Marshall Counts Down to a Movie

Andy Fitzpatrick of the Battle Creek Enquirer discusses how John Bellairs's home town is preparing for the big-screen adaptation of The House with a Clock in its Walls:

Dick Strader, a former educator and storyteller for schools in Marshall and Battle Creek, knows that story well. For decades, he played one of the book's main characters, Uncle Jonathan, on school tours of locations in Bellairs' New Zebedee books that featured actors at the stops. Bellairs put real places in Marshall into his books, often changing little more than their names. The house with the clock in its walls, for instance, was based on what's known as the Cronin mansion.

The John Bellairs walking tour ran for about 20 years, Strader said, after starting in the 1980s. The late Ann La Pietra, the owner of the former Kids' Place bookstore, came up with the idea. There are almost 10 actors on the tour. Marsha Lambert, another Marshall storyteller who worked in the schools, portrayed the Figure in the Shadows, from the book of the same name, stationed at the Masonic Temple in Marshall. "She always painted her face white and purple, she wore this cape," Strader said. "In fact, the police stopped and wanted to know what she was doing. After that, we warned them." Strader stood in front of the Cronin house with a fake fat stomach, chewing on a pipe, talking about adventures with his nephew Lewis and defeating the evil sorcerers who wanted to destroy the world.

Virginia and Elizabeth Cronin, sisters, never married and lived in the house together. Elizabeth died in 1989 and Virginia in 2002, ending the family's presence in the house that lasted since it was built for merchant Jeremiah Cronin in 1873. Strader said he had tea with the sisters when discussing the plans for the tour, and said the women loved books and children, even if they kept a low profile. The sisters also, Strader said, liked the idea of their house being featured in the odd horror books. "They didn’t want to have any notoriety about that, but I think that they were secretly very pleased," Strader said.