Watseka by David St. Clair

Fine.

Paperback.

The town is real.
The people are real.
The events are real.
And what happened to Mary Rof and Lurancy Vennum was very real in July 5, 1865, WATSEKA, ILLINOIS:
Mary Roff, 19 years old, awakes in the night, shrieks and dies of unknown causes. Her death is strange, but her life was stranger. For. years, Mary had assumed alien personalities, sometimes speaking in German, sometimes in a man's bass voice, and, worst of all, physically attacking friends and family. Always, after these fits, she resumed her gentle disposition, with no memories of her eccentric behavior.
January 31, 1878, WATSEKA, ILLINOIS:
Lurancy Vennum, 13 years old, has suffered strange seizures, speaking and writing in another language, threatening her teachers-and always, like Mary Roff, returning afterward to her timid self. But now she awakes, calling herself Mary Roff and moves into the Roff household, her mind, memories and behavior indistinguishable from those of the long-dead girl.