After a few hours, Lurancy came out of her trance. But the next day, February 1, 1878, she claimed to be Mary Roff. Her father then went to Mr. Roff’s office and told him, “She seems like a child real homesick, wanting to see her pa and ma and her brothers” (Stevens 1887, p. 9). But Lurancy did not go immediately to be with the Roffs. She remained at home, continuing to manifest Mary Roff’s personality there. After a few more days, Mrs. Ann B. Roff and her daughter Mrs. Minerva Alter came to see Lurancy. The girl recognized them through a window as they were coming up the street, saying, “There comes my ma and sister Nervie!” (Stevens 1887, p. 13) When the two women entered the house, Lurancy cried for joy, and threw her arms around their necks in greeting, as if she knew them intimately. After this visit, she seemed quite homesick and desirous of going to the Roffs. The Vennums, on the advice of friends, finally allowed their daughter to go, on February 11, 1878.
When Lurancy was being taken by the Roffs to their house, she tried to get them to go to another house on the way. She insisted it was her house. The Roffs had to take her past this house, almost by force. It was the house in which Mary Roff had died. The Roffs had then moved to another house, the one to which they were taking Lurancy (Myers 1903, v. 1, p. 367).
Richard Hodgson, of the American Society for Psychical Research, published a report on Lurancy’s stay with the Roffs, during which “almost every hour of the day some trifling incident of Mary Roff’s life was recalled by Lurancy” (Myers 1903, v. 1, p. 366). Indeed, Lurancy appeared to forget her identity as the daughter of the Vennums. Once, Lurancy told Dr. Stevens about a cut on her arm. As she rolled up her sleeve to show him the scar, she said, “Oh, this is not the arm; that one is in the ground,” meaning that the cut was on the arm of Mary Roff, whose body was now buried. Lurancy (as Mary) recalled seeing her own burial, indicating the soul of Mary Roff had hovered near her body after death or observed the scene from heaven (Griffin 1997, p. 172).
On February 19, 1878, Mr. Roff stated to Dr. Stevens: “Mary is perfectly happy; she recognizes everybody and everything that she knew when in her body twelve or more years ago. She knows nobody nor anything whatever that is known by Lurancy. Mr. Vennum has been to see her, and also her brother Henry, at different times, but she don’t know anything about them. Mrs. Vennum is still unable to come and see her daughter. She has been nothing but Mary since she has been here, and knows nothing but what Mary knew. She has entered the trance once every other day for some days. She is perfectly happy. You don’t know how much comfort we take with the dear angel” (Stevens 1887, p. 17).
Lurancy had predicted the angels would let her stay as Mary with the Roffs until May. (Stevens 1887, pp. 13–14). Minerva Alter, Mary’s sister, wrote on April 16, 1878: “My angel sister says she is going away from us again soon, but says she will be often with us. She says Lurancy is a beautiful girl; says she sees her nearly every day, and we do know she is getting better every day. Oh, the lessons that are being taught us are worth treasures of rare diamonds; they are stamped upon the mind so firmly that heaven and earth shall pass away before one jot or one title shall be forgotten. I have learned so much that is grand and beautiful, I cannot express it; I am dumb. A few days ago Mary was caressing her father and mother, and they became a little tired of it, and asked why she hugged and kissed them. She sorrowfully looked at them, and said, ‘Oh, pa and ma! I want to kiss you while I have lips to kiss you with, and hug you while I have arms to hug you with, for I am going back to heaven before long, and then I can only be with you in spirit, and you will not always know when I come, and I cannot have you as I can now. Oh, how much I love you all!’” (Stevens 1887, p. 18)
On May 7, 1878, Mary told Mrs. Roff that Lurancy was coming back. As she was sitting with her eyes closed, Lurancy regained control of her body. When she opened her eyes, she was surprised by her surroundings, and displaying anxiety, said: “Where am I? I was never here before” (Stevens 1887, p. 19). She cried and said she wanted to go home. In five minutes, Mary returned, and began singing her favorite childhood song, “We are Coming, Sister Mary” (Stevens 1887, p. 20). Mary continued to inhabit Lurancy’s body for some more time. During this period, she continued communicating her visions of heaven to the Roffs, including an encounter with the baby that Minerva Alter had recently lost to death.
From time to time, during these last days, the personality of Mary would recede enough for the personality of Lurancy to partially appear. When the girl was asked, “Where is Lurancy?” she would reply, “Gone out somewhere,” or “She is in heaven taking lessons, and I am here taking lessons too” (Stevens 1887, p. 26). On May 19, 1878, Mr. Roff was sitting with Mary in the parlor of his house. Mary then departed, and Lurancy took full control of her body. Henry Vennum, Lurancy’s brother, happened to be visiting the Roffs and was called in from another room. Lurancy, weeping, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. Everyone present began to cry. Henry left to get Lurancy’s mother, and while he was gone, Mary returned briefly. But when Mrs. Vennum came, Lurancy returned again. Stevens (1887, p. 35) said, “Mother and daughter embraced and kissed each other, and wept until all present shed tears of sympathy; it seemed the very gate of heaven.” Lurancy returned home, married, and lived a fairly normal life except that when she would see the Roffs sometimes “Mary” would briefly return (Stevens 1887, p. 35).
Is it possible that the Watseka Wonder can be explained as a hoax manufactured by Dr. Stevens, the author of a book about the case? This seems unlikely. Both the Vennum and Roff families testified to the accuracy of the account given by Stevens. Many details can also be corroborated from newspaper reports, and the case was thoroughly investigated by outside researchers such as Richard Hodgson, of the American Society for Psychical Research. Furthermore, William James, a world renowned psychologist, accepted the case and published it in his Principles of Psychology. In a footnote, James (1890 v. 1, p. 398, footnote 64) wrote, “My friend Mr. R. Hodgson informs me that he visited Watseka in April
1890, and cross-examined the principal witnesses of this case. His confidence in the original narrative was strengthened by what he learned; and various unpublished facts were ascertained, which increased the plausibility of the spiritualistic interpretation of the phenomenon.” What about Lurancy? Could she have been responsible? It does not seem likely that she could have acquired by natural means the extensive knowledge she displayed about numerous details of the lives of Mary Roff and members of the Roff family. Mary died when Lurancy was one year old, and the Roff and Vennum families had little contact with each other (Griffin 1997, p. 173).
The obvious paranormal explanation is that the soul of Mary Roff temporarily possessed the body of Lurancy Vennum.This would, of course, support the idea that there is a conscious self that can survive the death of the body. Supporters of the “superpsi” hypothesis might suggest that Lurancy picked up information about Mary from the minds of her living relations. But this would not easily account for her forgetting her identity as Lurancy Vennum and functioning for fourteen weeks, without a break, as Mary Roff. One researcher (Griffin 1997, pp. 173–174) has proposed that although Mary’s personality did not survive, perhaps some of her memories survived in a recoverable form and were used by Lurancy to construct the personality of Mary. But these memories should have stopped with Mary’s death. This would leave unexplained Lurancy’s account of Mary witnessing her own funeral. All things considered, the idea that the surviving personality of Mary Roff temporarily possessed the body of Lurancy Vennum seems the most economical and reasonable explanation of the facts.