Newspaper Page Text
Inside: Almost time for fall festival season to begin — page 2C
0 The Jackson Herald
Jpimands
September 1,
2010
Jana Adams Mitcham,
Features Editor 706-367-8760
jana@mainstreetnews.com
Section C
Movie begins filming at Jefferson locations
0 • - ' ilaflL
Paranormal inves
tigators are called
into action in the
movie “House From
Hell.” The movie is
set in modern day,
and in the 1800s,
and includes the
investigators, as
well as the Beldon
family and support
ing roles. Pictured
at right are inves
tigators, includ
ing: Lamare Joyner,
StefanoGofan, Jared
Bacon, Shannon
Guess and Brandy
Austin.
Photos courtesy of
Black Sheep
Photography, Athens
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WAnted;
One old house:
Atlanta Motion Picture Studios and
Shannon Guess, writer/actor/co
director, are seeking an older look
ing house in Jefferson in which to
film scenes for “House From Hell.”
According to Guess, the filming would
span a couple of days in October.
Contact Guess at housefromhell2010@
gmail.com.
Bar scene extras:
Interested in being an extra in “House
From Hell” being filmed in Jefferson?
Filming at Mike’s Down Under will begin
at 10 a.m. Sept. 25, and bar scene extras
are needed. Contact Shannon Guess,
writer/actor/co-director, at house-
fromhell2010@gmail.com.
find out t»ne;
www.housefromhell.net
For for a full cast and crew list and more.
Cast and crew of “House From Hell” began filming Saturday at the Jefferson
Recreation Department. The movie, written by Shannon Guess, Jefferson, will
be filmed entirely in Jefferson over the next few months.
Jefferson woman writes, co-directs and stars
in Atlanta Motion Picture Studios production
BY JANA A. MITCHAM
T STARTED AS a dream and grew into a
nightmare.
Shannon Guess’ dream turns to night
mare for the cast of characters in “House From
Hell,” a movie she wrote, cast, co-directs and stars
in, with filming under way now at various Jefferson
locales.
“I was watching the TV show ‘Ghost Hunters’
one night and went to sleep thinking I just spent all
that time watching that show when all they heard
was a bump in the night or a vague EVP,” Guess
explained how the script came to be. “So with that
being the last thing on my mind, I had a dream
about a group of paranormal investigators who
take this latest job but not everyone will make it out
alive. I woke up and started writing.”
While Guess doesn’t reveal too much about
the plot, the cast of characters includes not only
the investigators, but also a family, the Beldens,
and supporting roles from a doctor to a priest to a
woman at the cemetery. The movie is set in modem
day, as well as in the 1800s, complete with period
dress.
The first day of shooting was Saturday at the
Jefferson Recreation Department, and other
Jefferson sites will be featured, as well: Salvador’s
Shannon Guess, Jefferson, is shown
on the set of “House From Hell,” which
she wrote. She is also co-directing and
starring in the film.
restaurant. Sept. 11; J-Town Barbers, Sept. 18;
Jefferson Public Library, Sept. 18; Jackson County
Historic Courthouse (no date set); Mike’s Down
Under (Sept. 25); and several local houses, includ
ing Guess’ own Jefferson home. Another local
house, an older one, is still needed {see sidebar for
details). continued on page 2C
Sometimes it is a small world
I GOT A phone call last week
from a woman who lives in
Jefferson and had seen the story
on the front page of Aug. 18th edi
tion of The Jackson
Herald about the local
couple who survived
a plane crash on San
Andres, Colombia.
The plane broke apart
as it attempted to land
on the island.
Josephine Petersen,
better known as
“Josie,” said she was
surprised to see the
name San Andres, as
her father had been bom there and
talked a lot about the small island in
the Caribbean. The island is so small,
Petersen said, it often doesn’t show up
on maps, and she had been surprised
to see it named in the local newspaper,
with a Jefferson couple headed that way
on an ill-fated flight.
Closer to Nicaragua than to Colombia,
San Andres is one of several small
islands in the archipelago some 480
miles off the northwest Caribbean coast
of Colombia. Its history is long and
varied; it was settled by the Spanish in
1510, and later was part of Panama,
Guatemala and Nicaragua. It was home
to pirates, English puritans and Jamaican
woodcutters at some point, and it is
rumored that a treasure is hidden in one
of the caves there. It became a part of the
Colombian territory in 1822.
Solomon Brockholst Petersen, Josie’s
late father, was bom on the island on
April 30, 1898. He told his daughter of
the beauty of the island, now a vaca
tion spot, and remembered that children
there were thrown into the blue waters to
learn to swim.
“My father could swim like a fish!”
Josie noted.
At the time her father lived there, his
uncle was a preacher and head of the
island, Josie said. While SBP, as Josie
shortens his name, left the island at
13 to come to America for education,
he was one of 20 children. He did not
know many of his siblings, as it turns
out, because they were bom after his
departure.
“My father’s father was a sturdy man
who lived to be 105 years old,” Josie
writes in a brief history of her father's
story and her ties to the island. “He had
15 children with his first wife (one was
her father) and at 75 years of age, when
his first wife died, he remarried and had
five more children.”
The name Petersen, of German
descent, was a well-known one on the
island at the time and, it turns out, for
years to come. SBP had planned to
return to the island and attended medi
cal school to become a doctor, which
would be a help on the small island. He
never returned, however, and never met
any of those unknown siblings, except
for one in much later years. In a strange
coincidence, he met his brother through
the boss of his daughter.
“In 1957, I was working for a pho
nograph record exporter in Manhattan,
NYC,” Josie said. “(My boss) would
take summer trips around the world for
orders. During his South American trip,
he would send the orders he received in
a letter. In one of his letters he wrote,
'Tell Josie I’ve met her uncle, Walwin
Petersen.’”
Walwin Petersen was the mayor of
San Andres at that time.
“I was so surprised,” Josie said. “I
mean, even my father hadn’t met his
brother, but he came to visit and my
father finally met him.”
Josie has a photograph taken by her
Uncle Walwin in 1966 of one of the
beaches of San Andres.
Never to return to his boyhood
island, Josie’s father became a doc
tor, “a very good doctor,” she said.
“He made house calls all over Manhattan
and the Bronx,” she said. “He charged
$3 in office because he believed people
should have the dignity to be able to pay
their bill. He believed in integrity, hon
esty and honor. At 85, he left his office,
came home and died of a heart attack.
Many people loved him. He gave freely
and often of his time and he loved this
country. I’m glad and proud that he was
my father.”
Keeping close to family, Josie lived in
Manhattan, then Florida, before moving
to Georgia to be near her sons.
Interestingly, Josie’s Uncle Walwin
shows up in a Google search on the
Internet as being a well-known histo
rian for the archipelago and as having
published works on the history. And,
there was an article written about him
and his search for home in the Jamaican
Gleaner in July of 2003.
“It took him 81 years to get here, but
Walwin Petersen has reached the land
of his roots,” the reporter writes. He
mentions Petersen’s stint as the mayor
of San Andres, “the smallest department
of Colombia.”
The story goes that the native of San
Andres had traced his father’s roots
to Jamaica, with his great-grandfather,
William James Bent, hailing from Black
River. While he had stopped over at
Jamaica during flights, he never spent
time there until he was almost 81.
“As a little boy, just three years old,
sitting on my mother's lap, I would ask
her questions until I fell asleep,” Walwin
was quoted on his quest for his family’s
history.
So, his mother, was she Josie’s grand
Dr. Solomon Burkholst Petersen, 83, is shown in New York with a
grandson — son of Josie Petersen, Jefferson.
Josie Petersen, Jefferson, received this photograph in 1966 of
Spratt Bight Beach in San Andres, Colombia, from her uncle,
Walwin Petersen, who once served as mayor there. Josie found
out about her uncle, who her father had never met, when her boss
visited the island and met him.
mother or Solomon Burkholst Petersen's
step-mother? Interesting.
It is easy to get caught up in all that
you can find on the Internet once you
start looking. Stories within stories.
It truly can be a small world.
Jam Adams Mitcham is features edi
tor of The Jackson Herald.