Fred Steiner
Jacob Espinosa | The Lima News
LIMA —Fred Steiner knows almost everything there is to know about the village of Bluffton.
This weekend, he is bringing his spookiest stories about his hometown to the Allen County Museum in Lima with a talk titled “Where Bluffton’s Ghosts Sleep” at 2 p.m. on Sunday, October 30.
“Well, for most of my career, I was editor of Bluffton News,” said Steiner. “I’m talking 25 years more or less. And while I edited the news, people tell you a lot of stories and I occasionally heard a ghost story or a scary story or one that didn’t make sense. So I started to collect them. And when someone would tell me something I would, as quick as I could, write it down. And then I started to solicit them. And I found a couple of them. And I am now retired. And one of my retirement projects is to read the Bluffton News on microfilm and I’m doing it two different ways. I started in 1876 to 1897. I’m finding some weird things. They’re very short, but they’re just kind of curiosities. So I’m just saving them and then I’m also doing it in the 1950s Because there are certain stories that I know are there I just need to find them. And so I’m just kind of a source for that. And then when I talk to somebody I may say, ‘Hey, do you know any ghost stories?’”
For Steiner, or Fred-n-Stein, as he likes to go by during this season, it is nothing new to give talks around the Allen County area on all things Bluffton-related, but he is working on a new book on this topic to go with the three he has already published on his own about other Bluffton histories.
“I gave one last year in Bluffton,” he said about a similar talk he gave. “It’s going to be very close to the same thing. And it was at a restaurant and believe it or not, they only could seat 40 people and we had 60 signed up, so he gave it back and I gave it twice the same evening. It was on Halloween evening. So I approached Amy Craft Klassen (director of the Allen County Museum) with this idea, and she thought it would be a good idea again to do it in late October.”
This year, though, Steiner will have some new features.
“I’m working on a PowerPoint,” he said. “I previously gave this without one and so I’m working on that and that will be kind of an issue because there aren’t any photographs. But anyway, this one will be a PowerPoint. I’ll probably give it again in kind of a refinding of the first one. I’ve also collected a couple from some other towns that may not particularly be in this talk, but they’ll be in the book.”
As for the content of the talk, which will include stories about mystery beasts, a UFO sighting in 1920, graveyard incidents, unexplained disappearances and a curse, Steiner said that there will be nothing too graphic, but that the stories will leave listeners curious and interested.
“This isn’t gonna be a PG-13 talk, but there’ll be a moment that’s kind of freaky,” he said. “Some of my stories end up with questions like, ‘What happened?’ Some of the stories don’t have endings. So they’re, they’re not horror stories, except for the last one. They’re just strange things and ghost-related. And it’s assorted. It covers from the 1880s up to 1976. And actually, … there’s a newer ghost who has appeared in Bluffton. These are all primarily oral history stories that may or may not have happened. But they’re in a collection that’s pretty interesting.”
For more information on Steiner and Bluffton, visit his website blufftonforever.com.
Steiner’s book on strange occurrences in Bluffton should be ready by next year.
Reach Jacob at 567-242-0399
