Green Olive Interiors
Green Olive Interiors
139 Olive Street, Keller Texas
Pre-Investigation
Investigation
Pre-Investigation
History of the ResidenceGreen Olive Interiors is located at 139 Olive Street in Keller, Texas. The owner is Denise Moser, she has owned this location for the past three years. The location currently houses a store that sells interior decorations and serves as home to Denise’s interior design studio. The business has been open for the past year. The house was previously located on FM 1709 in Keller. The home was slated for destruction but through Denise’s efforts it was saved and moved to its current location.
The home is one of the oldest in Keller, being built in 1888. It was originally located in the Bear Creek Park area and later moved to FM 1709 or Price Street as it was originally known. The house served for many years as a home and office for Dr. Edwin Read and his wife Nannie Rebecca Price Read.
Dr. Read was originally from Kentucky and received a medical degree in Louisville. He moved to Tarrant County in 1886 and married Nannie Price in 1892. The house is two stories. The first floor served as their home while the two upstairs rooms served as Dr. Read’s offices. An addition was added later which is now the rear portion of the home. There was an enclosed porch on the west side of the home, which is now fully enclosed and serves as an office area.
The Read family was well known and well regarded in the early years of Keller. They had one daughter who continued to live in the house after the death of Dr. and Mrs. Read. She died in 1971 and the home was sold. During the 1980s and 1990s the house was used as office space for the Keller Citizen, as a store called the “Clotheshorse” and later as a store called “Katherine Ann’s”.
Denise became familiar with the house while shopping there and she came to know the store’s previous owner, Jo Ann. When the home became scheduled to be torn down, Denise fought to obtain the home. She was able to purchase it and moved it to its current location.
Paranormal Activity Reports
Denise says that her husband has reported to her that he has heard footsteps and other strange noises when he is in the home alone and at night. Their cat “Olive” has meowed while looking into the attic. In the attic, workers found a wreath for a gravesite. No one knows whose grave this wreath was on but assumes that it was for one of the family members. When the wreath was located there were two whiskey bottles next to it, which seemed really odd.
Denise reports that she feels the presence of Dr. Read in the upstairs office areas. She can feel the presence of Mrs. Read in the downstairs areas. Denise has reported pleasant smells in the downstairs area, which she associates with Mrs. Read. One of these smells is of baking cookies. The previous owner also reported smelling cookies when she owned the home. Denise also reports a smell like talc powder or vintage perfume. She especially notices the presence of Mrs. Read in her office area, which was once an indoor/outdoor patio. Both Mr. and Mrs. Read died in the home. Mr. Read died in the office area where the cash register sits. This was a screened in porch at the time of his death. Mrs. Read died in what was the kitchen and is now the large rear room.
Denise stated that she feels that Dr. Read does not approve of people being in the upstairs area where his office once was. There is a door upstairs that leads to the attic area. The lock on this door frequently becomes unlocked seemingly on its own. The door also seems to open on its own occasionally. There is a light behind this door and they frequently find this light on when it had previously been turned off. When Dawn and I were being shown the home, this light was on. Denise had not been up there prior to us being shown the home.
There is a Montessori school next door. The teacher at the school told Denise that one of her kids reported seeing an older woman walk out the back door of the home. This woman was wearing a white dress and had a large hole in her chest. There was no one at the house at the time this occurred. Another student reported talking to a young girl through the fence that separates the two properties. The girl told the Montessori school student that her father had died at the house.
It is believed that several people may have died in the home. At the time there were no hospital or clinics in the area and anyone injured or sick would be taken to the Doctor’s home for treatment. In those days a snakebite, infection, or injury could easily result in death.
On Halloween night 2005, Denise’s fourteen-year-old son and several of his friends spent the night in the upstairs portion of the home. During the night one boy saw a strange orange light hovering in the room and at the same time he could hear voices talking to him. He became so disturbed that he had to leave. Denise says this boy is not a scary or dramatic kid and that it is unlikely that he would have made up the story.
Denise says she frequently sees movements or shadows out of the corner of her eye but that no one is there. She also frequently hears what sound like footsteps or someone entering the residence but no one is there. This most often happens at night. She has often heard a scratching sound coming from the attic but suspects this might be a squirrel.
Denise stated that occasionally things unexplainably fall off walls or tables. This most frequently happens when her employee, Shirley, is present. Also things frequently go missing with no explanation.
Denise stresses that she feels comfortable with the spirits that are in the home. She does not get any type of bad feeling from them. In fact when the house was being moved she told the spirit of Nannie that the house was being moved to save it and that she was welcome to come with them. She wants the spirits to stay with her if they are happy being there.
Investigation
The Stockyards Paranormal Investigations team conducted an investigation of Green Olive Interiors in Keller, Texas on the night of December 16, 2006. This proved to be one of the most interesting cases we have had yet. We started the night by having psychic, Paula Schermerhorn, meet with the owner, Denise. Paula was lead through the house by Denise and Dawn of SPI. Paula was able to immediately pick up on two spirits she believed to be in the house. Denise told Paula about Dr. and Mrs. Read and some of the history of the house.While in the doctor’s offices upstairs, Paula picked up on what she felt may have been a murder that had occurred in the office. Paula said while she was upstairs that she could definitely feel the presence of Dr. Read. The Doctor himself would later confirm his presence. The pre investigation mentions two whiskey bottles that had been found in the attic when the home was moved. These two whiskey bottles were sitting on the floor. Paula, Denise, and Dawn were discussing the doctor and the bottles when one of the bottles suddenly fell forward on the floor making a loud noise. The audio recording of this can be heard on this website. Kevin was sitting outside on the porch at the time and thought something had fallen on the roof of the house. He got up and looked around only to find out later that it was the bottle falling over. Denise’s immediate response was “I’m telling you, this stuff happens all the time.”
Paula also picked up on the presence of a small boy and girl. She asked Denise if the Read’s had a male child. They had not but Paula restated that she was picking up on both a girl and a boy.
Our team started the investigation in the large room downstairs. We immediately got activity on our dowsing rods from one corner of the room, which was near the spot where Nannie Read had died. Karen asked questions using the dowsing rods as an indicator for the answers. Karen got a positive response when she asked if Nannie Read was present. She further confirmed that she and Dr. Read were present in the house. Here is Karen’s description of what happened.
“ When I was using my dowsing rods I asked for Nanny to give me a sign that she was with us and honestly it felt as if someone tapped me on the right thumb. I am guessing I could explain this away if I had a twitch that was just wacky. When we changed from room to room it seemed as if there were pressure changes and the heaviness seemed to coincide with activity. When my rods would not cross the pressure wasn't in the room. It was a very real feeling.”
During this time we picked up some whispers on our recorders but nothing definite to call an EVP. Karen asked if Mrs. Read was happy that the house had been saved from destruction and moved and got a positive response on the rods.
At about this same time Dawn captured a photograph in the back portion of the room, that shows a possible anomaly. The photo shows Kevin holding an EMF detector and in the background is an angel in a red dress that is a decorative item in the store. There appears to be a distortion on the right side of the dress. This could possible be from a part of the fabric, but it does seem a little strange.
Denise’s husband and her son joined us. Her son gave us a first hand account of the previous Halloween when his friend had seen an orange ball of light and heard voices. He showed us the spot upstairs where they had been sleeping.
Dawn and I spent some time upstairs investigating with the others downstairs. We got a slight response on the dowsing rods but nothing unusual. While in the Doctor’s office we were sitting on the floor and felt a slight tremor in the floor. This could be attributed to a train passing nearby or some other earthly cause but was a little strange.
We were pursuing a line of questioning about the possibility that a murder had taken place in the office. We surmised that what Paula picked up could have been an accident that the Doctor felt responsible for and that he might have blamed himself. While asking questions along these lines the dowsing rods began to wobble. They didn’t cross just wobbled. This could be just shaky hands but we didn’t get this response at any other time.
While we were upstairs, Terri and Karen had felt like they had made contact with the spirit of a young child, a boy. They believed the boy’s name was Edwin.
Karen, Terri, Paula, and Denise then went upstairs to work for a while. This was when we got some really unusual activity. Karen, Paula, and Denise were in the Doctor’s office. They were spread out several feet apart. Karen was working with the rods asking questions. The rods were crossing to her questions when suddenly one of the rods flew out of Karen’s hand across the room and struck Denise. Karen says she didn’t throw it and both Paula and Denise confirmed that there was no appearance that Karen had caused this. The feeling of the group was that this was Doctor Read expressing his annoyance that they were there asking questions of him. Again, here is Karen’s description of what occurred.
“ When I was upstairs, the heaviness in the doctor’s office seemed to be so heavy that it was almost hard to breath. When that rod came out of my hand- I thought I had just dropped it. I was in the dark with just the Christmas lights shining in. My first instinct was to kneel to the floor and just feel around for it until Denise asked what had fallen on her. She stated that she thought it had come down from the ceiling. The rod must have taken a very weird path. Something like: toward the floor from my hand, up again and hooked around the door way and landed right behind her beside the liquor bottle that had fallen early in the evening. I was almost backed up to the window on the left hand side of the docs office as you enter the room. I was not sure what to think and was trying very hard to come up with anything to explain what had happened. It was a very mixed emotion to say the least. There was disbelief, excitement, fear, uneasiness, the WOW factor and also a feeling of accomplishment knowing that what I was here for wasn't in vein.”
Unfortunately, the tape recorder we had in this room had run out of tape, so we don’t have audio recording of the reactions from Denise, Karen, and Paula. They all agreed that this happened in the way that Karen describes.
We all reassembled back downstairs. Near the cash register, Dawn, Paula, Denise and Kevin all commented about smelling pipe tobacco. Denise said this is the first time she had smelled pipe tobacco. She had detected the aroma of baking cookies and vintage perfume in the past. The smell lasted for about 10 to 15 seconds and was gone. It seemed to cover an area about three to five feet.
Green Olive Interiors is located in a wonderful and historic home that is a joy to visit. The owner, Denise was a gracious host and Stockyards Investigations is grateful for the opportunity to conduct an investigation here. This was our first investigation where we encountered objects seeming to move by themselves. We were a little disappointed that we didn’t pick up any EVPs, but that’s the nature of this business.
I would encourage our readers to stop by and visit this wonderful house. There are great items there for home decoration. I think our final analysis is that Denise seems to be accompanied by two spirits that really appreciate her. She seems to be very comfortable with their presence and hopes that they stay as long as they want to be there. She has done great things with this historic home and the Reads seem to appreciate this fact.
Pictures
Picture One
Picture Two
Picture Three
Picture Four
Picture Five
Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVPs)
Picture of Green Olive's exterior (they won first place for their Christmas decorations!)
