The Family that Inspired the Conjuring Film:

The Family that Inspired the Conjuring Film:

Released in 2013, was the supernatural and horror movie The Conjuring directed by James Wan. The Conjuring franchise is based on stories that Ed and Lorraine Warren experienced as respected paranormal investigators.

In 1952, husband and wife Ed and Lorraine decided to turn themselves into professional paranormal investigators and formed a society called The New England Society for Psychic Research, which is still to this day considered to be one of the oldest ghost-hunting groups in New England. The Warrens gained notoriety after their part in The Amityville House hauntings and after that many others hired them for their abilities.

One of those families that hired the Warrens was The Perron Family in the early 1970s and this experience and tale was the basis of the first Conjuring film.

The year was 1971 and the Perron Family which consisted of husband Roger, wife Carolyn, and their five daughters had found what they thought was their perfect forever home. A 14-room farmhouse in Harrisville, Rhode Island.

It was almost instantaneously that the family started to notice weird things happening around the house. It had started with small things happening like random items disappearing like a broom here and a cup there, strange noises, and random piles of things turning up like a pile of dirt on the kitchen floor. The daughters also mentioned to their parents about seeing spirits.

Once Carolyn heard this, she decided to check out the history of the farmhouse and property they had just purchased. It shocked her as she discovered that the house had belonged to the same family line for almost eight generations and that in each generation was death and not by natural causes.

In her research, she discovered that over the past generations that lived in the house many had died from mysterious and strange circumstances. Some drowned, others murdered and a few had hanged themselves in the vicinity of the attic.

One of the spirits that were shown in the film known as Bathsheba was like the “matriarch” of the house and had resented Carolyn’s mothering role. One of the daughters Andrea was rumored to have said that this spirit acted like she was always in competition with Carolyn on who could be the best mother/ matriarch of the house.

The real Bathsheba was a lady named Bathsheba Sherman who had lived on the property in the mid-1800s and was rumored to be a Satanist. When strange things started happening in the small country town including a death of a child, the town blamed Bathsheba for this happening.  Her body is believed to be buried at the local cemetery in Harrisville.

The Perron family managed to live in their house for over 10 years and during that time were visited on several occasions by Ed and Lorraine Warren.  On one occasion, the Warrens conducted a séance which ended up with Carolyn Perron becoming possessed, speaking in tongues, and her chair levitating.

After the Warrens' last visit which was the séance, Roger Perron worried about his wife’s sanity and stability and told the Warrens that they were no longer welcome as the hauntings and everything surrounding it had put stress on the family.

Of course, due to financial reasoning, the family wasn’t able to move until 1980 when the spirits and hauntings ceased to stop Carolyn told her husband Roger that she could not take it anymore and spent another winter in this house which due to the spirits were colder than usual.

Most of the family moved to Georgia, a nicer warmer, and a safer climate. One of the daughters Nancy remained behind and lived in the house until moving in 1981. Another of the daughters April died in 2017 of an accidental overdose before she had found companionship with a ghost from the house.

In 2021, it was written in a reunion of the remaining members of the Perron family, that still forty years later they all hear voices telling them to “return home” and all feel strongly connected to the farmhouse property and Andrea is recorded to have said that despite the Warrens telling her if she was to ever return to the property she would die, she would buy the house if she won the lottery.

Would living in a haunted house change your outlook on life? For the Perrons, living and experiencing what they went through has given them all a new view of death. One where they are free of the fear of death. The house taught them everything they needed to know about life, death, and the afterlife and because of this, they know death is not the end and they are comforted by the thought.