SESSER - Holding the two dowsing rods straight in front of her, Shirley Payne made her way across the curiously empty patch of lawn at Maple Hill Cemetery.

Taking slow, sweeping steps, Payne finally broke the silence at the Sesser cemetery when the rods suddenly crossed.

"There's a child here. A girl. No, I think we've got two little girls here, buried here, end to end," she said as she pointed toward the ground with the rods.

Payne, 68, is a retired teacher who took up dowsing, also called divining or witching, about 15 years ago. Some believe dowsing rods can detect what lies buried beneath the surface, whether minerals, water or, in this case, bodies.

Payne visited the cemetery Monday afternoon at the request of Sesser Mayor Ned Mitchell, who wanted her help in trying to confirm a legend from the city's past.

According to Sesser lore, a group of "Gypsies" was camped near the cemetery when an epidemic of some sort swept through the camp, causing the deaths of 39 men, women and children.

The dead, Mitchell said, were supposedly buried in an unmarked common grave at the cemetery. Mitchell was told the story by the late John Saiz Jr., whose father reportedly helped care for the sick and died in 1919 when the outbreak was believed to have occurred. John Saiz Sr. was just 34 when he was buried near the large, empty stretch of lawn in the middle of the older part of the cemetery where the common grave is believed to be located.

Mitchell said he had crossed paths with Payne in the past and wanted to see what her dowsing rods would divine. He watched as her rods seemed to confirm the presence of a large group of people buried in the unmarked area of the cemetery.

"It appears to be a large group of both men and women and some children," Payne said of her findings.

While Payne admits to not knowing exactly how the rods are able to detect the presence of the buried, she has her theory.

"I can't tell you for sure what it is, but I think it is the energy. As Christians, we know we have souls, but there has to be something left here, DNA, something," she said. "I'm as confident as my rods tell me to be."

Payne, a Dahlgren resident, was taught dowsing by the late Evan Pickard. He schooled her in the ways of dowsing, teaching her how to use the rods to determine the location, sex and approximate age of the buried.

"Evan always said the rod will turn to the head of the grave for a female and to the foot of the grave for a male. So if you are walking north, the man is always right. I told him the man is always right only if he's dead," she said with a laugh.

Mitchell said he has no plans to dig into the spot to confirm the presence of the dead, but will do more research to see if the story has merit. If so, he said the cemetery association could place a stone there, marking the gravesite.

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