d * , Aj.;. -W: ¦¦:% -,&s > ¦ ¦¦ V - -«• •• She Tried For Mrs. Houdiji Years to Con- tact the Dead Magician's Spirit Futile Try® Finally W 'IB But Was Convinced That His "Greatest Ml jmHPifv ¦’¦ I Feat of AH" Was j||MßMfep» **• I Husband’s I -F . “Ghosts, wandering here and there, troopGfl B Impossible home to churchyards.” —Shakespeare. .fi*at£SgSBBBBB rai \ . If ; s ma |F ANY ghosts go trooping around anywhere flHß^M^f'^f^'' after my death, not a one of them will be I mine.” So wpltlnsd lira. Bntrics Houdini, in Hollywood, just th«* other day, when doctors told i > a her sht* had not much longer to live. And anyone who says ho has seen her spirit floating about will be votcffig a fraudulent lie, she added. ¦W&t WNmwm ;¦ These statements by the widow of Harry Houdini, 'MaB < F . , , r 3. 'inlw*frtyffwßiß V one of the world's masters of magic, made up her last interview, which w’us given out just a few days before J|Hj wmt she died on a railroad train, en route to New York. Jmm She was making that last earthly journey in the hope :mm 9 of spending her last days in her New York home. Her words —and they may upset some of the spiritualists with whom she often brushed- took on added weight because Mrs. Houdini was no novice in the matter of ghosts. She even went looking for Jr/zm EF *¥ll over decade. I\ one. The search extended a Jfc. For ten years, ten long years after Harry Hou- in she exerted every possible e%Mw£^s dini died in Detroit 1926. *$ - / contact, visual or verbal, with her ' iSIPm v .i^WH effort to establish a k§- : ¦ departed mate. But all her efforts were futile. '*t bsim That wasn’t because something went wrong at any of the seances. She fol- HA all the rules in the > : lowed y *"«|ife b»K>k, yet there was no A\' *v?‘t"'*' \ communication forthcom- 7".'; -'‘ ing. |H - ’- ; , i ' I “I did everything I could 'U». ¦ in trying to contact Harry JmWi - absolutely everything.” the ghost didn’t do But Harry Hotidini, a Keen Student of Psy- his part. chical Research, Before His Death Ar- This- she explained by ranged a Code With His Wife Which saying, simply: Would Reveal the Presence of Either "Because there was no Who Succeeded in Returning From ghost to do his part.” the Grave. There are thousands who written Mrs Houdini have concerned, don't to tell of communing with But now, as far as I am I the phantom of the sor- believe there is anything to spiritualism.” cerer. Ifshe had ever encountered a ghost, how "Many of those people, *• would she have known it was the phantom said Mrs. Houdini, “were of the great magician ? She and her hus- sincere in their expression*; band had thought of that and prepared for I am sure they really it They decided upon ten code words. thought they had seen or If the ghost spoke those words, then hoard Harry. However, r she was to know the ghost was the real '„ {£';-JPr . '' nothing will ever convince iL«jJ?*tf;l thing. me they did." Those key words have been given limited told she 4 are: When could live -4 $ -Mm. '¦'. circulation. They 1 BraJwk. m 's " only a brief while longer I I 1 Wi “Pray Answer Say Now Tell Please Speak at the best, and that she Quickly Look Bequick.” might die at any moment Maybe someone one day will rise up to of the heart ailment which say that a phantom swung in from the struck her nine years ago, other world and used those code words in the hazel-eyed, white-haired Brrte mystic speech. widow of the famous pres- But Mrs. Houdini warns against believing tidigitator wanted to talk they willhave been uttered by any ghost—- about her failure to con- 1,, HIHIH 1,3 v j *I I 1'Vt' " V' v>< *Zh i* H .III ' ~ HIIIIHI much loss by the ghost of her husband —be- tact his spirit. Beatrice Houdini in the Dana When She Assisted Her Celebrated Magi- cause "the words already have been given She also wanted to de- cian-Husband in Tricks That Baffled Audiences Throughout the World . a bit of publication.” nounce spiritualism once Itwas in Tampa, Fla., nine years ago that more and sound a warning doubted the of ders with a dozen representatives of the time." Mrs. Houdini seriously to all who believe in those anyone at a seance to reach out into space spiritualism’s "inner circle" and other Mrs. Houdini amiled as she told of that; shadowy figures that are and pull in a message of truth. invited guests. For the first time. Mrs. then, in seriousness, she said: said to lurk just overhead. driven to that city from Miami, Houdini had permitted others to be on “All my life I was taught that I would She had up In a sani- arriving went directly to a seance. Propped hand when she set out to find a ghost. meet loved ones on that other siJe of death. and upon tarium bed in Hollywood Leaving the seance, she was driven by her In front of a large table, two throne- If it were so, if there were something to and with an oxygen mask to the post office w’here he wanted like chairs had been placed. Mrs. Hou- that belief, surely Harry would have reached chauffeur clamped over her face to inquire mail. dini sat in one of them; in the other sat me from that other side. to for his make breathing easier, she Dr. Edward Saint, her business manager. ”1 expected no mail, but I went in the looked from her window “Harry did not came back —and I will not The taWe held a trumpet, a bell, a back, not the office, too. When I gave my name to the onto a world of reality - come even if power to come back slate, a microphone and a pair of hand- were given to me. clerk, he said: but her words carried " cuffs. none lured Houdini—not even who have ‘Mrs. Harry Houdini ? Why the police thoughts of things super- But “Those claim or have claimed to the handcuffs. with assorted have been looking for you this afternoon. I natural. made contact Harry, who have or any heard there was a broadcast put on the police Ten times once each Some of the spiritualists in attendance they possessed messages for ‘Agnes’ Duplicating and Bettering the Feats of Bogus Spiritualists, must have found it something of a blow other names but my own, are liars—fraudulent radio for you. They apparently tried to reach year during the first decade ” Spirit by Means of a if, you on the highway.’ after Houdini’s death she Houdini* “Materialized" an Ectoplasmic when the handcuffs failed to do the job. liars; and will be frauds and liars upon my Rubber Bag and a Tiny Flashlight in the Mrs. Houdini then was driven to the police tried to reach him; she Gas-Filled Houdini’s fondness for handcuffs long passing, they claim contact with me in station where she was informed her nephew. begged him to come to her, Concealed a Chair Post. before had become legend. He liked darkness of death.” Harry Houdini Hinson, had been injured in prayed for his appearance handcuffs because he could laugh at Finally, after many years of “keeping an even though the appearance might offer her On none of those nine occasions did Mrs. them. None could be locked so tightly that open mind,” she had admitted she was what an accident. The news brought on her first only a fleeting glimpse of him once again. Houdini use any trirk gadgets in her attempts he could not wriggle his hands free of them. her husband always had been a great skeptic shock of the back earth. Tliey hold him—nor, it was proved. of psychic phenomena. heart attack —"the thing that put me here Each attempt was made on the year's to persuade the magician to flit to couldn't She had no use for trumpets or horns or could they attract his ghost. “I always.” she said, “kept an open mind with this oxygen tank”—and the doctors for- eerie night—Hallowe'en, for it was on Hal- Harry. bade her to fly to New York. But when she ceremony, Mrs. during the years I sought to contact _ when the solemn I J 1 A. 1 A. 1 lowe’en that Harry Houdini stepped from other objects employed by spiritualists Throughout they go ghost-hunting. Houdtnl's eyes shifted arrived later by train, this into another world. was to learn her silly from the paraphernalia of it With one exception, her attempts to con- "I thought it rather to expect him to nephew had died, the me shake a tambourine before the mediums to the shrine ta< t him were simple, almost reverent. With come to and words of his call for her me; so, for the same reason. I had no use and the half size portrait no one else on hand, she tried to reach into of her husband, propped still on his lips. that other seclusion of her for horns or trumpets. I relied solely upon world from the up nearby. “There I was.” she re- New York City home. pleading and prayer," she recalled. lighted At the conclusion of called.