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[1999 newspaper obituary]This Dead Man JustMay Know What theFuture Holds for HimWill HigginsThe Indianapolis StarThe body of Donald Kemp was cremated this week; his memorial service is tonight. Kemp was found Saturday in the upstairs of his house. He was 73. It was probably a heart attack, probably early Friday. So ended a most unusual life. Kemp looked normal, like any other short, bald, retired white man. He had been a soldier in World War II. He worked as an accountant at a hospital; he taught hair-cutting at a beauty college; he waited tables at St. Elmo, the steakhouse. What was unusual was, Kemp could look into peoples' pasts and their futures. He was psychic. You either buy that or you don't. But for years, Kemp did good business. "I knew people who went to him for psychic readings and they were impressed," says Julia Carson, the congresswoman. Carson did not consult Kemp in that way, but she did know him slightly and found him "different from anyone I'd ever known –spiritual." Kemp never made big money off it, never made any money off it until he had to – after his first heat attack, in the mid-1970s. He couldn't wait tables anymore; he needed cash. A Dead Brother Appears Kemp had know of his special ability since he was 5 years old, says his nephew Robert LaFara. That's when Kemp's dead brother, Cecil, appeared to him. Soon, LaFara says, Kemp was "leaving his body at night and communicating on the spiritual plane." Kemp had done "readings" for relatives for years, and they were sold (except for his foster mother; she was Lutheran). But it wasn't until he was up against it financially that Kemp threw open his doors to the public. He never advertised; there was no sign in front of his house, which is at 42nd and College. People learned of Kemp by word of mouth. It was $50 for a half-hour. They waited in the living room, where there are a couple of La-Z-Boys and some statues of American Indians. Kemp did the readings in the kitchen. It's a small kitchen. On its walls are pictures of American Indians and one of Jesus. You and Kemp would sit a the kitchen table, across from each other. He didn't consult a crystal ball, he didn't read your palm. Instead, says Wendy, a client, "he'd stare into space, over your shoulder." Red Rose Speaks He'd say there was an American Indian over there, a woman named Red Rose, and that Red Rose gave him the lowdown. He would chain-smoke Marlboro Lights during all this and tap his lighter on the table. So there you'd be, trying to learn more about yourself by paying $50 to a bald, old, fidgety white man wearing an American Indian medallion around his neck and talking to somebody who wasn't there. Yet… Says Wendy: "He once told me our buildings were built wrong, that we'd have to tear part of them down and start over. He told me we'd sell them and move to the Bay Area. And buy a farmhouse." Baloney, Wendy figured. But soon it was discovered the houses she and her husband were building, in a small Southside development, were off-kilter. They had to be partially torn down and rebuilt. Soon after, they sold the development. Soon after that, they bought a farmhouse in Michigan, in the Grand Traverse Bay area. LaFara will do the eulogy tonight and then throw it open to the floor. This promises to be one interesting send-off. |
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