Revenge of The Melonheads: Urban Legend or Real Life Horror? (PART 2)
June 8, 2023 by John Karlovec

Legends rarely are authored the way stories are today. Instead, they evolve naturally through unconscious processes of oral traditions. Even if they start out as made-up tales, a legend can become so intriguing that others are compelled to repeat it, passing along variations from person to person and from generation to generation until they provide the hearer with a version of truth and reality.

Legends rarely are authored the way stories are today. Instead, they evolve naturally through unconscious processes of oral traditions. Even if they start out as made-up tales, a legend can become so intriguing that others are compelled to repeat it, passing along variations from person to person and from generation to generation until they provide the hearer with a version of truth and reality.

Last week, in Part 1, we shared the local legend of the Wisner Road Melonheads in Chardon Township and the infamous Dr. Crow. The most widely told tale is the federal government commissioned Crow after World War II to treat children who suffered from a rare condition known as hydrocephalus, which causes large pockets of water within the brain.

Crow ran a small institution or orphanage for these children and is said to have performed macabre medical experiments on them. As a result, they developed larger, hairless and bulbous heads, and tiny, deformed bodies. Eventually, the children revolted, killing Crow, burning down his home and retreating into the surrounding forests, occasionally emerging to attack people in the area.

A less widely held version is the wicked Crow was married to a kindly woman who the children loved. One night, Crow and his wife were arguing and she was killed, either intentionally or accidentally, when she fell against a cabinet and hit her head. The children became enraged and blamed the doctor, viciously killing him and burning down the institute.

Questions abound about the Melonheads myth, despite alleged sightings and paranormal investigations. Did Dr. Crow really exist? Was he a doctor? Was he married? Did he live on Wisner Road? Did his home burn down? Were there children on his property?

The answer to all these questions: a resounding YES!

The Real Dr. Crowe

Here in Geauga County lives the great-niece of DR. C-R-O-W-E. Now 90, Rosemary Ruth Crowe Richards remembers her Great-Uncle Etienne fondly and wants to dispel any notion that he was some diabolical or sinister madman.

Richards, who lives in Huntsburg Township and is a descendant of Burton’s first settlers, the Umberfield family, grew up in Geauga County. One day, her daughter-in-law was looking on the internet and found photographs and information the Paranormal Society of Kirtland had posted about her great-uncle and the Melonheads.

“That upset me and I think maybe that was when I first contacted my cousin and said what can I do about this,” Richards said. “He would say, ‘Don’t even think about it, don’t even try to do anything about it.’”

She explained her aunts and uncles had either moved away or died when she first learned of the myth.

“I was the only one who knew about the crazy stories,” said Richards. “You could call it defamation of character, but we don’t care now that he’s gone. And I don’t know what he would have thought. He might have laughed about it, he might not.”

Richards began to research her family history, including Dr. Crowe. She learned Dr. Crowe was born around 1859 and died May 9, 1945 — before the end of World War II, so any reference to the war “was way off base.” He is buried in Lake View Cemetery.

His full name was Etienne Pascal Crowe, spelled with an “e.”

Richards explained her ancestor who emigrated from Ireland spelled Crow without the “e,” but eventually it was added.

“They were very erudite and scholarly, and would write things in Latin,” she said of her ancestors.

Crowe married Jessie M. Horrocks in 1897 and she died sometime prior to 1932, the year Richards was born. So her death could not trigger any alleged retribution against her husband more than a decade later.

Crowe and his wife Jessie were both doctors, although Richards does not recall exactly what kind of doctor.

“I believe he was what you would call an herbalist,” she said. “I don’t think he was an MD and I don’t think he was a DO, there probably another thing going on in the 1800s.”

Crowe lived in Cleveland, at 6518 Superior Avenue. His house was his only property with an office, Richards said.

“He didn’t even have an office somewhere else, and he didn’t do surgeries or anything like that,” she added. “He was a strange kind of a doctor.”

The home also was big and scary.

“I had nightmares about it for a long time,” she said.

Sometime in the early 1900s, Crowe bought a cabin and some property on Wisner Road in Chardon Township. There was no running water or electricity in the cabin. He and Jessie only would visit the cabin in the summer on weekends.

“I loved that place to pieces,” Richards said, adding she does not recall ever spending the night at the cabin.

Crowe later would add a separate two-story garage, sleeping in the second floor bedroom.

“He called it (garage) the Peter Pan. Don’t ask me why because I don’t know,” she said with a chuckle.

She recalled her great-uncle would wrap linen napkins around his head after dinner.

“I don’t know why he did that,” Richards said. “If we asked him how we could lose weight, he would say, ‘Quit a little hungry.’”

A lane went down a hill into a big ravine that went down to the water below. There was a gateway into the property with two big columns, and a water trough that Richards believes is still there today.

Down around the corner was a “crybaby bridge,” Richards said.

Her great-uncle had an old tent and Richards said she would get him to put the tent up and she would go inside and play.

“And another thing that I did, I always collected rocks and stones, and so out around the outskirts of the cabin I would have all these little piles of stones, little paths and everything, and if somebody saw them they might think they were graves of children or something,” she said. “You know, they could have been, but that was just me playing because I liked stones.”

Sometime in the 1960s — or even later — the cabin did burn down.

“The reason we knew all this going on . . . I don’t remember what year, the cabin was burned down. We found out that kids were partying there,” explained Richards. “The kids burned it down; we found out they were partying there.”

At the time, Richards and her husband were living in Mesopotamia and a kid moved into town from Chardon.

“I don’t know how he brought this up, but he said, ‘We used to go party at this cabin that was owned by Dr. Crowe,’ and I said, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s my great-uncle,’” said Richards.

Later, a minister in Mesopotamia who moved from Willoughby said he and his friends also used to go down there and party.

“We never knew how it burned down or what happened, and we never went to see it after it burned down,” she added.

So how then did the Melonheads legend get started?

Richards believes people spoke of the property because there used to be a large stone at the end of the driveway with the name C-R-O-W-E carved into it.

“They knew it was Dr. Crowe because of the stone, the name was on the stone, so otherwise they wouldn’t have put a name to this business,” she said. “And then, of course, they just kept adding to it. Some of them were worse, that he had an orphanage or something, you know, which of course he didn’t.”

Added Richards, “It’s just a myth. That’s how the myth kept growing.”

The Verdict

Dr. Crowe was a real person. He was a doctor, he was married, he did own a cabin on Wisner Road in Chardon Township, the cabin did burn down and children frequented the property.

Is the rest legend or truth, that’s for the readers and paranormal investigators to decide. While other parts of the legend do not line up, could those parts be variations of the truth or simple forgetfulness over times?

If the Melonheads of Wisner Road do exist today, we hope not. But if they do, and you want to venture out and search for them at night, we would advise against stopping to take a selfie.