Treat Your Valentine To Dinner And A Ghost Hunt At The Roff House

WATSEKA, IL — Love is in the air at the Asa and Dorothy Roff House in Watseka, IL home of the first documented possession in the United States.

Graveside Paranormal is hosting a romantic Valentine dinner and ghost investigation from 7 p.m. to 3:30 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 12, at the Roff House.

The evening features pizza along with an excellent charcurerie board and cheesecake for dessert. After dinner, guests will be given EVP equipment to visit with the spirit world from the top floor of the Roff House, all the way down to the basement, for a session with the Ana Hatta box. Guests will be emailed their own paranormal findings picked up by the EVPs during their investigations. The house is said to be chock-full of paranormal activity.

Built in 1868 by Asa and Dorothy Roff after the death of their 19-year-old daughter, Mary, the house inspired the 2009 movie "The Possessed." Asa Roff was a devout believer in spiritualism, a 19th century religious movement that brought comfort to believers who wished to communicate with departed loves ones in the afterlife. His daughter, Mary, was a clairvoyant, who could any book completely blindfolded and speaking in tongues. As was the fate of most 19th century clairvoyants, Mary died in an asylum in Peoria.

The Roff house has been lovingly restored by the owner, John, who saved this beautiful Victorian-era home from collapsing into a pile of rubble. When the owner first came across the 1868 Italianate-style house in 2005, it had not been inhabited for 115 years, and no work had been done to maintain it in several decades.

Tickets are $125 and can be purchased on Eventbrite. The Roff House, 300 E. Sheridan St., Watseka, is located in Iroquois County, 15 miles west of the Illinois-Indiana border. The home is a 90-minute drive from Chicago and Bloomington-Normal, an hour's drive from Urbana-Champaign, and 2.5 hours from Springfield. For more info, call ghosthunter Neal Gibbons, 708-227-7747.