by Jocelyn Tatum
On a boiling Saturday afternoon in late August, they work tirelessly in teams to complete the project before it opens, rubbing elbows with people they would otherwise never meet. Most come back year after year, hooked after their first season. Hours of unpaid labor in this Texas heat, but why, you ask? The reason they're hooked is what makes this place legendary, and a piece of each of them will die inside that old warehouse once the doors to Hangman's House of Horrors close after 25 years of operation.
The real legend of this famous haunt isn't obvious. At first I thought it was the scares it created for more than half a million people, or the national recognition as one of the top 10 scariest Halloween attractions in the country, or that it is a part of the very fabric of Fort Worth. Maybe it is the almost $2 million the haunted house has given to local charities, making it the top charity-producing haunted house in the country. All are true, so it could be all or any one of those things. But if you ask the founder and producer of the haunted house, it's the lives changed through the production of the haunted house.
I went to my interview expecting to meet the "Queen of Macabre," as she's famously known in the haunted house industry, or Elvira, mistress of the dark. Instead, I met a hard working, Christian woman with a college degree in theater and an impressive history of working with nonprofits. She's petite, blond and has piercing blue eyes-the kind that know something you do not. She doesn't like scary movies, and she's not a huge fan of "hell houses" where the fear of God strikes down the innocent thrill seeker. Meet D"Ann Dagen, the woman who created Hangman's.
She believes that her haunted house, voted the scariest in the country by the Travel Channel and Yahoo!Travel, is a "conduit of love" for the thousands of volunteers that bring this place to life. And after talking to many of them, I believe her.
Fred Patterson has willingly volunteered more than 300 hours annually for 17 years. Better known as his actor persona-the straight-faced and barbaric hillbilly, Pa McDagen- Patterson first came to Hangman's to indulge in his acting fantasy when he wasn't polishing metal plates at his day job. Then D"Ann gave him the OK to create a character, a story and a room in the haunted house to bring it to life. Pa McDagen and the hillbillies were born.
"I guess she saw something in me-she was encouraging," Patterson said.
Soon, Patterson made friends and developed a new sense of worth. It wasn't long before everyone became family. "My son grew up there [and] I say [to him], "Consider yourself lucky; you have over 200 aunts and uncles,"" he said. "D"Ann has created a great family. We keep in touch year around. We hang out every weekend. All of our kids grew up together."
Now 50 years old, Patterson said he learned what it means to give back to the community and the impact each individual can have on another's life. He found "a sense of belonging, togetherness, drive and determination."
"You get a whole new lease on life. You put your own little world in there. That's my happy place-I'll do anything for them," Jones said, willing to clean their bathrooms.Volunteer Connie Jones said several years ago her husband died and she lost the will to live. Then she too found Hangman's.
Hangman's is a place she said she and others can forget about themselves, because everyone has problems, and some are worse. She not only gets to meet and hear stories of people's lives of the local charities Hangman's benefits, but also the lives of the people she works with at the haunted house. She said Dagen has taken a lot of people off the street and taught them they do belong somewhere. Most volunteers echoed this saying she sees something in everyone-making leaders out of blue-collar workers and unlikely teammates out of entrepreneurs.
"It's not just a haunted house but a home that we haunt to find a home for others," Jones said.
I found 25-year volunteer Dennis Farris carving a 20-foot impressive beanstalk out of Styrofoam blocks on that hot afternoon. In his other life, he is an oil painter of real landscapes, but in here he creates and builds other worlds born out of his childlike imagination like Jack and the Beanstalk. He wrote the Hangman Legend and creates the T-shirts and posters. He has been volunteering since the house opened.
"People come together and build something bigger than themselves-the whole is greater than the sum of the parts," Farris said.
The reasons people come to Hangman's to volunteer vary, but they all stay for the same reason-they become family.
So I would say the Hangman's legend is the community D"Ann created behind the façade of the haunted house, the family and the hundreds or maybe thousands of lives she's unwittingly made better. She never meant for it to unfold the way it did.
"Hangman's has never really been about the creative work for me, or the fun of scaring, or even the meaningful ways the funds impact our charities. It's always been first and foremost about loving and growing people-our volunteers. I believe that is what God called us all to do-to show His love by loving others.
