Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

Few things are more disgusting than mold. It is bad enough finding it on a piece of cheese or a forgotten container of leftovers. Imagine having it permanently engulf your house. This fusty tale appeared in the Raleigh, North Carolina “News and Observer” for August 24, 1961:

ELKIN (UPI) — Grayish powdery mold which defies disinfectants, shellac, hot water, and alcohol has driven a part time Baptist minister and his family from their humble farm home near here in the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains.

"It's a sort of sour and fiery sort of thing," said the Rev. Grady Norman, 58, who was born in the house. "It made my nose plug up and my eyes water."

Mrs Norman, who was forced to seek medical treatment, said — "I scrubbed the place with alcohol and disinfectants but it didn't stop it! Nothing stopped it."

The mold now covers the six room house virtually from basement to attic including furniture, floors, walls, and even clothing left rotting in closets. The spores rise in puffball shapes ranging in size from a pin-point to a match head. It caused the Normans and their 15-year-old daughter Wilda Mae to wheeze and feel ill. Mrs. Norman was unable to sleep at night and developed an “asthma-type cough." “The doctor gave me some medicine but it didn't seem to help much," she said. "I guess we must be allergic to the mold."

The family moved into a small trailer parked within sight of the house, taking only a metal stove and refrigerator with them, on advice of the Surry County Health Department, which is mystified by the mold. "It started about a year ago but it didn't get really so bad until 30 days ago," said Mrs. Norman.

"It looks like plain old blue mold to me," said Surry County Health Director Robert M. Caldwell, "but we haven't been able to classify it. I think there are about 5000 types of mold."

He said a culture would be sent later this week to the State Laboratory in Raleigh for further tests. "I think reports about how fast the mold is spreading are terribly exaggerated," Dr. Caldwell said, "but nevertheless it's there and there is no doubt it did affect the family. I have a lake cabin up in the mountains myself and it's full of mold in the summer, you just dust it off."

Norman, who is a supply minister at the Union Hill Missionary Baptist Church, about 15 miles northwest of here, said he believes the mold started in linoleum they bought at a sale and put down on the floor of the house.

The family took up the linoleum after the mold was discovered and threw it outside, where the mold is still growing. The floor, meantime, was scrubbed with hot water and disinfectant and then painted with shellac. But Norman said the mold kept forming and spread to the walls, into kitchen cabinets, the bedrooms, and into dresser drawers and the closets. It covered cases of fruit and vegetables in the basement and "we've had to leave those too," said the unhappy housewife.

County Sanitarian John Cruse and the family physician, Dr. John Hall of Elkin, inspected the house on several occasions and Dr. Caldwell accompanied both there two weeks ago.

"I heard them talking so much about it I just had to see if for myself," Dr. Caldwell said. "It's mold, it's there, and we all agree it didn't do the family any good. Outside of that we're working to try and help them.

"Just why it keeps spreading I can't say. Maybe it’s because the house is in an especially damp place. But I don't know. The house is 60 or so years old and we have places over a hundred years old in the county and there is nothing like it in them."

Meanwhile the Normans are making the best of it in their small trailer and have given up attempts to stop the spread. A lean man, Norman tends his five milk cows and few acres of corn and garden crops.

"It's hard to lose everything," said Mrs. Norman.

"I was born in this house 58 years ago" said her husband. "Now we've had to get out and turn the house over to the mold."

A follow-up story appeared in the September 29, 1962 “Charlotte Observer.” The house, still covered in mold, had been permanently vacated. Rev. Norman expressed his disgust with all the publicity his family had received, declaring it was worse than the mold. He said that he and his family would not be speaking to reporters again. They wished to just get on with their lives in peace.

The story subsequently disappeared from the newspapers. Many years later, two Fortean researchers, Alan McCann and Michael A. Frizzell, learned of the musty mystery, and set out to learn more about it. (They subsequently published their findings in “The INFO Journal” for June 1991.) They were able to contact Norman’s daughter, who confirmed the details of her family’s bizarre ordeal.

In 1962, the Normans sold the house to a neighbor. This man made attempts to clean the house, but he too gave up the struggle and abandoned the place. It stood vacant--and defiantly moldy--for nearly 30 years, until the owner sold it to someone who bulldozed the house and cleared the land. At the time McCann and Frizzell’s article appeared, the site was still vacant property. It would be interesting to know what, if anything, stands there today.