Shortly after opening in 1986, we began to notice that something was odd about this building.
It was clearly alive.
Perhaps not sentient, but a living, breathing, moody entity, which was not afraid to make its presence known and to seemingly change its attitude within moments.
Footsteps, faces in mirrors, voices in the dark, glassware flying off shelves, tools moving, etc.…..we’d seen a lot at Shakers in our first year.
Almost from inception, we had women coming out of the Ladies room, walk up to the front bar, during our lunch hours and inquire of the staff…
”who is that little girl?”
Upon hearing the inquiry, the staff would often respond with something like this;…
” there is no little girl here”
“Oh, yes, there certainly is”, was the reply.
At which time, they would regale us with stories of their encounters in the ladies restroom.
“I was sitting in the stall and I heard a little girl singing, or giggling” , they’d say.
“Have another martini”, we’d respond.
there is no little girl”.
Or, “ I saw a little girls antique shoes under the stall door”
Further stating that they also would experience the sound of someone knocking upon the stall door,
Turning off and on the restroom lights,
turning on and leaving on the water in the sink, producing think volumes of white steam from the hot water, when clearly no one else was in the restroom.
As background,
Our lunch clientele was significantly corporate and upscale by nature and unlikely to have vivid imaginations.
Yes, company expense accounts were the norm, not the exception and yes, there was copious consumption of martinis and wine taking place along with the stilted business deals..
Keep in mind that in 1986, people were not looking at hauntings or the paranormal as positive occurrences, if they acknowledged them at all.
After about a year of this in the autumn of 1987, on a very busy Friday night, I was part of the team cooking in the kitchen and the servers kept coming to me and saying, you must do something about these two women who are in the way in the dining room.
As I approached the two women, whom I had never seen before, I inquired, “can I help you with something?
Instead of words, they put their arms together to form a circle and the first thing they said to me, was..
“Put your hand inside this circle” they had made
Which of course I did and it was like a blast freezer, it was so terrifically cold.
“What’s this I ask?”
“This is the little girl who inhabits the restroom”, one of them responded.
“Her name is Elizabeth and we were able to coax her out to meet you.”
I’m sure I looked quite dumfounded, but I muster a response.
“Hello, Elizabeth”, I say.
Really, what was the option?
“Elizabeth does not like to come out of the restroom as she considers it to be her safe area.” The psychic states.
You see, Elizabeth was an eight year old girl in 1835 when she was exploring the area where Shakers is located.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, this area was one of the original cemeteries for non-indigenous people (as opposed to the Native American burial grounds which were immediately to the west of Shakers from Second to Sixth street on the banks of one of the three rivers in Milwaukee.
Apparently, Elizabeth was climbing for apples, in a little stand of apple trees in the cemetery, when she fell and broke her neck at the area where the Ladies Restroom is now occupied in the rear of the building.
After opening Shakers, we had a baby grand piano which was played daily with live jazz during mid-days and for a period of time, it was set up in the main room by the rear radial archway.
After bar close, as we were stocking and cleaning,
we would often hear the piano playing.
It was certainly not Gershwin, but more of a plunking of the keys.
You could get to within ten to twelve feet of the piano and it would stop playing.
We lost many a server or bartender who would see and hear this piano played with no one there, get huge eyes and run from the building, never to be seen again.
I then moved the piano away from the archway and that ended the nighttime piano program and kept staff in place.
There is an old-time multi-panel picture of a very pretty little girl in her Sunday best on the wall in the Restroom. Various psychics have said that they can sense that it is Elizabeth.
From time to time, the picture would disappear, to return months later.
People are drawn to it and to take it, but they are also compelled to bring it back. It is now very securely fastened in a manner which would require removing part of the wall and still women ask if it is for sale.
Many of the film and documentary companies who film here, make it a point to bring Elizabeth a small stuffed animal or toy to play with.
Elizabeth is a very nice spirit and brings a sense of calm to most,
and she can delight you with her singing. Often people describe smelling green apples in her habitat.
However,
Elizabeth can have a profound impact upon some guests, causing some to leave the restroom in tears or even become hysterical or brining up
Unpleasant events for some.
We are grateful that she thinks enough of us to remain as this is her domicile and has appeared for many psychic investigators.
Tracy Starr was the psychic who introduced me to Elizabeth.
She was a longtime feature at Shakers until the mid-1990’s when her life took her on a different path.
She is one of the first to comment that I should never open the Safe in the Cellar as although there were valuables in it, there was also something very Evil which should not be allowed out.
Years before I found the bones of Molly Brennan in the floorboards of the Penthouse, Tracy had told me I would find someone’s bones in the building.
In 2001, while refurbishing the third-floor deck, I discovered the bones of a hospitality worker under the floor boards, which the Medical Examiner said were about seventy years old…during the time of the Brothels during Prohibition.
One of the later readings she did for me was to tell me that my wife and I were to have another son.
I recall laughing at her, confidently stating that we stopped at two children and I was busy travelling for major catering gigs or food shows for my line of foodstuffs
A little over a year later, in 2001, we had our third child, a son, Nathan.
I had opened another restaurant in Elm Grove and was bouncing between locations when I saw Starr one night at Shakers and she told me that I would have another child.
“Impossible”, I say, knowing that my wife had her tubes cut, tied and cauterized and we barely saw each other.
“You’ll see” she said as she bet me a glass of champagne.
In March 2003, Kirsten was born…the miracle child.
How Tracy knew this is beyond explanation except that the psychic power she had was very real and pervasive.
In the August of 2007, I saw Tracy again who came into Shakers and asked how the family was doing and I remarked fine. She shook her head and told me to watch out as things were not what they seemed and I should prepare for the worst with my wife.
In October of that year, I came home on a Sunday afternoon from visiting with my father and my wife served me with Divorce papers.
I called Tracy that week and asked how she knew and she said like all else, it just came to her. She also said it would be a very long, expensive and painful divorce.
Right again, our divorce lasted until 2010, only to be re-ignited a few months later with a post-divorce filing which lasted until 2017 and set a record in Waukesha County for the number of filings my ex-wife made.
Tracy married and moved out of town and I would see her very sporadically at Shakers.
In November of 2020, Tracy came into Shakers saying that the following week and told me she would be going into the hospital for a routine procedure.
She went into the ladies’ room to chat with Elizabeth and when she came out she said that Elizabeth would not talk with her and Tracy felt very apprehensive about her upcoming procedure after that.
Tracy died from complications of COVID which she apparently contracted at the hospital, causing a blood clot which travelled to her brain and killed her instantly.
I miss my friend and I pray that Starr is at peace in the hereafter.
Post Script:
As I wrote this story, my laptop died, fortunately right after I saved it.
My Mac says it had 11% power left and I've taken it down to 2% on a regular basis.
One of the many weird things here at Shakers.