In 1928 in Earling, Iowa, a woman named Emma Schmidt (referred to in church reports under the alias Anna Ecklund) underwent a documented 23-day exorcism at a Franciscan convent, led by Capuchin Friar Father Theophilus Riesinger and local pastor Father Joseph Steiger. Having suffered afflictions since age 14—including an inability to enter churches or stand near holy water despite medical evaluation declaring her mentally normal—her case escalated until church authorities intervened. Witnesses recorded physical anomalies, levitation, survival on a single teaspoon of milk daily, xenoglossy (understanding and speaking Latin without prior training), and supernatural foresight, such as knowing about Father Steiger’s sudden car crash before he returned to tell anyone.
Regarding possession by human spirits or family members, the transcript does not mention a grandfather. Instead, the entity named four spirits inside her: Beelzebub, Judas, her father (Jacob), and her aunt (Mina). Here is verbatim what the text states regarding the possession by her father and aunt:
“The third name was a lot worse. Not a demon from a scripture, a man. Jacob, her father. And when the exorcist asked how they got in inside of her, her father’s curse, that was the claim. Jacob had damned his own daughter. And the curse was the door they had walked through. And the account says the voice didn’t just confess it, it laughed at it. And there was a fourth, Mina, Jacob’s mistress, her own aunt. The exorcist had pressed this one the hardest, demanded to know what she had done to end up among them. And the answer that came back, I’m not going to summarize it. I’m not going to soften it. For the only time in this video, I’m going to read you the exact exchange exactly how the church had printed it. She claims to have killed someone. You committed murder while you were still alive. Whom did you kill? Little ones. How many did you actually kill? Three? No, actually four.”
The account states that the exorcism officially ended on December 23, 1928, after a final violent ritual, allowing Emma to live quietly until her death in 1941. Modern psychological perspectives evaluate her case as severe dissociative illness and trauma stemming from childhood abuse by her father, reinforced by collective fear inside a closed room of exhausted witnesses. Additionally, an unpublished 1934 manuscript conflicts with the church’s published account, claiming the exorcisms actually continued for six more years, leaving the truth of the event actively debated.