Iturra Britt Stone - 1908
Iturra Britt Stone, Physical Medium
By Robert M. Stone, M.S.
Iturra Britt Stone was my great grandmother. She passed away
years before I was born.
My father's side of the family were not really chatty about relatives. As a child, I didn't think to ask about them. I found out about great grandmother Stone sort of by accident.
In July of 1972, I was working a summer job to earn college money. At this time I was reading books on psychic phenomena. Towards the middle of the month, I heard that my father had what they thought was a mild heart attack and was hospitalized.
I went to visit him in the hospital and in topics of conversation, I started telling him about the psychic phenomena books I had been reading. This is when he told me about great grandmother Stone. In the 20 years of my life, I had never heard anyone mention her.
Thinking back, I guess the seriousness of his illness might have prompted him to talk about it. People can sense the status of their health. The doctor didn't think the problem was serious at the time I went to visit my father and he was released from the hospital a few days later. However, he had a more serious heart attack a week or so after our chat that almost killed him. I am confident at the subconscious level, he knew it was coming and didn't know if he would survive.
My father told me that there was always talk in the family about his grandmother when he was a child; About her "strange" powers. Nothing specific was said about what she could do but it was not looked upon as a positive thing.
Apparently, there was enough talk about it that my father wanted to see what she could do.
Strange things were always happening around his grandparents country home. Rocks would fly up out of the yard, sometimes while people watched, and clatter against the side of the house.
Locks would not stay locked. Whenever they locked up the house to go somewhere, when they returned, every lock would be unlocked. Even putting padlocks on the doors did not solve the problem as they would be unlocked when they returned as well. Finally, they stopped trying to lock up the house.
My father said that when he was old enough to be interested in all this talk about his grandmother's "strange" powers, about the age of eight, he started pestering her to show him. He said that he pestered her frequently about these powers.
Finally, when he was ten years old in 1940, she agreed to show him if he would never ask her again.
Being a country person, she too condemned her psychic abilities. She told him she didn't like to do these things because it came from the devil. Of course in reality, we know that psychic abilities are a gift from God but country people had a very limited way of viewing such things.
My father, and two of his playmates were witnesses to this event.
They gathered around a large oak dining table which my father estimated weighed 300 pounds.
Great grandmother Stone had my father and his friends hold hands. She then placed her hands, palms down, about a foot above the surface of the table. After a moment, she moved her hands higher and the table rose off the floor. Her hands never touched the surface of the table.
She told the children to ask the table questions and it would answer yes and no by raising once for yes and twice for no.
Of course, the playmates were frightened out of their minds but my father was delighted that his grandmother was showing him this special ability.
My father said he asked some questions but didn't remember what they were. After all, he was only ten years old. He did say however, that the table moved in either the yes or no code in response to the questions.
After a period of time which he did not remember the length, he said great grandmother Stone said it was time to end the seance. She lowered her hands and the massive table gently settled back on the floor.
My father said her forehead was sweating and her face was pale.
The playmates fled in terror.
My father said his grandmother never displayed her psychic abilities for him again, just as she said she would not.
No one knows just what sort of psychic abilities Tura Britt Stone had; she kept them to herself. What is sad is that she couldn't accept this special part of herself because she thought it was wrong rather than the gift from God that it truly was.
Great Grandmother Stone died in 1942.