After reading the Wood excerpts, I widened my search for more Borley references. There were more books than I ever imagined possible about my mother. While digging in a couple of used book stores in Salt Lake City, Utah, I found the following incredible sentences: "My private account of the investigation of the life on Marianne Foyster is contained in five bound and indexed . . . books. They contain in all nearly six hundred pages. . . the five volumes of Marianne Foyster of Borley Rectory contain the true and largely unpublishable story of Borley."

Those statements came from Trevor Hall in New Light on Old Ghosts, and was published by the same London publisher as The Widow of Borley. I remembered quite readily that Hall was one of the trio who wrote The Haunting of Borley Rectory: A Critical Survey of the Evidence. I could not believe what I was finding! It was absolutely incredible!

I learned that only two copies of Marianne Foyster of Borley Rectory existed - one in Hall's library, and another in the library of someone named Eileen J. Garrett. I felt an intense urge to catch the next flight to London. Eventually, I was able to view those priceless pages, and discovered an even more invaluable document tucked in the back of the last volume. It was not indexed, catalogued, or even mentioned in the rest of the collection. It seemed to me to be thrown in as an after-thought and never referred to by other researchers. It was 30 pages of the most delightful pages I had ever read - my mother's outline for her autobiography. It is reproduced here in its entirety in later chapters, and gives a completely different slant to the picture that has been drawn over the years of my mother. As with the documents I salvaged from her private papers, it is extremely unfortunate this outline was not available to other Borley writers.

Regardless of the title, not all of the "nearly six hundred pages" in Hall's unpublished manuscript have to do with Marianne. In fact, a great many chapters are dedicated to aspects of the haunting that had nothing to do with her. The intimation that Hall uncovered nearly 600 pages of secrets about Marianne is unfortunate. The speculation and innuendo found inside the pages is also disappointing. The volumes do contain, however, immensely valuable information unavailable anywhere else.

Meanwhile, not only were the statements in "Old Ghosts" incredible, there were also two pictures of my mother. One was quite large and showed her holding a baby. She was smiling broadly. Mom always told me she wanted lots of children.

I was mentioned briefly by Hall. "The names of a number of children involved in the full story, only one of whom Marianne took with her to America, will not be mentioned." [Emphasis mine.]

By now, it began to look like at least part of the haunting was a hoax. Indeed, Mom told "a legally qualified investigator" in 1957,"that she does not believe in ghosts or poltergeists, and that Borley was not haunted when she lived there." Explanations of the various mysterious phenomena were then outlined by Hall.

Mom blamed the wall writings "on the village youngsters." So why did the "ghostly" handwriting so perfectly match her signature on her will? Did Mom write the messages herself?

"What really happened at Borley," Mom told the investigator,"was simply silly . . . She said that Price was fully aware of this, and of the true nature of what was going on at the rectory." If Mom was trying to dream up a wonderful little ghost story, the greatest ghostbuster of them all - Harry Price - was in on it.

Hall talked about Ian "Shaw," but called him "X." Ian told Hall that he went to live with Mom and Reverend Foyster in Canada. After he finished his school there, he joined them at Borley Rectory. Ian described Mom's affair with a man who sold flowers and called himself Francois d'Arles. D'Arles lived with Mom in London as her husband. They had a flowershop together. Ian gave Hall our address in America, so Mom must have had correspondence with her first born son.

Hall then reviewed some of Mom's comings and goings just before we set sail for America. He quoted a local newspaper as saying that since August 1946, "she seems to have vanished without a trace."

Hall tied d'Arles to the "hauntings" at Borley. "D'Arleswas a mischievous man," Hall wrote, "who thought it amusing to say that he had seen apparitions and monstrosities in the rectory, and by producing 'phenomena' himself." Reverend Foyster was apparently "both mentally and physically" ill, so he "believed implicitly in these stories, and kept a written record of the incidents." Mom told the investigator "Price and d'Arles were very friendly."

Though I found it hard to believe it all, I wanted to read everything I could about my mother and I bought a copy of "Old Ghosts" immediately. It was expensive because it was a first edition. I wondered how much more this mysterious investigation was going to cost me.

Hall suggested in 1965 that the reverend was duped by Mom and d'Arles. Wood wrote in 1992 that Mom and Reverend Foyster were in on the deceptions and that d'Arles was an innocent bystander. Both couldn't be right. Both identified my mother as the common trickster.

My local library then found a copy of Price's End of the Borley Rectory for me. While it was important, and I decided that I would have to buy a copy someday, I was not as excited at finding it as I was about finding "Old Ghosts." Still, "End" had many fascinating sketches and pictures, including a photograph of the rectory before the fire. There were no pictures of Mom.

On the other hand, the bibliography alone was seven pages long! And that was in 1946. The list of books with references to my mother must now be as thick as a book itself! A similar list existed of English newspaper articles. Hall wrote there was even a television show - About Religion - that talked about Borley and dramatized some of the sightings. It aired February 11, 1962. Of course, many of the references I found were retellings and re-retellings of Price's and many other originals. It looked to me like I now had a new vocation: collecting books about my mother!

Price did write a few interesting things in The End of Borley Rectory including, "The new Rector [in October 1930] was the Rev. L.A. Foyster,M.A., a cultured and charming man . . . his equally charming wife . . .[and] Adelaide a little adopted daughter . . . who was about three anda half years old at this period." Adelaide adopted too?

"There was also a little boy of the same age . . . They left in October 1935." Nothing was mentioned of Ian.

Price quoted extracts from Fifteen Months, saying "Mr. Foyster hoped to get it published one day." Price detailed why there is a discrepancy between Fifteen Months and the length of stay at Borley."...it was during Mr. Foyster's incumbency that so many strange things happened . . . especially during the first fifteen months."

Price described Mom as "being 'psychic,' or coming from a psychic family," and then dropped the reference. I had never heard of such a thing in all the 47 years I spent with her.

Price made much of the "ghost writing" with several samples. There were remarkable similarities between those scrawls and my mother's writing. Coincidence? The more I dug, the more questions arose.

My digging and probing eventually lead me to the Parapsychology Foundationin New York City. It was there I learned who Eileen Garrett was - a famous psychic and also the founder of the foundation. She had worked with Hall in locating my mother and in sending a private detective to question her. The ensuing interviews formed a major part of the unpublished Marianne Foyster of Borley Rectory.

Mrs. Garrett had died, but the current staff was most helpful, sending me photocopies and expressing a sincere desire to help. In May of 1995, the foundation forwarded an introductory letter of mine to paranormal researcher Iris Owen. As far as I could discover, Owen was the last person to talk to my mother about her past. If I could locate her, perhaps more doors might open. I didn't know what to expect.

On May 24, I received a four page letter from Mrs. Owen that contained some of the most uplifting news I had heard since beginning my search. The fact that she was very willing to help created a tremendous feeling of optimism and excitement.

"It was indeed a pleasure and surprise to receive your letter recently,"she began. " I would indeed be delighted to receive a copy of yourbook, [Who Am I? The Mysterious Search for My Identity] and would treasure it greatly." She surely chose a great way to introduce herself! That she responded so quickly and so thoroughly amazed me - it had been less than two weeks since I sent my inquiry. My initial letter had to pass through the hands of the kind folks at the Parapsychology Foundation before reaching Mrs. Owen. I felt most gratified!

In the months that followed, Iris Owen became one of my most ardent supporters and closest of friends. She supplied me with vast quantities of research and books. Among the scores of documents she gave me were a first edition of The Most Haunted House, and all her notes used to compose the New Horizons Foundation report on Borley Rectory.

The day I received her first letter, I called her immediately. She sounded so warm and so willing to help, I could not help but cry.

"My association with the affairs at Borley goes back a long way,"explained Mrs. Owen's letter. "I remember reading about it duringthe 1930's when it happened, as my childhood home was not very far away in Cambridgeshire."

After the war, she met and married George Owen and they lived in Cambridge for 20 years. It was while living there that she and her husband became interested in psychical research. It was also while there that they met Trevor Hall, "who had a small research grant to explore the mathematical aspects of ESP." Mr. Owen was appointed to supervise Hall.

"Trevor was also taking part in the British [Society for Psychical Research]'s further investigation into the supposed hauntings at Borley," she continued. "Trevor was personally convinced the whole thing wasa fraud, and everything he did was slanted to that perception."

Iris then talked about Hall:

"Trevor devoted a lot of time to investigating Marianne's background, and through the accessibility of public records of births, marriages, and deaths in England, put together a picture of Marianne as an adventuress, a bigamist, a baby farmer, and obviously someone who would take part in frauds to suit her own ends. That was his firm conviction and he held it to the end of his life. I understand, in fact, he had written a biography of Marianne which would put forward these views and was only waiting for her death to publish it. He was obviously wary of being sued for libel while she still lived. However, he died without publishing it, and I do not know what happened to the manuscript. His son [Richard Roxby Hall] is a Professor of Maths at Leeds University and would probably know." (Mom would always say"maths" in this plural form, which bugged me to no end. It always sounded like "mass" to me. While she lived, I chose to ignore the inference that this speech pattern was probably peculiar to England, not the state of Maine. I also ignored it when people told me she had an English accent. In my letter of reply, I told Iris how Duckworth Publishing commissioned Robert Wood to finish Hall's work.)

"One day I had a call from Pauline Mitchell," Iris told me. Mitchell "introduced herself as a book reviewer and columnist for a local newspaper in Hamilton, about 60 miles from Toronto. She had picked up a book on Borley, and been intrigued by a sentence toward the end which stated the whereabouts of the children that had been left behind in England...and especially the whereabouts of Adelaide, were still a mystery. She decided to do a little detective work...and discovered the whereabouts of Adelaide. She then became intrigued and decided to track down Marianne, which she succeeded in doing - finding her at LaCrosse [Wisconsin]. She thought it would be a good idea to try and write Marianne's version of the happenings, but having no knowledge of paranormal phenomena, nor of the background of the Borley story, she asked me to help her [in January of 1977]."

Iris "was fascinated that [Mitchell] had managed to find Marianne, and felt that history at least owed her a chance to tell her side of the story. Nobody had ever asked her what it was all about, and I felt a good deal of sympathy for her and the way she had been portrayed. So Paulene made the first contact."

Mrs. Owen continued the tale in another letter to me in May, 1995:

"Marianne was shocked that she had been traced - she thought it was all behind her. She had known of the things that had been said and written, and felt that everyone concerned was crazy to attach so much importance to something that she regarded as finished with long ago. We finally persuaded her to tell us her version of the events on conditions - the first and foremost was that we would never try and contact you, and would do everything to prevent you from knowing that she had been part of this story. [Emphasis mine.]

"She had a very great love for you, and she didn't want you to be involved or told anything. We had to promise this before she would speak. We also had to promise that we would not publish anything until she had died.

"The copy of the report we made was written in 1986. It was circulated privately to a few chosen individuals and investigators. It was never published. We all knew that Marianne was getting on in age, and we knew Trevor Hall was eagerly awaiting news of her death. I think it was Peter Underwood who wrote me that he had heard in 1986 that she had died. Paulene and I tried to verify this - she had left the home where she was working, and they told us they did not know of her whereabouts."

According to the SPR report, both interviewers were under the impression Mom was a secretary at a home for elderly citizens. In fact, she was coordinator of services for the LaCrosse Committee on Aging. Mom must have told her own secretary to not tell Owen or Mitchell where she really was or her real profession. The pair never did visit Mom at her office, which at that time was located in the city hall.

"We could not trace your home address," Owen told me. "We concluded the information [about her death] was correct." I had left for Utah in June of 1985.

The Owen narrative resumed:

"On acceptance of these conditions, Marianne agreed to tell us her story. Paulene went to LaCrosse and interviewed her in a local hotel so as not to meet up with you." This was probably the Hotel Stoddard, where Mom and I went to eat when we felt like celebrating.

"She then agreed to write and speak to us on the telephone as and when she felt inclined. She was really reluctant to speak - she felt it was all so long ago, and it was not important in her life and to her...

"We did not make tape recordings... Paulene and I both received letters, and sometimes just pages of recollections. She had a delightful way of writing - she made things come alive - and to me everything she said made sense. I completely believe that her version of what happened is the correct one. [Emphasis mine.]

"Their real concern at Borley was Lionel's health and their future...I believe Harry Price cheated him out of his manuscript - the original one - which [Lionel] was actually writing in the hope of producing a bestseller which would solve their financial problems. A great deal of the events at Borley bear a striking resemblance to what had happened at Amherst [site of a poltergeist outbreak in Canada about 1878]...Marianne had her gynecological operation in Amherst hospital... I also believe that operation made it impossible for Marianne to have further children...but she and Lionel were very fond of children."

Iris informed me that Ian, "told Trevor Hall he had visited Borley at times, and on occasion had been outside and pulled the bells 'for a lark' and with Marianne's and Lionel's full knowledge."

Then Iris got to the part about me. "I accompanied Trevor Hall on visits to the various places in Norfolk where the Foysters lived before[Lionel's] death, and we also talked to people who remembered Marianne leaving. It was generally felt that you - the baby she took [to America]- was adopted just before O'Neil returned to England from Europe."

"...in the years immediately following the war there were thousands of babies born to servicemen from many countries involved in the war...French, Polish, Dutch, American, Canadian, Australian, etc. The local authorities had to open extra homes for these children and endeavor to get them adopted. Anyone who appeared suitable was able to have a child or children, and they were certainly happy to see possible American children repatriated. Marianne would have no difficulty in finding a child to adopt."

The Owen letter concluded with wonderful words about Mom:

"It is my firm belief that what Marianne told us was true. She was, in my opinion, a delightful person - witty, charming (everyone who knew her called her that), clever - but someone to whom life had dealt a hard hand. She was badly taken in by her first husband at age 15/16, and then only had a couple of years of happiness with Lionel before his illness overshadowed everything. She did the best she could with the life she had and the circumstances she had to deal with. [Emphasis mine.] Both Pauline and I admired her tremendously, and I wish I had an opportunity to know her earlier."

In the fall of 1978, Owen and Mitchell were given a grant to research and publish Mom's story. The same report was also sent to the Journalof the British Society for Psychical Research. Later chapters of this book include excerpts from the original work, with parts that did not appear in the SPR Journal. The new information gave a different slant on the life of Marianne.