Petaluminaries Podcast

Petaluminaries Podcast

Nora and Adele are two restless spirits who have returned from their busy afterlife in the city of Petaluma, California, to host this podcast. They have come back to tell stories of the mysterious and melancholy demise of themselves, their friends and neighbors, as well as life in Sonoma County and Northern California in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This podcast is a combination of history, true crime, comedy, and performance. If you have the stomach for it, this could be for you. WARNING: The ghostesses discuss grisly happenings, including suicides and murders.

Episodes

March 13, 2025 30 mins

This week Adele returns from her ghostly community service with Frau Holle and reunites with Nora for Part 3 of their Ghouls on the Road motorcycle trip through the ghost towns of Sonoma County. This time it’s to the Mayacamas where they learn about Cinnabar and Mercury mining during the California Gold Rush. They meet the original Thompson Twins and learn about their rough and tumble lives in Pine Flat. There’s no quicksilver in t...

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This month Nora and Adele continue to regale you about their Ghost Town road trip in Part 2 of Ghouls on the Road. They head for the coast and ride their spectral Harley up Highway 1. They stop at several doghole ports and run across some ghostly mammoths in the mist. A shipwreck spirit and a cheeky Russian commandant are a few of their more memorable encounters. Where are they headed next? Will they get there? When will this road ...

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September 24, 2024 2 mins

Nora and Adele are still intermission-ing. Be back soon!

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July 13, 2024 35 mins
Nora and Adele answer an eekmail query about the Spanish and Mexican period spirits of Petaluma. Tune in as they ramble on about the mythical origins of California, the Mission Period, plus the legends of Rancho Petaluma and the Old Adobe. Mariano Vallejo would spin in his grave (if he were still there) had he known that our ghoulish duo would spill the beans on his more dastardly deeds. Definitely an episode to be enjoyed in the g...
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June 13, 2024 34 mins
Adele and Nora are stunned this month when the AI mirror calls up Nora's cousin Mary Barry O'Flaherty from Seattle and brings her to Petaluma through the intercobwebs. Hear Mary's stories about that 1870s Northwest frontier town, the Great Seattle Fire, and how Mary passed away falling off of a street, literally. Now she inhabits Seattle's spooky underground with her best friend the notorious Madam Lou Graham. Could this be a new w...
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May 13, 2024 32 mins

Slough, creek, river... whatever you call it, Petaluma has close ties to our tidal waterway. It's been the lifeline of the city and also a watery grave for some. Join Adele and Nora this month as they step off the boardwalk and into the latest meeting of the River Club with Jennie Otis McNear. Members of the River Club expired within the damp embrace of our dangerous drainage. Hear some of their stories and stay for the expired...

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April 13, 2024 34 mins
Join Adele and Nora this month for an interview with Adele’s deceased husband Captain Tom Baylis. One of Petaluma’s pioneers, Captain Tom was the first immigrant to setup a game warehouse, hotel, and he brought both sail and steam boats to Petaluma, from San Francisco, in the early 1850s. He recounts details about his life and some of the early days in Petaluma. Tom Baylis was an entrepreneur, a civic leader, and an all-around dash...
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March 14, 2024 82 mins

Never ones to miss a deadline, Adele and Nora got this special lucky 13th episode in just under the wire. This month they take a stroll with Clara Travers through Petaluma’s Cypress Hill, B’nai Israel, and Calvary Cemeteries. Join them for a self-guiding tour using the map they uploaded to the Petaluminaries website. In this nifty narrative of our nearby necropolis, they expound on the nature of Victorian cemetery art, architecture...

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February 13, 2024 33 mins
This month Nora and Adele stop in to see Addie Gossage Healy one of Petaluma's deceased local photographers at her studio on Main Street. They learn about the development of photography and the influence it had on the average Victorian person. From the Civil War battlefields to portraits of the dead and images of spirits and auras, photography was integral to how Victorians dealt with their own mortality. This episode is sure to pu...
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January 13, 2024 45 mins
This month Nora and Adele tell the story of one of Petaluma's most brutal crimes and the sensationalistic trial that resulted from it. The murder of  blind Nancy Meagher shocked the county. That she was pregnant at the time, made it even more shocking. Then when her sisters were accused of the heinous act, it made headlines nationwide. Find out the details and the unusual conclusions on the next Petaluminaries podcast.
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December 13, 2023 36 mins
This month Nora and Adele drop in on Sarah Cassiday, at the old Carnegie Library, to find out about the mythological and literary origins of the ghostly season. Frau Holle, Calleaich, and Krampus are just a few of the ancient spirits who were associated with pagan winter celebrations, and they still haunt what we now know as the Twelve Days of Christmas. From Shakespeare to Dickens to Poe to M. R. James to Stephen King, literary ma...
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November 13, 2023 38 mins
Clara Travers joins Nora and Adele for a steamboat journey into Berkeley and San Francisco to meet up with and interview Dr. John Campbell Merriam, California’s first vertebrate paleontologist. They learn about the prehistoric creatures of California, and Sonoma County, that may still walk the land in - spectral form of course!
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October 13, 2023 43 mins
This month Nora and Adele invite Dr. Christine Remarque back to talk about Petaluma’s “Soiled Doves.” With a special warning about the sensitive content, our ghostesses delve into the history of sex work in California and Petaluma specifically. As controversial then as they are today, sex workers have often been overlooked in the history books. But their spirits still roam the streets, the former saloons, bordellos, and upstairs pa...
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September 13, 2023 45 mins
Due to an outbreak of ACD (Apparition Coherence Disorder), in Santa Rosa, Adele and Nora have to think fast this month and change their planned podcast topic. They decide to cover the Wickersham Murders along with the Anti-Chinese laws and riots of the late nineteenth century in California and Petaluma specifically. Be warned though, this dark history includes references to murder, lynchings, arson, and a month-long manhunt. It’s n...
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August 13, 2023 39 mins
This week, Adele and Nora invite the Reverend Waugh to give his take on Spiritualism, seances, and charlatanism in the late Victorian Era. They highlight some of the Spiritualists in Petaluma and the connection between Spiritualism and the growth of the suffragist movement. We also learn about Harry Houdini and his battle against Margery and other fake mediums.
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July 13, 2023 38 mins
This week, Nora and Adele meet up with ghoul-on-the-road, Clara Travers, from Marysville, CA. They hear Clara’s tragic tale, and recount the stories of a number of Petaluma’s ‘Dead and Unwept’ for the audience. Note that this episode (like nearly all Petaluminaries episodes) makes reference to suicide and murder. These stories are sometimes quite gruesome and all listeners are warned.
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June 13, 2023 34 mins
Episode 4: Adele and Nora get a ghost card from The Hatties. Listen in when they tell the tales of two great Victorian women with two very different fates.
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May 13, 2023 35 mins
In Part 2 of their look at the dangers of the Victorian Age, Adele and Nora invite post-mortal Petaluma physician Dr. Christine Remarque onto the pod to discuss health, hygiene, and deadly diseases. Bring along a bottle of Newell's pulmonary syrup for this one.
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April 17, 2023 34 mins
This episode is Part 1 of Nora and Adele's two-part look at the dangers of the Victorian Age. Part 1 defines the Victorian Era along with covering household and workplace hazards and accidents.
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March 13, 2023 35 mins
Episode 1: Welcome to Oblivity – In this episode, Adele and Nora tell you the stories of their lives, where they came from, how they got to Petaluma, and the circumstances of their early demise.
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