A Press Photo of James Mulleague as Oliver Hardy

 And the original:

Audiences Bewitched

Detroit News, October 22, 1970 (enlarge)

There's a lot to discuss here but thankfully much of it is rote for the blog and thus, I can hit on the banal points with great satisfaction. Mainly, that Gundella was sipping on a Pink Squirrel at the Dearborn Inn on the occasion of her October 1970 talk to a woman's groups there.

On the matter of separation of church and state she is grossly misinformed. The entire focus of that clause is organized religion and not religion itself. It's not verboten in school or any public setting but also cannot be a requirement for participation. Though, in her situation, I don't think it would have been prudent to say, "Hey kids, does anybody want to learn some witchcraft magic?"

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"People who think we eat babies have the wrong idea about witches," said Gundella with a smile as she sipped a Pink Squirrel at the Dearborn Inn.

Filling the booth and clad in an enormous robe, Gundella say she traces her lineage as a witch back to a 15th century Scottish cult - was relaxing after lecturing to a woman's luncheon group.

Since she agrees with the separation of church and state, Gundella - sometimes known as Mrs. Marion Kuclo, of Garden City - has refrained from teaching magic during her 23 years as a grade school teacher in western Wayne County.

But she's taken a leave of absence this year to crusade against the "slanderous rumors and misconceptions" she says have plagued witches for centuries.

"People are mistaken in thinking that witches claim to have special powers," she said. 

"Actually witches are trained, not born, to use the psychic powers we all have within us.

"Another misconception is the idea that a witch must be a woman," she said, pointing out that her Ann Arbor coven - the name for the traditional 13-member organization of witches - has members of both sexes. 

But for Gundella the most bothersome misconception is the one that equates witches with satanism, wild orgies and evil potions.

Television viewers may remember commentator Lou Gordon challenging Gundella to "make me shrivel up and die," during a recent interview. 

If acted upon, Gordon's suggestion would have created a television spectacular, but Gundella explained that her specialty is improving people's lives, not turning them into toads.

Gundella says witches believe in an overall structure of natural order, and that magic is simply what science has not yet explained. 

"Just because science has measured radio waves doesn't make them any more real to me that thought waves," said Gundella, who claims she sends messages with or without the use of her telephone.

Gundella believes in spirits, but thinks they visit humans only on rare occasions. 

"Seances and Ouija boards may sometimes contact recently departed friends or relatives, but don't expect Napoleon writing love letters to Jospehine," she said.

True witchcraft, Gundella says, is part of the "Old Religion" - known as Wica - that witches have practiced for thousands of years. 

She claims warlocks, wizards and sorcerers are various types of heretics who have managed to acquire the skills of witchcraft without living up to its religious obligations.

Since Gundella is a "green witch," Scottish cult tradition requires her to dye herself green from head to toe on important witches' sabbaths. 

For the Halloween season a bottle of food coloring transforms Gundella into a green giantress.

But don't expect to find her on your doorstep. Seasonally conscious witch hunters might expect October to be the peak season for witches. 

But Oct. 31 is a holy day - not a holiday - for orthodox witches who spend All Hallow's Eve at secret coven meetings. 

And Gundella, who operates on the tight schedule of a modern witch, usually is too busy with lectures, children's shows and television appearances to indulge herself in trick-or-treating and joyrides on brooms.

WANTED - Vacant house to rent for 1 night, Oct. 30. The older and spookier the better. Call Gundella, 427-1072

Detroit News, September 28, 1971

WANTED - Vacant house to rent for 1 night, Oct. 30. The older and spookier the better. Call Gundella, 427-1072. That's the full text of Gundella's want ad from September of 1971 in the Detroit News. Whether or not she found that perfect spooker [sic] house is not known at present. I took the liberty of correcting spooker to spookier.

Gundella is nice lady

The Community Crier, November 6, 1985 (enlarge)

This op-ed letter from Patricia Haggerty, the mother of Veronica Kuclo's best friend, writes in to chastise the community for calling Gundella a bad influence on children in response to her much aligned presentation at Plymouth-Salem High School in 1985. Protests erupted but the talk went on.

Mrs. Haggerty describes Gundella as a "wonderful, sensitive and intelligent person" with beautiful children of her own. She goes on to say, "There is no cult, there never has been." and finishes with the castigation, "I'm ashamed of you people in my hometown that would allow such a thing as this to happen. It is malicious and vicious. Get your facts straight."

What they're talking about...

Detroit News, November 5, 1972

Here's a humorous incident from the What they're talking about... feature in the Detroit News about a state trooper pulling Gundella the Witch over on I-94 and taking a long look at her green face and black robe before commenting, "That's what I thought I saw," and then slowly walking away. 

Double, double toil and real estate trouble

Detroit News, March 31, 1991 (enlarge)

This column by long-time Free Press writer Neal Shine in a joint edition of the Detroit dailies deals with unsold real estate and includes an incident in which Gundella aided a woman in selling her home via a wax effigy. Said effigy was constructed by pouring melted paraffin into an empty one pint coffee cream carton with an inserted wick. Once dried it was whittled into a workable resemblance of the house to be sold. It was then dressed with pine oil and placed on a triangle of virgin parchment and had to be burned nightly at 7 PM for exactly 21 minutes. When the candle had burned down to nothing the house would sell. The woman, having relayed the story, claimed to have kept faithfully to the ritual to the point of interupting her everyday routines. But by the end of the effigy's life the house sold.

Central Chooses Top Speakers

Saginaw News, November 19, 1948

Paying for access to the Detroit News archives has been a boon for my many research projects and likely will help out well where Gundella is concerned as well.

We all know that Gundella had the gift of gab and this article verifies that it was already presenting itself in her early college years as she was part of the state extempore speaking contest as a sophomore at Central Michigan in 1948.