A House with a Past: History and Hauntings at Laipply’s

In July of 2025 I contacted Jacqueline “Jac” Psyhogios at Laipply’s Printing & Marketing Solutions because I’d heard she had a couple of good ghost stories about the place. Amazingly, she didn’t think I was a complete weirdo and graciously agreed to share them with me that September.

Jac’s parents, Ron and Effie Laipply, started the printing business in 1973. The shop was originally located at 120 S. Main Street, but in 1978, needing more shop space and better parking, the Laipplys decided to relocate to 270 E. Center Street. The new location was a house – one of the oldest in Marion – and as the years passed, peculiar stories about the house began to make the rounds.

Laipply’s Printing & Marketing Solutions in September of 2025

Although the exact date is unclear, most sources agree that the house was built in the early 1830s. Constructed in the so-called Greek Revival style, the house featured a symmetrical façade and balanced proportions reminiscent of an ancient Greek temple. In a 1977 interview with the Marion Star, Carroll Neidhart, one of the founding members of the Marion County Historical Society, said the house, as one of the few at the time made of brick rather than logs, would have been impressive. An early occupant was probably Judge Ozias Bowen, a seminal figure in early Marion history.

After Ron and Effie purchased the house, Neidhart offered to assist in restoring the home to its original grandeur. In return for his efforts, the Laipplys agreed to let the Marion County Historical Society use the upstairs as their headquarters, which they did until relocating to 255 S. Main Street in the early 1980s.

The house undergoing renovations in 1977. Jac said that her parents ultimately decided not to put the house on the historical registry because it would have made it harder for them to make the changes necessary to meet their evolving business needs. The house was also reportedly part of the Underground Railroad. Jac said both the cellar and a cistern behind the house served as hiding places for escaped slaves. From there it was a short dash to the railroad tracks, where they could hop trains heading north to Canada.

For her part, Jac told the Star in 2021 that “In my younger years, I never even considered buying the family printing business.” She left Marion for Ohio University after high school, and following graduation, her career took her to Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Chicago, and finally New York City, where she served as a VP of sales for Liz Claiborne. Life takes unexpected turns, though, and after a health scare, Jac decided to return to Marion in late 2007. “It suddenly became very important to be closer to family,” she told the Star.  In 2008, she began working at Laipply’s and in 2010 she began buying out the business. Today, she and her husband, Bill, are the owners.

Jac began by telling me a few stories about the two shop cats, Copy Cat and, later, Carbon Copy (or CC for short). Copy Cat, a rescue Ron and Effie found up at Lake Erie, lived full-time at Laipply’s.

Copy Cat

From her office, Jac has a view of a hallway closet, and Copy Cat used to sit in front of the closed door. “He would bat at the door with his paws and then suddenly just take off like a shot. I mean, he would probably not hit three steps on the way down [the stairs]. It would happen all the time,” she said.

The closet outside Jac’s office that seemed to unsettle Copy Cat.

The basement was another area of the shop that made Copy Cat uneasy. To be fair, Jac avoided the basement as well. “I was up here [at Laipply’s] all the time as a kid, and I’ve been back [in Marion] for almost eighteen years – I’ve never set foot in the basement. It scares me.” The closest she came was when her husband was carrying some boxes down into the basement for storage. “I think I went down to the halfway point and pointed to where he should put them, and that was about it for me.”

“Copy Cat would never, ever go into the basement, either. He would stand at the top of [the stairs] but would never go down. One day my dad went down into the basement with a press operator, and Copy Cat must have been feeling brave. He went down there with them. They didn’t realize that he’d come down there and accidentally shut him in the dark for hours.” Later, when the employees noticed Copy Cat was missing, someone opened the door and the poor cat “shot out of the basement terrified. Ears pinned back, fur standing on end.  And he never went near the basement again.”

The stairs leading to the basement. Both Jac and Copy Cat had an aversion to going down there. According to Jac, these stairs were originally an exterior feature, later enclosed by a back addition to the house.

Eventually, though, Copy Cat developed a blockage in his heart that was causing pain and difficulty breathing. The family decided the most humane option would be to put him down. The following morning, one of Laipply’s employees spotted another cat right outside the shop with more than a passing resemblance to Copy Cat. “When the new cat jumped right into her arms, she asked, ‘Can we keep her?’” Jac told me. Everyone began calling the new cat Carbon Copy or CC for short.

Carbon Copy or CC for short

Another story Jac told me involved the so-called overnight man. Back in the 1980s, when a lot of the work was still done manually, Laipply’s was running three shifts. “The overnight guy was a big, burly, motorcycle-driving, bearded, husky guy. He was a press operator.” Part of his job was “shooting plates,” which, in the pre-digital era, meant shooting images of layouts with a specialized process camera and then transferring those images to light-sensitive metal plates that would be used in the printing presses. This process required a darkroom, which, at Laipply’s, was up on the second floor. “This guy,” continued Jac, “would swear that he would turn on the hallway light, go into the darkroom, shut the door, shoot plates, and when he would come back out, the hallway lights would be off. He thought, ‘Maybe I just didn’t turn the lights on.’ He’d switch the lights on, go back in the darkroom for fifteen minutes, and when he’d come back out, the lights were off again.”

The former darkroom where the overnight man worked many night alone

Things culminated one night when the man confronted the specter of an old woman carrying a candle and wearing an old-fashioned nightgown on the second floor. After this incident, the man told Mr. Laipply that he would never work the overnight shift again.

As our conversation wound down, Jac gave me a tour of the shop. She cheerfully pointed out features of the house that were original as well as the additions the Laipplys had added over the years.

As we made our way through the building, Jac half-jokingly asked one of the employees if she’d ever experienced anything spooky. The woman replied that she used to hear footsteps from the apartment upstairs, especially when she stayed late. Disturbingly, nobody was living up there at the time.

“I don’t think you’ve ever shared that footsteps story with me,” Jac said.

The old house, it seems, still has a few stories waiting to be told.

Sources:

  • “Marion Business Celebrates a Golden Milestone” The Marion Star, 3 July 2023
  • “Old Brick Dwelling has Tales to Tell” The Marion Star, 20 November 1977
  • “Labor of Love Nears Completion” The Marion Star,13 May 1979
  • “Former President Notes Historical Center’s Past” The Marion Star, 12 October 1982
  • “Celebrating 14 Years of Growth in Marion” The Marion Star, 29 March 1987
  • “Marion’s Secret Underground” The Marion Star, 20 July 1999
  • “Aces of Trades: Adversity brings Psyhogios home to run Laipply’s Printing in Marion” The Marion Star, 16 March 2021
  • Marion, Ohio Then & Now, Randy Winland, 2024

 

The Haunted Church in Richland Township


Let me set the scene for you: It’s a Saturday night in October of 1975. You’re sitting around with your friends, bored.

“Do you want to shoot the loop?” asks someone.

“Nah,” says another. “Lets go see a movie at the drive-in.”

“There’s nothing good showing,” says someone else.

After a few minutes, someone finally says, “Hey, I heard there’s a haunted church out in Richland Township. Supposedly the lights flicker on an off as you get close to it. How about we drive out there and check it out?”

A few minutes later, you’re crammed into your friend’s car barreling south down 98, the windows down, the cool fall air rushing in.

The Church

The haunted church was actually St. John’s United Church of Christ (which was originally called the St. John’s Reformed Church) and was located on the corner of Firstenberger and Mautz-Yeager in Richland Township.

Construction on the church began in 1916, and it was dedicated on June 3rd, 1917. A Marion Star article at the time described it as having “a seating capacity of 250 and is modern in every way.” This church took the place of the original St. John’s Church, which stood a short distance away and was home to the congregation between 1857 and 1916.

The church as it appeared in 1972. Image courtesy of the Marion Star.

In May of 1972, the congregations of St. Joseph’s United Church of Christ in Waldo and St. John’s Church voted to merge into a single congregation and build a new church. (This merger was preceded by the earlier closure of another church in the area, St. Jacob’s, in 1931 due to dwindling membership; most of its remaining members joined either St. Joseph’s or St. John’s.)

For the next couple of years, the congregation worshipped in the St. John’s church while construction began on the new church on Route 98 a few miles north of Waldo. That church, Peace Community United Church of Christ, first welcomed worshipers in August of 1975 and continues to do so today.

After Peace Community opened, St. John’s Church sat vacant, and that’s when rumors that the church was haunted began to spread.

The Legend

Interestingly, almost all of the people who remembered the story mentioned the role lights played in it.

Brad Walker, for example, said, “I can’t remember who told me, but a bunch of us drove out there and as you drove up to the church the lights went on or off.” He believed the effect was due to the car headlights reflecting off of the stained glassed windows.

Randall Warrick said, “I used to go by there all the time when I was taking girls on ‘ghost hunting’ trips around Marion for the fun of it. When you drove by it , it was completely dark. If you drove just a little further down the road and looked back, it looked like it was lit up for services.” He thought that an outdoor farm light in the distance was passing through the remaining stained  glass windows and giving the impression that the church was illuminated.

Kellie Tobin said she remembered driving by the church with her sister. “We turned the headlights off and it looked like there were lights on inside. It was easy to fool my 13 year old self.”

Unsurprisingly, residents living nearby were not always happy with the crowds of thrill-seeking teenagers the church attracted. A woman who grew up near it recounted how, “Kids used to tear up and down the road at night to see it. We lived on that road and [those kids] made my Dad crazy with all the cars.”

All Gone

In October of 1975, an auction notice appeared in the Star announcing the sale of church furnishings, and in the spring of 1976, the church was torn down.

The auction notice for St. John’s.
A workman salvaging boards from St. John’s Church. Only the bell and cornerstone were saved, and they are now preserved at the Peace Community Church. Image courtesy of the Marion Star.

Today, the land where the St. John’s Church was located is empty, any evidence of a church having been there long gone.

For a short time — less than a year, it seems  — stories about a haunted church out on the corner of Firstenberger and Mautz-Yeager captured the imaginations of local teenagers only to fade just as quickly.

Sources:

  • “St John’s Reformed Church Dedication” The Marion Star, 31 May 1917
  • “Two Churches Join to Become One in Richland Twp.” The Marion Star, 13 May 1972
  • “Newest Church in County Opens” The Marion Star, 8 August 1975
  • “AUCTION Saturday, Oct 11 1:00 p.m.” The Marion Star, 10 October 1975
  • “Old Church is Being Razed” The Marion Star, 2 April 1976
  • “Peace Community United Church of Christ.” Marion County History, edited by Trella Romine, 1979.