Kathy Kelly was in her 20s when her dad died. The first-generation Irish American grew up in a family of deep faith. But organized religion couldn't quell her biggest question: How could he simply be gone?
"I wanted to know," Kelly said. "I didn't want to believe. I wanted to know."
That question — what remains of us after death? — took the Edgar Allan Poe fan from ghost stories to mediums. She took part in paranormal investigations, and even exorcisms.
Eventually, that question also led her to open Paranormal Books & Curiosities and the Paranormal Museum in Asbury Park. The three-story gray building on Cookman Avenue is now home to hundreds of artifacts, each with a story attached — an unsettling experience from someone trying to live with uncertainty.
Kelly, 56, had been drawn to the strange since childhood.
"I was a dark and stormy kid," said Kelly, who has a master's degree in history from Monmouth University.
But her interest was never about being frightened or embracing the occult. Ghost stories opened the door to bigger questions for her. She wanted to know if there was more to existence than what we see and her dad's death made her quest more urgent. She went ghost hunting. She participated in rituals.
None of it produced answers to the big questions. Instead, she noticed she was collecting smaller moments.
"I never had that holy cow moment of like, 'Yep, that's it. I believe this. Now I know,'" she said. "But I had enough moments of, 'That's interesting, and I can't explain that.'"
And that kept her searching. She opened Paranormal Books & Curiosities in 2008, when much of the city was still struggling. Redevelopment had yet to transform its downtown. The museum opened in 2009, initially as a small Jersey Devil museum that commemorated the 100th anniversary of "Phenomenal Week," a time in 1909 when over 1,000 sightings were reported throughout the state.
Then Kelly realized the idea could be broader. She had collected unusual objects through her travels and placed them around her store as decorations and conversation starters.
She noticed people were more interested in the objects, and in telling their own stories, than the books. People started giving her things they no longer wanted in their homes, things like haunted dolls and Ouija boards tied to unsettling experiences. One of the first items given to her was a piece of a fireplace mantel from a New Orleans home where a murder had taken place.
"We became this receptacle for things that people didn't want but didn't want to destroy either," Kelly said.
There are currently a couple hundred artifacts on display with many more in storage, including an estimated 250 dolls said to be haunted and close to 100 Ouija boards.
"I'm not afraid of it," she said. "Leave it. I'll take care of it."
Among the museum's strangest artifacts is a handwritten contract offering a deal to the demon Belial. It was discovered inside the drop ceiling of a house whose owner faced foreclosure. Written on the back of a bank statement, the contract made promises to the demon in exchange for saving the person's home. It was sealed with a bloody thumbprint to no avail.
The next owners noticed their dog repeatedly barking at the ceiling. They took the dog to a veterinarian who found nothing wrong. Eventually, the homeowners opened the ceiling and found the contract. What interested Kelly was the desperation behind it.
The document, she said, conveys the emotional state of someone who believed the loss of their home was so catastrophic that making promises to a demon seemed like an option.
"Do I believe that this person contracted with a demon? Personally, no, I don't," Kelly said. "Do I believe that this person had an enormous emotional experience and thought they were communicating and making really terrible promises to a demon out of desperation? Yeah, I do."
Kelly believes intense experiences may leave something behind, even if she can't define it or say what it is.
"There is some kind of emotional residue that lingers," she said.
The contract gets at the way she approaches the museum. Visitors have to schedule guided tours during which museum staff members offer context.
"Our artifacts are utterly unique," Kelly said. "They're the only ones on the planet because of the personal experiences that are attached to them, not because of what the object is, but because of the story around that specific object."
These stories have given Kelly a unique view into humanity. Doctors, lawyers, politicians, blue-collar workers, academics and families: maybe the language they use is different. But they all come to her with the same questions.
What happens after death? Does consciousness continue? Was that odd experience just a coincidence? Was the person standing beside the bed a dream, a memory or something else?
"Inevitably, you're going to die," Kelly said. "One way or the other, you are going to learn whether or not we survive death."
Years ago, Kelly said she would've challenged someone with a story of an unexplained experience involving a dead relative. She doesn't these days.
"I believe people more," Kelly said. "I may not agree with their interpretations of things that have happened, but I don't doubt their experiences."
The museum presents what people said happened and visitors can decide what to make of it.
"We're going to tell you the story associated with the artifact," she said. "We're going to tell you the experiences that people claim to have had. But how you leave here and what you feel when you leave here is entirely up to you."
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Haunted dolls, Ouija boards and more — inside NJ's Paranormal Museum