May passed away to a woman named Tululu Hope. She did not want to live in the house because she wanted a grander house, so Frank Saxon built another house called the Saxon House, which still stands today. Tululu gave Frank six sons during their marriage. Franks daughters from his previous marriage stayed in the May-Stringer house until the daughters were married.
1880, Dr. Shelton Stringer bought the house from Frank Saxon, he was a doctor and started building on to the house piece by piece to customize to accommodate both  his business and living areas.
 There is more information about Stringer: http://www.pascocemeteries.org/bio_stringer_sheldon.html
Time line
1949, Shelton Stringers granddaughter sold the house out of the family
1950-1974 was a single family home
1974-1980 the house was abandoned and the county wanted it torn down.
The Historical Association bought the house and restored the house. Through the labor of love, the house was breathing again. Bonnie was drawn on a whim to visit the museum nine years ago with her mom. Once she was inside, she knew this is where she wanted to be. She joined that day and the next week she was a member and a tour guide. 
The paranormal craze
The first request of a paranormal investigation was approached to Bonnie, and she took it all in. After a paranormal group showed Bonnie conclusive evidence of paranormal activity, the Ghost Tours began. 
There are personal experiences from hearing a child crying out to her mother, objects moving, and footsteps to a solider being seen in the upstairs window. Are these the spirits of the ones that passed on within the house or the energy from the past objects that occupy the space?
Although the volunteers of the May-Stringer house come and go after experiencing some type of paranormal activity, Bonnie is there to stay, and to protect them.
The Ghost Tour
The opportunity for the May-Stringer house to conduct ghost tours is the greatest contribution asset to keep this house still standing. The Museum depends on donations to keep things running on a day-to-day basis. I encourage you, if you are interested in maybe experiencing something paranormal, this is the place to go. Nevertheless, let me forewarn you, Bonnie will not tolerate any disrespect towards the sprits and the surrounding objects within this house, she will ask you to leave. However, if you would like to learn more about the fantastic history of the oldest standing house in Hernando County, please take a day to enjoy a tour. Just on our tour, Bonnie was extremely educational about the history of the house and goes more into detail about the history then I have in this article. We were amazed about the footsteps that walked the hallways and the occupations that the owners held. We all left there feeling overwhelmed by the history and what transpired over the years.
Bonnie Le Toureau
There is one thing that makes this Museum extremely different, and that would be Bonnie. During our interview the passion, love and dedication that Bonnie has to this house is clearly known. She has pride, and a real home connection to this house and you do anything to upset that, well you will hear about it. 
She is respectful to all assets of this house, from the aged dated objects to the spirits that still reside in the house. In addition, we now can verify that there are a couple of spirits that still live within the space of this amazing house.
Bonnie is a member of the board of trustees. The most important issue she wants people to know is that this house deserves preservation and recognition. This house is a huge responsibility and with the dedication of each volunteer and the donations received keeps the history alive. Without people like Bonnie that keep the last breath of history alive within each location deserves to survives another day.

 

The Spirits
From the digital recordings that captured evps, our findings are this: there is a little girl, whom we feel is not Jesse May. She is older, along with her might be three adult males and one female. One of the adult males roams freely around the house, one adult male in the classroom and one adult male in the military room. The female is around the staircase and second floor. We feel that there is nothing negative here that resides in this house. We feel that the reason for this is because the respect Bonnie and the other volunteers give to the spirits that reside there. 
We did not capture anything in our photos nor did we capture anything on video. Now that we have a base from collecting evps through our digital recorders we know where to start and try to find out more information.
Within the classroom, it is told that there is a soldier that is seen in the window, people have seen this man of a broken heart. Coming back from war, again there is the heartbreaking talk of a soldiers fiancé taking love and romance from another local suitor. Did this happen to that soldier who has been seen? Did he hang himself in this house because of a broken heart? Is there any record of the soldier living at that residence during that time? Was he one of Mr. Stringers patients? Only more questions to ask.
EVPs
We had collected quite a few EVPs while we were there. You can listen to all of them on our Dust and Shadows Website.
Experiences
Personal experiences without any physical evidence of those experiences are thrown out, although it is nice to share those personal experiences because it is something we have experienced. 
The Bedroom
While Bonnie was talking about the doll Marenas room, I did see a white little speck-floating horizontal in this room. It just went straight across. Weird. I wanted to ask if anyone else saw that but I did not, since Michelle was videotaping I was hoping that it was caught on tape. Unfortunately, I could not see it.
When we were in the Doctors office, we caught an unusual scent. I was standing close to the glass case where the veterinary supplies were. I even asked Cheryl if she smelled what I smelled. We all agreed to describe this as a powdery, (Michelle), dead roses (Alice), and old perfume (Cheryl) scent. Are we noticing the perfume that Mrs. Stringer so graciously dabbed on her neck and wrists? We do not know if it is.
Make sure you check our next issue. Bonnie has given us permission to re-visit the May-Stringer but with a special member of our group, Bree.
 
* above photo, Bonnie in the classroom, next page up in the attic.
Photos by Alice Mary Herden
http://www.hernandohistoricalmuseum.com/
http://www.pascocemeteries.org/bio_stringer_sheldon.html