AI Summary
5 min readIn February 1904, William J. Lemp Sr., a St. Louis beer baron, shot himself in his mansion. He had been shattered by the death of his favorite son three years earlier. That single suicide was the first of several that would plague the Lemp family over the next half-century, turning their lavish 33-room home into what is now considered one of the most haunted houses in America. This episode of OBITCHUARY weaves together two major historical deep dives—a gruesome grave-robbing scandal involving two U.S. presidents and the tragic, multi-generational collapse of a beer dynasty—alongside listener-submitted "Am I the Asshole" dilemmas and a pair of obituaries that range from the absurd to the tender.
The Harrison Horror: A Grave Robbery Gone Wrong
Madison’s “coffin spinner” centers on the 1878 theft of a body from Congress Green Cemetery in Ohio. The victim was John Scott Harrison, a man who occupies a unique place in American history: he was the son of President William Henry Harrison (who served only one month before dying of typhoid) and the father of future President Benjamin Harrison. After John’s funeral, his family discovered another grave in the same cemetery had been robbed—that of a 23-year-old named Augustus Devin. Fearing the same fate for John, they buried him in an elaborate brick vault lined with cement, guarded around the clock.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (02:16) **Welcome & Life Update** - Spencer and Madison celebrate the last-ever remote recording session; Madison is in bed after an eight-state road trip and shares updates about Joshua Tree, the Integratron sound bath, and a visit to Grafton Cemetery.
- 2 (07:55) **Listener Story & "Postcard from Heaven"** - Spencer shares a listener-submitted story about a postcard delivered 26 years late, which the hosts connect to the "dead letter office" concept from a previous episode.
- 3 (11:12) **Am I the Asshole? Widower Lashing Out** - The first AITA segment: a 38-year-old widower with an eight-year-old daughter asks if he's wrong for yelling at his parents for repeatedly trying to set him up on dates.
- 4 (14:41) **Am I the Asshole? Stealing Sister's Ashes** - The second AITA segment: a woman asks if she's wrong for taking her twin sister's ashes from her brother-in-law to honor her sister's explicit wish to be turned into jewelry.
- 5 (18:01) **Side Pitch: "Tumbled to Death"** - Spencer reads a short, darkly funny obituary from the Chicago Tribune (1883) about a 32-year-old plasterer who "tumbled to death" after a railing broke, leaving a wife and four children.
- 6 (21:00) **Coffin Spinner #1: The Harrison Horror** - Madison presents her coffin spinner, a grave-robbing story called "The Harrison Horror," involving John Scott Harrison, son of President William Henry Harrison and father of President Benjamin Harrison.
- 7 (41:29) **Coffin Spinner #2: The Lemp Mansion** - Spencer shares his coffin spinner about the Lemp Mansion in St. Louis, which he visited in person during his road trip, and details the tragic history of the Lemp beer dynasty.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
Ohhhh Geoffs! Get ready because Madison has a WILD story involving grave robbing and a plot twist nobody saw coming! Next, Spencer is taking us through the history of St. Louis’s Lemp Mansion and alllll of its haunted history! We’ve got an obituary that had us tumbling, one for a gal after our own hearts, and so much more including some dumb.ass.criminalllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllls!
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Sources:
https://youtu.be/K6MeQydZYgk?is=f2kZGVlQz9o78vu1
https://www.cincinnatimagazine.com/article/uncovering-the-harrison-horror/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Scott_Harrison