Funderburg House Investigation

The 8,000 square foot house was built in 1906 by Katherine Rhinehart who was the daughter of a Civil War general, Allen C. Fuller. She acquired all of his worldly belongs and wealth which was considerable. Before the completion of this house, she was married to Thomas Rhinehart who wasn’t the nicest of people. He was very abusive and eventually abandoned the family. He never even step foot inside this house during his lifetime.

Her children are Frank, who built the Apollo Theater. He was a World War I veteran. He lived and died here and his funeral was held in the house. He was only 38. Her daughter Ida had the house up until the 1930s. She took care of her bedridden mother until she died.

After her mother died in 1927, Ida sold the house to Hugh and Alice Funderburg. Hugh was a banker in town. They lived here with their three children; Barbara, Jack and Rob. The house was donated by K-B F, Inc. (Keene-Belvidere Canning Company) arms and the Funderburg family. Nobody lived here until it was donated to the Boone County Historical Society in 2019.

Floors needed repair as did some plaster and air conditioners were installed.

Address: 605 N. State St., Belvidere, IL61008

Phone: 815-544-8391

Owner: Boone County Historical Society

Executive director: Anna Pivoras

Website: https://funderburghouse.org

Hauntings: People and sensitive people often get a sensation of heaviness in their chest in the main parlor. There was one room in the house designated as the Sick Room and that is probably where Katherine died. There have been some strange feelings by visitors to that area.

A lot of the house has original furnishings which act as trigger objects. Such is the case in the room formerly used by Jack and Rob where their beds, sheets and other linen is still there and in the same location it was when being used by the boys. This can easily attract those spirits because the boys often played in some of the upstairs rooms.

The Ghost Research Society investigated the Funderburg House on October 14, 2023 and the team members included: Dale Kaczmarek, with help from Society for Anomalous Studies and Midwest Ghost Investigators. This was a public fund-raising event sponsored by Kathi Kresol of Haunted Rockford and the Boone County Historical Society.

Equipment setup: Since this a public investigation with Society for Anomalous Studies and Midwest Ghost Investigators, I only used a few pieces of equipment besides my digital recorder. The last EVP I conducted away from the group.

Experiments performed: I pretty much stayed with the group, Society for Anomalous Studies because it seemed that we recovered the most evidence. They were using various Ghost Boxes and conducted a few Burst EVP sessions where a couple of minutes of questions are asked and then that short session is immediately played back.

Personal experiences:

Dale Kaczmarek: I did not have any personal experiences whether audible, visual or tactile while within the building or while conducting EVP sessions.

Evidence collected:

Absolutely Funderburg.MP4 – while conducting a Ghost Box session, a question was asked, “Don’t repeat my name. Tell me yours. Do you remember your name?” The device responded with, “Absolutely.”

Alice Funderburg.MP4 – while conducting a Burst EVP session, a question was asked, “Are we talking to the Rhinehart family?” The response on playback sounds like, “Alice.”

Faint voice Funderburg.MP4 – while conducting a Burst EVP session, a question was asked, “Am I correct?” Right after the question, a very faint female voice says several words that are not discernable.

Shut up Funderburg.MP4 – while conducting a Ghost Box session, a question was asked, “How about a good day?” The device replied with what sounds like, “Shut up.”

We’re happy for you Funderburg.MP4 – while conducting a Ghost Box session upstairs, the device said, “We’re happy for you.”

Yes Funderburg.MP4 – while conducting a Burst EVP session, a question was asked, “Do you mind if we’re here today?” A response came through on playback that said, “Yes.”

Words spoken by the Ghost Box – Tim, we’re happy for you, Funderburg?, no, absolutely, why, cat, shut up; Ovilus – cousin, I don’t know, chief, paragraph, above, cord, heavy, across, once, opening, some, thick, ashes, lagoon, not, Rose, steamy, some, printed, sharp, brush, copper, feel and assault; True EVPs – Alice, yes, faint voice.

Conclusions: This was a beautiful house with quite a bit of history associated with it. I greatly appreciated the two paranormal teams that set up massive amounts of equipment throughout the house and showed participants how to properly use it. Both groups allowed visitors to handle some equipment while EVP sessions were be done. I also am appreciative to the Society for Anomalous Studies for allowing me to participate ask questions and to interpret some of the words and phrases that came through during questions.

In my opinion, the only thing that could have been done differently was not allowing two groups upstairs at the same time running EVP sessions. There was a lot of cross-talk between the groups that were only a room away and did contaminate the sessions. Probably both sessions in both rooms had their sessions tainted with “real” people and group leaders talking and asking questions at the same time.

What could have been better was to attempt to keep at least a whole floor between participants like what was accomplished at Tinker Swiss Cottage, just to site an example. Because of the logistics and large group, perhaps this wasn’t possible. While I understand that this wasn’t a serious investigation but a fundraiser and a demonstration of paranormal equipment, I do however believe that everyone still had a great time.

It was great hanging out with some of my favorite paranormal friends during this investigation and I would be interested in conducting a serious investigation in the future, coupled with these paranormal teams.