Question of the Week: Do you have any ghost stories in your family? [closed]

Question

With Halloween just around the corner, it seems like a good time to trade our family stories about ghosts, haunted houses and other strange happenings.

Did you know we have ghosts and hauntings in WikiTree? Did you know that Mags and Eowyn are going to be sharing ghosts stories on Halloween? Pop in to join them for the WikiTree Halloween Special: Ghosts in the Tree. Maybe your ghost story will make a spooky appearance there!

Comments

My father passed away in 1998.  I went home to Minnesota to stay with my mother the week after he passed and so used his car everyday to go visit my friends and family.  My father would keep his loose change in the ash tray and the first morning I went out to get in the car, I noticed that there was about 20 pennies lined up on the passenger seat in a row along the front edge.  I didn't think too much about it - then - just scooped them up and put them back in the ash tray.  However.......every morning that I would come out to the car and get in, those pennies would be back on the seat lined up in a row.  Of course, I asked my mother about it, and she just shrugged her shoulders and said "I guess that's dad".  The car was locked in a garage attached to the house, so no one could have gotten in and played a trick on us!  So it's now become a family tradition that if we find change in odd places we say that dad is trying to talk to us.

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I was raised in Eastern Kentucky and we recently moved onto my spouse's childhood farm. There is a graveyard about 50 feet from our home and we have had multiple activity. The graveyard is very unknown but apparently one of the people there is a Collier who was a war hero. Our farm was part of his large plantation and we've seen ghosts of all races, ages and genders here since we moved.

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My 3rd Great Grandmother, Elizabeth Andrews Hayes Parker: She was said to have not believed in ghosts. There was a house that was supposed to be haunted near where children passed on their way to school. They were terribly afraid. One day, when Elizabeth expected the children to come by, she concealed herself and made uncanny noises, which frightened the children half out of their wits. Then she came out of the rookery, and showed herself. She said: "See, it's just me!"

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A couple of years ago, I woke up and saw a man standing in the hallway.  I thought my husband had got up to go to the bathroom but he was just standing there.  All in black.  I then realized my husband was asleep beside me.  Really freaked me out.   I glanced at the clock and when I looked back it was gone.   I laid there for a few minutes and then I got up and listened at the top of the stairs wondering if someone broke in.   Not a sound.

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1 - Penelope Van Princis Stout b1622-1732, you can read about her history on line.

2- My father comes to visit, opens drawers, plays music boxes, and touches my hair (he loved my head of hair)

3- My grandmother (father's mother  and Penelope is from the same side of the family) visits, wakes me right up in the middle of the night.

4- My aunt (father's sister) often comes to visit nicely with me.

So far none of these ghosts have scared me and I have only found comfort, spooked at first until I realize who they are.

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My grandparents had a big house in Atchison, KS. It was on Riverview Dr. As a child I thought I saw a woman dressed in a long black dress with a white apron & cap sitting in a bedroom located at the first bend of the stairway. It was the housekeeper's room "in olden days" I was told. I wasn't afraid of her, just wondered who she was. My grandparents never said the house was haunted and sold it in the mid 60's and retired to AZ. Later that house was featured on a TV show about the "most haunted" places.

https://www.legendsofamerica.com/ks-hauntedatchison/

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My late wife Edith shouted at me loudly during the night less than a week after her funeral, "Malcolm Can you hear me?"   It was her voice exactly and I came to in a deep fright but the room was empty and dark.   The following night my daughter had the same experience so I sought out the VSU in Melbourne the day after and the first question I got from the medium was "Who is Edith?"    The message then confirmed that it could only have been my Ede.

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I have already commented on my late wife Edith calling out to me after her funeral, but it was she who was frightened by an invisible hand some years earlier when she was manager and nurse of a retirement home.   We lived in the Manager's Unit and I had left early for work before Ede was up and locked the front door behind me.   About an hour later while half asleep she felt a hand tapping her shoulder and saying something like, 'Come Quickly'.  Instead she was terrified and pulled the blanket over her head.   Later in the afternoon when doing her checkup round of singles she found one lady lying dead in bed.

    About a year later while relaxing in the lounge in the Manager's Unit, the remote alarm went off.   Ede called out asking which Unit it was and as the remote was close to me I read out the Unit Number, '37'.   'Can't be', said Ede.   The Unit hasn't been sold by Mrs. H's family and is empty with all her old furniture in it.    We made our way up the hill in the dark with torch at hand.    I hesitated at the front door and Ede taunted me with being afraid.   So in I went, but it was all dark and silent.

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Thanks, G2G!

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Yes. I have many.

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I have been sensitive to spirits for as long as I can remember, most of the women in my family are.  My mother told me when she was growing up my grandparents moved them into a house in Love Valley, in Love County, Oklahoma.   They moved in and moved out the next morning although my grandmother would never say what she saw.  

When my children were small I was getting a divorce and staying with my mother,  I was laying in bed with my daughter when I saw my grandfather, who died when I was a teenager, step out the room where my son was sleeping walk down the hallway and stand at the edge of the bed looking at my daughter.  He turned and as he walked down the hall he slowly faded.  I realized he probably just wanted to see his great grandchildren.

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Not a ghost story, but my Mom would dream of people, just before we would find out they had passed.  My folks were divorced when I was 5, and they remained friendly until my Dad passed in 1960.  My Mom told me that my Dad had visited her in a dream and said that he had to leave, but knew she would may sure we were all ok and that there was insurance enough to help take care of the two youngest, my brother and I.  The next morning as I was readying for school, she was telling me about this dream, at  noon I was called to the office and my oldest brother told me our Dad had died the night before. Same thing happened a few before when her Dad passed, she had dreamed of him the night before.  I never wanted Mom to dream about ME.

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My maternal Grandmother Anna Rogers passed away in May 1954.  Several months later my father was headed towards the bedroom to take a nap.  Anna was standing in the doorway and refused to let him pass.  She said "Go to Eleanor" (my Mother's sister) My Dad was a scoffer when it came to  "weird stuff" and in my mother's family "weird stuff" seemed to occur or be talked about frequently.  My Dad yelled "VIRGINIA" and my Mom thinking there was something horribly wrong from the urgency in his voice ran into the living room.  Dad was standing in front of the entrance to the bedroom, "Your Mother won't let me in our room. Get your coat, I think we have to go",  and he pointed to the bedroom doorway. Mom saw her mother standing there, one hand on each side of the door frame, this time she said "Go to your sister! Go to Eleanor now!".  They raced to Aunty's house which was about 20 minutes away. Mom jumped out of the car and burst into the house.  "Where's your Mom?" My oldest cousin answered  "We're letting her sleep, she's been tired all day so we're cleaning up to surprise her"  Mom rushed in to find her sister seemingly asleep, and was unable to wake her.  They called the operator (no 911 in those days), Help arrived and Aunty was taken to the hospital because she was in insulin shock.  The Doctor said that had she not been discovered when she was and received the immediate attention it was probable that she would have passed away within the hour.   My Dad did not become a believer but at least he stopped openly scoffing at my Mom.  My Aunty once remarked that because of this incident it was 20 years and after all the kids had moved out before she got to take a nap without one of them waking her up to check on her.

Answer 1

My grandfather was born 110 years ago in the very room in which I now sleep.

One time when my family was gone and I was at the house alone, I worked on the computer until very late... just past midnight.  The wind howled and rain pelted the tin roof.

After washing up I turned off the light in the hall and proceeded towards the bedroom in the pitch dark.

The very moment I entered I saw...

my bed.  So I hopped in and went to sleep.  No ghosts here :)

Comments

I'm not opposed to doing any haunting myself, I'll have to see what the options are when the time comes.

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I helped make one of Stephen King's books scarier by suggesting he drop the second part of his original line:

"REDRUM DETPMETTA"

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You're a funny guy, Keith Hathaway. ;-)

Answer 2

Can't remember which Grandfather of my dad's but he said he woke up & saw him standing at the end of his bed. Found out he next day that he had passed away.

Comments

That would just scare the the heck out of me.

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LOL I think I'd almost start asking those pressing genealogy questions I want to know answers to. :D

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Well, now there's a thought!!

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LOL It would just be my luck it wouldn't be one I don't have brick walls for. :D LOL

Answer 3

At one point, we were moving around bedrooms and the master bedroom happened to be empty. Yet we could still hear the dog jump off the bed every night onto the wooden flooring.  The dog had been dead a good 5 years.  She was a gray miniature poodle we called Muffin, but her real name was Ragamuffin Romeo McVicker.  We also used to see her at the top of the stairs and we had to shut the kid's bedroom door when they took a bath because they could see her orange-glowing eyes.

Another time, same house, I came home from work and was going to enter the living room, but saw a man standing in front of my mother.  I didn't want to disturb them so went through the kitchen and down the hall instead. A few minutes later, I went back, but he was gone. So I asked my mother, "Who was that man?"

"What man?"

"The one standing in front of you a minute ago."

"There was no man! What did he look like?"

I described a man with dark hair, slim, in a 70's style leisure suit. I had described Pat, the love of her life, who had passed away the previous year. They had dated when we were small children, but broke up because he wouldn't marry her. Pat was a NYC cop with five children. His wife had committed suicide, and Pat, being a good Catholic, was unable to remarry.  My mother thought he was such a wonderful father because, no matter what, he set aside every Saturday for one child, in turn, to do whatever they wanted.

So years later, she ran into him, and he was single and had had a change of heart as relates to marriage.  Unfortunately, he was soon diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.  My mother nursed him in hospice for a year until he passed.  So she was happy thinking that Pat is watching over her.

Now, just to be depressing, or add insult to injury...For that year in hospice, my mother had not taken the above mentioned Muffin for her monthly grooming and haircuts. After Pat died she took the dog to the groomer and it was discovered that the dog was covered in cancerous tumors.  She was operated on and lived something like seven more years.  Did I say that she was an awesome dog?

Answer 4

Not family, but the house I grew up in.

The house I grew up in was originally built (early 1900s) as the boarding house for the hired  hands.  There were two separate staircases, one to the women's side of the house and one to the men's side, and a lockable door in the middle of the upstairs hallway.  On the men's side, there was a long hallway with no windows, so there were a couple of skylights, with a big glass"window" from the hallway to the attic, and another from the attic through the roof.  There were also light bulbs in the skylight.

Anyway, back when it was a dairy farm, there was one employee who was what was then called "simple".  His job was to run the bottle-washing machine. This was a relatively straight-forward job unless the machine stopped mid cycle.  Then there was a complicated procedure for resetting and restarting the machine, which he had great difficulty with.

Another employee was a bully, and used to unplug the bottle washing machine mid cycle, just to see the bottle washer employee struggle to restart it..

One day the bottle-washer went up into the attic and removed the "window" to the hallway.  When the bully walked underneath, he dropped a hammer on his head, and killed him. (The bottle-washer was sent to SingSing instead of the electric chair because of his mental incompetence.)

By the time we moved into the house in the early 60s, there was a stain under the skylight, actually caused by the previous owners' dogs, but we told people it was the remains of the blood stains.

We never saw a ghost, but some of the people we told the story to claimed they did.

Answer 5

I lived with my mother in a two-family home.  She actually still lives there with my brother's family now.  We were told that the previous owner was an elderly woman and she had an elderly man living in the main part of the house.  The upstairs was a third apartment.  Anyway, the elder man died in the house just before the elder woman, but she died in a nursing home.

Well, I was a single parent of four children and always juggling something. I got a night job and used to bring my dinner and books to read and whatever. I just always had my hands full.  Often I would try to climb in my minivan and shuffle all my stuff to take with me. Nine times out of ten, the door used to shut by itself. I used to thank the old man, just in case it was him.

I want to say I don't believe in ghosts, but I can't explain how come I have literally seen them.

Answer 6

As a child, I was told stories of one winter when everyone knew something was going to go bad.  Nearly every great aunt of mine had an experience where they were out hanging clothes on the line. . . or feeding the chickens. . . , or bringin in the dog when they heard the cry or saw the eerie spectre of the Banshee.  They all knew what she meant. . . people were going to die.

And then it happened.  The road was busier that time of year as people were preparing for the winter holidays.  And, just as people were crossing back and forth across the river, the Silver Bridge fell into the icy waters of the Ohio.  Some family members had just crossed it.  Others were approaching it.  Everyone knew someone who had died on it.

Today, I still get nervous crossing bridges.  And, this time of year, someone is going to bring up those memories because our family Banshee is now called the Mothman.  Our local tragedy has become myth.

Answer 7

No ghosts in the family but I live in one of America's most haunted cities:

https://www.cbsnews.com/videos/savannah-americas-most-haunted-city/

Comments

Loved it Paula! Do you live in a haunted house? Mags

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No, I don't. But I have had a friend who claimed to live with a friendly ghost that she got along quite well with! Our Memorial Cemetery is downtown and has the more colorful ghosts. Some have even gotten them in pictures and video. That might be due to our talented students from Savanah College of Art and Design (SCAD).

Answer 8

Cemetery ghost stories!

“Resurrection Mary” from Resurrection Cemetery

“Melody Millie” of Forest Home/Waldheim Cemetery 

“Flapper Girl” of Jewish Waldheim Cemetery

"Phantom Girl" at Woodlawn Cemetery

https://chicagoandcookcountycemeteries.com/2017/10/23/cemetery-hitchhikers-and-ghosts/

(Some good cemetery ghost stories, by our new member Barry Fleig)

Enjoy! Happy Halloween, Dia de las Muertos, & All Souls Day!

 

Answer 9

I grew up in a big old stone home that had been the dream home of the woman that had it built.....she never left.

Mrs. Street was a nice ghost, if she liked you.  She would tuck me in at night.  For years, my parents thought it was the other who had done it.  LOL

She stayed in the attic which had been the servants quarters.  Mostly the kitchen, which unfortunately was just above my bedroom.  While nice, she could be quite noisy at times.  If you put something in the attic, she would move it to where she wanted it.  Many a night she woke me up with the noise.  Not wanting to scare me, my parents told me it was squirrels in the attic til I got old enough to understand.

I have many stories about her, but my favorite is the love seat.  My mother bought an old wicker love seat at an auction.  While in good shape, it did not match the accent colors in my parents bedroom.  My mother bought the appropriate color, Robin Eggs Blue, and was going to paint it.  After laying down newspapers to catch drips, she opened the can of paint and wasn't sure it was the right shade.  Deciding to have a cup of coffee to think over painting it or not, she left the open can next to the love seat and went downstairs to grab a cup.  When she returned, the leg closest to the can had been painted.  The wet brush laying across the top of the can and a few drips between the can and the leg.  My mother said out loud, "Well, if you like it, I guess it is the right shade." and finished painting it.  My mother was the only one in the house.

I often wonder if the folks who moved in after we left had as much fun with her.  We moved out of the state and did hear stories that people who moved in, only stayed about a year or two till the present owners who have been there for years.  Mrs Street liked my mother as she never changed her dream house except for paint and wall paper.  The wall paper story is pretty good too.

Happy Halloween.

LJ

Come to think of it, I need to add her as unrelated family.  She was family to us.

Comments

Please do share the wall paper story.

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OK Pat, It's more funny after the fact than scary.

When we first moved into the house, of course we had no idea we were just guest of a benevolent owner. The wall paper in the living and dining rooms were a bit dated and dingy, so Mom decided to put up new wallpaper.  So off to Miller Paint and Paper downtown to pick out the new paper.

They let us use a steamer used to remove old wall paper, not rented...those were the days.  And that's when the fun started.

What should have been a 3 to four day process turned into two or three weeks.  The paper would just not come off in the sheets like it was supposed to after the steam bath.  We finally wad to wet the walls with a solution.  And we had to use paint scraper to remove the old stuff.  The owners of the paint store were perplexed as they knew the type of paper we had and said this stuff usually just fell off the walls.  Our first clue that she didn't like changes to HER house.

So that done, we had to have a plasterer come in to repair the cuts and gouges we made into the plaster walls. We had to prep the walls for him by sanding them first.. a lot of fun that was.  LOL And he did his job in  record time.  My mother told me he said the walls almost plastered themselves it was so easy.  Our first clue that she appreciated repairs.

Mom had chosen a cream colored grass paper for the living room that was difficult to hang properly.  She had a husband and wife team come in to do this as they were considered the best paper hangers in town.  They too said the living room acted like it wanted the new wall paper.  What was normally a difficult job went fast and easy.  So, she liked the new paper we later surmised.

The dining room was pure hell.  The easy floral pattern paper my mother had chosen would just not stay up.  It kept peeling.  The paper hangers were flummoxed as it was usually an a very good brand to hang.  The paint store even took back what we had left and ordered a new batch, maybe that batch was bad?  Nope, that peeled too.  So back down to choose a new paper.  Mom was permitted to take swatches home to put on the wall to see if it looked good.  I chose a vertical candy cane striped paper that my Mom absolutely hated, but she relented to bring home a swatch.  Probably to shut me up.  We went home and put them up on the wall.  I went off to my grandparents for the weekend.  In short, all of the swatches except mine were found laying out in the living room the next morning, except mine which still hung on the wall. Couldn't blame me for a childish prank  as I was 5 miles away from home  I think with other things that had happened in the house, it started to dawn on my Mom that we weren't alone.

While not enamoured with a vertical stripe wall paper, Mom went back and got a few swatches more in colors she could live with.  Taped those on the wall and next morning only one was still up and not in the living room.  Sadly, mine was down too.  That paper went up in a flash and stayed up.

When we had a new kitchen put in, Mom said she had learned her lesson.  She sat in the kitchen and talked out loud about why a new kitchen was needed.  She brought home some books or fliers on kitchen counter finishes.  We built the one left on the table the next morning.  No problems and it was done in two weeks.  Who gets a kitchen demo'd and installed in two weeks???  Mom said the kitchen contractor said he didn't like working in that kitchen area and wanted to get in and out as fast as possible.  Said he felt...creepy.  Like someone was always looking over his shoulder, but no one was there.

Of course the plaster guy who had to come in to repair two walls was happier than a pig in mud.  Yep, our walls almost plastered them selves he felt.  A wonderful place to work.  He felt happy here.  Wished we had more walls to do.  He then told my Mom that as an apprentice, he had helped plaster the home when it was built.  This is how we learned the name Street.  He said Mrs Street was stern, but fair.  And if you didn't do it the way she wanted, you were gone.  She wanted her home built perfectly.

Hope you enjoyed this long, but fun story Pat.  As I wrote it, more great  memories flooded back.  Thanks for asking.

LJ

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Love it and Mrs. Street - thank you for sharing.  Hope she have a WikiTree profile where these stories of her life and then some, can be recorded for us all to get to know her.

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https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Pomeroy-1598

Mrs. Street.  Added her yesterday.  Almost forgot.  Sorry Mrs. Street.  LOL

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I love these stories, LJ! Thanks so much for sharing them!

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Great house stories! You must have had an interesting childhood.

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Glad you liked them  I had fun remembering and writing them.

And yes, it was interesting.  I can count on one hand how many times I had a friend come up to my bedroom.  She was not amused with my friends and let us know.  LOL  The room would start to get frigid, even in the summer.  Simpler not to let anyone up there than try to explain it since we were forbidden to talk about her to anyone while we lived there.  My parents were afraid people would think we were nuts....or at least prove it.  LOL

Answer 10

Not quite the spooky halloween story you might be looking for but yes we definitely have Ghoasts in our family.... I was searching for a brick wall called Martha Choast and discovered her and her parents as Martha GHOAST :) I also discovered a death registration in Ireland for "Old Ghoast", I guess the poor man had outlived the common use of his first name and no-one could even remember it after he died.

Answer 11

I don't know if I can claim that this is a ghost story.. about ghosts... but it is a true story and a bit creepy...

A cousin of mine from the days gone by when in the early days of the Republic, settlers had to guard their sheep from wolves... and other things...

The flock of sheep were not safe at night. And neither were those who were given the task of guarding them. It all started one night, long ago, when the first guard was found - brutally murdered. His body laid out, not far from where he had performed his final duty to the others, his scalp torn from his skull - blood dried in a pool beneath his body, soaked into the dry ground.

This disturbed the settlers greatly - they had been set upon before by thieves, predators... but to have one of their own killed in this manner... it had to be Indians. Fearing further attacks, they doubled the guard and hoped it would be enough. Sleeping fitfully that night, most people tossed and turned, awaiting the coming of the new day. When they awoke, it was two bodies they discovered - killed in the same manner, with no evidence that the men even saw or heard the approach of the unknown assassin.

That day, they held a meeting to discuss the situation. The two killed had been experienced, strong, and well-aware that something was out there - hiding in the woods - watching - and yet they were still killed with what appeared to be no greater effort than the first, who was probably blissfully unaware of the mortal peril he had been in. A young Fulkerson volunteered to stand guard that night - alone. No one else wanted that duty, so what could they do?

He was alert and ready, his rifle primed and loaded, as he began his shift. The sun was setting in the west, and the sheep bleated nervously as the coming of nightfall was upon them. It was then that he noticed something peculiar about the sheep that he had never seen before. He was experienced sheepherder, very familiar with their behaviors, and something was not right that evening. As the light began to fade, he noticed the sheep bleating more than usual, and moving a bit more than he would have expected.

Paying close attention, he picked out an area in the herd that was more restless than anywhere else, and creeping towards it slowly, he raised his rifle... and FIRED. The shot woke the camp and people came running, ready for... whatever they might find.

As the smoke from the shot cleared, and it was clear that he had shot into the herd, the young Fulkerson and the gathering crowd saw the sheep herd part only to discover a body, laying among the sheep, wearing a sheep's hide, and carrying a vicious tomahawk stained with the blood of several previous settler's scalps.

Confident that they had caught the killer, they congratulated the young man and he claimed the tomahawk as his reminder of this night. The tomahawk was passed from generation to generation until it was destroyed by a house fire - so a replica has recently take its place.

I wish I could say this was in my direct line, but it's a cousin at least. And it's the closest I could think of to a ghost story in the family somewhere.

Answer 12

Sorry I missed Halloween, but I do have a ghost story. In our last house , we had vertical blinds for a sliding door. There were many times the end vane would start swinging. Only the last one. No doors or windows would be open in the house, nor would the heat or A/C be running. My wife, and I, always believed it was the spirit of her mother just stopping by for a visit, BTW, her mother never was in the house when she was alive.

Answer 13

The house I lived in between 1982 and 1989 with my parents and siblings was inhabited by a poltergeist for a year or two around 1987.

Typical poltergeist activity including the smell of rotten eggs, freezing cold room in the middle of a hot summer's day and curtains swinging from side to side when there was no source of wind...centred around one particular room...my younger sister who was about 9 at the time. All member's of my family witnessed different events and it continued after I left home, with my sister's boyfriend running down the road away from our house barefoot after the books from the bookshelf flew across the room he was in.

The strange activities continued and then just seemed to stop. It wasn't a particularly old house, built in the 1930s, but it was built on an old estate...so no-one knows who the ghost actually was.

Comments

It was in the days of the old cassette tapes, and I used to record the top 40 from the radio every Sunday night. I had the only upstairs room, an open plan converted loft with stairs going up. There were only 5 of us in the house, and my cassettes disappeared for what seemed like months...then one day I found three cassetted neatey stacked on the third step up to my room in the middle of the step....no one in my family had put them there so it must have been the ghost.

 

Another day we had water flowing down all the walls of one room ( a flat roofed extension from the kitchen) that had no water going to it (and there was no leak and it wasn't raining!) It flooded so much that pots in the cupboards were filled up with water.

After that I started researching poltergeists and discovered the flooding was a typical activity of a poltergeist.

Answer 14

So many ghost stories, especially on my mother's side. In particular, when my grandfather gave my grandmother's chair to the neighbor after my gran passed, it never stopped rocking. The neighbour's husband tried to chop it and it would not break. It was returned to my grandfather.

Another is about my great-uncle, who has been sick in bed for three months. Walking to church late one morning, his son ran into the priest, who told him "yes, yes, I know I shouldn't have given your father communion (he had not paid his church taxes) this morning, but it was so good to see him well and out of bed!" Everyone at church saw him. His son was going to get the priest because his father had died that morning.

Answer 15

When I was a child under 10 years we lived in an old house built about 1890 on the south side of Chicago, Illinois.  I slept on a daybed in the sewing room off the living room.  One night when I woke there was a young woman in her 20s sitting on a chair in the room.  She wore a calico dress and her hair was brown and pulled back.  She stared at me with kindly eyes but a smile like the Mona Lisa.  I inquired who she was but she did not answer.  I threw the covers over my head and called for my mother.  Never saw her again but the memory is so vivid I can still see her and I am almost 72 years old.

Comments

The best proof not just evidence, of reincarnation is I think in the stone slab drawn by the late Gwen McDonald whilst under hypnotic regression in Sydney.  Gwen had never been out of NSW never mind Australia.   Yet she was able to draw the lines on a stone slab that still exists in an old cottage in Somerset when she was Rose Duncan some 200 years earlier.   The cottage had been turned into a chicken shed and the farmer didn't even know there was a stone floor under a century of muck.   When cleaned out they found the stone and the lines drawn in Sydney were a very good match.   Gwen also used Somerset words long forgotten and these had to be searched for in Exeter University Library - she was right.   She also found the old cottage where she had lived so long ago.

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When people inquire if I believe in ghosts, reincarnation, flying saucers I answer that the universe is a large entity and I am a single person with a limited lifespan.  I have had experiences that I cannot explain and like the McDonald story I have seen "proofs" that have no explanation.  Years ago I worked on an old house in northwest Arkansas built during the 1860s.  The owner, Hosea Mcquire, died in the house.  I could feel a "presence" and the current owner said she (and her dog) had the same.  I later found a newspaper article from 1951 in which the then owner saw a figure in an upstairs window but the sheriff found no one.  My wife says there is a shadowy figure of a male who walks our back hall and sometimes plays with the water faucets.  I also worked on a house in Natchez, Mississippi where my compressor turned on when unplugged and our black lab dog would not enter the house.  Explanations or answers.  I have none.  lgs

Answer 16

My father-in-law's mother had a brother, named Wilhelmus Grondman.

In 1943, he was imprisoned by the Germans, and they interrogated him fiercely.

On 24th of march, 1943, at approx 10 am the door in the livingroom of my grandmother in law opened and closed without anybody being near.

On the 25th there was a letter, stating that Wilhelmaus had died at 09:58 on the 24th of march in prison, due to severe wounds.

 

In the family we believe it was Wilhelmus opening and closing the door to let everybody know he was not alive anymore.

Answer 17

I have a number of ghost stories in my family. Most were recorded by my grandfather. Some told to me by my mother. One is my experience. None are scary. Here's are synopses of some of them.

The death of Mary (Kitt) Winebrenner (Kitt-54)

Mary and "Uncle John" (I have not figured out who he was yet) were ill at the same time. Mary died. (1856.) Her family grieved. She came back to life, and said that she got as far as the river, and an angel met her and said she had to go back and comfort her family. And, by the way, she saw Uncle John across the river. She said please not to grieve for her, as she did not want to have to die too many times. Then she died again. The family refrained from grieving, but sent someone over to uncle John's who reported back that he had died 5 min. before my great-great-grandmother had.

Edith (Forrey) Stoner (Forrey-12)

My grandmother was diagnosed with cancer in 1960. They operated, to find that it had spread, and was terminal. They almost lost her during the operation. When she woke up, she reported that she had seen Jesus, and that he had given her a choice to come with him, or to go back to her family. She chose to go back, as she and her husband had just built and moved into their retirement home on the ocean. And she didn't know the cancer was terminal. The doctor gave her 2 months to live. She lived 7 months.

Peter W. Stoner (Stoner-632)

When Edith knew she was going to die, she instructed her husband to remarry, and gave him a list. He chose one (her neice) (Grace Van Ornum, Van_Ornum-6) and she agreed to marry him. Grace died about 15 years later. After Grace died, for a full year, each night when Peter went to bed, one of his wives (they alternated) would come and sit by his bedside and talk to him, until he fell asleep. After a year, the routine ended. Grace did not come back. Edith would come from time to time.

Lois (Stoner) Gardner (Stoner-631)

My mother had an ability to see or feel spirits at times. After her father died, she said she'd glimpse him occasionally. She would often feel the spirit of her cat on her bed after it had died. After one of her dogs died, she could often hear it's collar jingling in the back seat of the car. One time, she went to pick up a friend who had a very friendly Siamese cat. On the way over, my mother was aware of the dog's spirit in the back seat of her car. When she got there, and her friend opened the door to get in, the cat jumped in to say hello, as it was wont to do. Then it froze, looked towards the back seat, all it's hair stood on end, and it jumped out of the car and ran home as fast as it could. It saw the dog spirit, too.

Several years before my mother died, one of her friends had told her about an oak tree on the west side of Hwy. 101, a little south of Petaluma, near the dairy, which had a growth on it that made the trunk of the tree look like a woman's bust. My mother looked for that tree every time she drove down to the City. She couldn't ever see it. She told me about it, and asked me to look for it, and I could never see it either. My first trip to the City after she died, I saw the tree. I figure she showed it to me.

Answer 18

Before my parents were married, my dad was still living with his parents in the house he had grown up in, but he bought the house two doors down and rented it to my mom. Dad and his parents laughed at how often she would show up on their porch at night time and ask to sleep on their couch. But once they got married and Dad moved in with Mom, he realized that there was something strange going on. For instance, one night, the antique dog's dish full of water (weighing about 10 lbs) slid across the floor in the other room. The dog was asleep at the foot of their bed. Finally, one night, Dad woke up and saw a woman standing at the foot of their bed, looking at them. He recognized her, having grown up in the neighborhood. She had been his neighbor before she died. Dad reached over to wake up Mom, but as he did, the woman turned and walked away through the wall. Dad will absolutely swear that ghosts exist, having seen one. Mom claims that she doesn't believe in ghosts, but she still insists there was something weird about that house.

They were bothered by these weird things for a while, but they were renovating the house, and after a certain point, when the house was no longer recognizable, the strange things stopped.

Answer 19

My parents bought a new house after WWII where I lived my whole life (and still own). My parents were divorced when I was four but my father lived less than a mile from us and I saw him every Sunday. He died when I was 15, in 1975. In my father's things I found a wedding ring from his first marriage that lasted for only two years, and began wearing it everyday. Something I later learned bothered my mother, but I digress. I went away to college and when I came home for Christmas break, something strange happened. I was sitting on the floor in front of the TV, playing around with my dad's ring in the new carpet. I put the it in the carpet so that all of the fibers were through and around the ring, them smoothed the carpet over it so it didn't show. But then, it was gone! That ring was not there. It really upset me and made no sense whatsoever. My mom had the cleaning lady clean out the vacuum bad every week for months, then in early spring, she had the carpet cleaned. That ring was simply gone. I came home again for spring break and was again sitting on the floor in front of the TV. I sat crossed-legged with my elbows resting on my knees, when my arms just slipped off and both hands went flat in front of me. When I picked up my right hand, there sat the ring right on top of the carpet, as pretty as you please! This is by far the strangest thing that's ever happened to me, and I'm sure my dad was playing a joke on me to let me know he was watching over me. I'm not sure my mother ever believed I was telling the truth, but as God is my witness, it really did happen just like that.

Answer 20

After years of researching my father's direct paternal line, I learned that a few of his earliest purported ancestors did not make sense in light of any of the evidence I was uncovering. Of course I now understand fabricated genealogy is sadly commonplace, but at the time this shocked me quite a bit.

Determined to have only genuine relatives in my tree, I immediately removed the fake ones and began an intense search for real, documented ancestors. However after much effort, I found nothing new.

It was because I was looking in all the wrong places, making the same assumptions previous researchers had made. Until a great grand father of mine from long, long ago came and pointed out the exact spot where he and his son had been entombed --in the vicinity of London, nowhere near the counties of Devonshire and Wiltshire as supposed.

Only as I then began looking elsewhere did I find, in just a couple days, record of multiple Mulford ancestors never mentioned before, all of them fully in line with the evidence I had gathered. Within the year which followed I was able to obtain photographs of the remains of their grave site, right in the very location and in precise detail as I was shown, and in the very vicinity where the largest concentration of Mulfords in England had long resided.

Needless to say, while some may continue to debate the authenticity of what is represented in that place, I have no doubt whatsoever. I saw that something uniquely linked to the Molfords (Mulfords) of Devonshire will be uncovered in that place, and then perhaps the whole world will know what I know already.