by Jared VanDyke Part one of a five-part series The winding backwoods roads of Chautauqua County, New York, are lined with churches and scrap heaps. Trailers and half-completed ranch-style homes, surrounded by skeletal cars and tire piles, fill the gaps between each Baptist ministry, farm, and family-owned garage. It's late February in Cassadaga and the…
Everybody dies. But not in Lily Dale. Founded in 1879, the hamlet of about 250 residents in rural western New York is a haven for spiritualism, a religion.