Here is a story that my grandfather, Peter Stoner, wrote down about visitations by his two (successive) wives after the second had died. It is in his words, I corrected some minor spelling and punctuation errors, but did not change it in any other way. He was a mathematician, and scientifically minded; he was concerned about proof, and gives a long explanation at the end, how these were not dreams.
I posted another of his stories, about my great-great grandmother dying and coming back to life and dying again on the 52 Ancestor Challenge: https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/709234/52-ancestors-week-44-frightening
Visions or Dreams?
The following events occurred. To me they seem like visions. If the reader considers them dreams, he is at liberty to so consider them.
My first wife, Edith, passed away about 20 years ago. My second wife passed away four years ago. My bedroom has twin beds, I occupied the one nearest the door and my wife occupied the second bed. Edith was the aunt of Grace.
Almost immediately after Grace’s death, their nightly visits began. One night Edith would come and sit in the chair at the head of my bed and we would talk until I became drowsy, then she would get up and go around to the foot of my bed apparently to her bed.
The next morning I could not resist looking over at the wife’s bed to see if it had been slept in. Of course, it showed no signs, but the chair by my bed, in which she sat, held an alarm clock and other items and they were never disturbed either.
The next night Grace came, sat in the same chair and repeated the events of the former night performed by Edith.
This was repeated for a solid year. Neither one ever missed her turn and never were they both there at the same time. At the end of the year, at Grace’s last visit, she talked to me about the question “What should we tell people who asked what we had talked about?” She said people were asking and she should have an answer. We finally decided on an answer, but I can not remember what it was. Sometimes when I try to remember it I can feel my memory just at the edge of it but it always slips away again. I think eventually my mind may dig it up and clarify the subject. Grace has never visited me since that night.
Edith returns frequently, but never to the same routine. She never sits in the chair by the bed and talks. She appears in a short, old-looking house dress. She seems to do general house work: dishes, dusting, house cleaning, etc.
On one occasion she said to me “This dress is so old and tattered that I am ashamed to appear in it. I have not had a new dress since I have been here. I said, “Why, I’ll buy you a new one,” She answered, with a shocked expression, “You know you can’t do that.” Of course I knew it and felt embarrassed for making the statement. A third voice did answer, though, and said, “I’ll get you a new dress.” They left together and Edith returned with a bright red dress that reached the floor, like a party dress. She appeared to feel so proud in her new dress. She did not seem to be doing any house work after this.
The times and types of her appearing to me, talking and doing things for me, are so numerous I can neither estimate the number or the types of them.
But Edith and Grace, earlier, taking turns coming to my bed and talking to me every night for a whole year seems impossible for them to be dreams. My dreams are too wild and too varied to fit such a routine, (eg. Just night before last I dreamed there was an African lion in the house. I got something like a 3x4 about 12 feet long, drove the lion into a corner and started vigorously striking and poking him with the 3x4, yelling at him all the time “Stay! Stay!” I have heart trouble and woke up with a sharp heart pain.
Last night I dreamed a man brought me an article he said he had written. The first sheet or two were clipped from the advertising section of some newspaper; some sheets were typed and one sheet was the last typed sheet from one of my own articles, as this article is signed. He wanted me to sign the whole article as if it were my own. I refused, but took the article promising to read it and report to him later.)
These general types of dreams are common with me. They are definitely dreams. They do not repeat. The do not even seem to fit in the same brain with the dreams or visions about Edith and Grace. Those seem like visions with totally different origins and objectives from the dreams.
Peter W. Stoner
January 2, 1980
