You might not be comfortable with this fact
but back in the mid to late 1800s, there were no hospitals or funeral homes
nearby like there are today. When any of our ancestors who lived in my house became
ill, the doctor would make a house call and if need be, perform surgery right
here in this house. If the patient didn’t make it—and some did not—the funeral
was held in what is now my living room and home office space. This was common
practice. Back then, they called it “the good room”, which was fancier than the
other rooms in the house and it was only used when someone as dignified as a clergy
member would come visit or you needed to have a funeral. When we visited my
grandmother here before moving here, we were never allowed in the good room.
Heaven forbid we disturb the pristine condition of the room.
But I digress.
So the doctor would knock out the patient
with whatever he had: chloroform, ether, laughing gas, opium or alcohol
(homemade moonshine comes to mind) and proceed to lay out the victim..I mean ‘patient’ …on the
kitchen table (yes the kitchen table! I guess he needed the most sturdy surface
in the house and at a good height to operate from) and slice them open to attempt
to cure the patient.
This horrifying set up is enough to imbed
the fear and near-death turmoil into the old lathe walls, roof and very
foundation of this house. And if you didn’t survive and your funeral is being
set up the next day in the parlour room, that would just put the final nail in
the coffin, no pun intended. The more traumatic the death, the more likely the
site is to be haunted.
So that might be all the reason you need
when you ask why are there ghosts in my house?? And maybe why there aren’t any
in yours.
Of course, this is not the only reason for
ghosts and spirits to lurk around. I would imagine there are many.
Speaking of being haunted, in addition to
being asked by people if I have recently seen any ghosts in our house, I also
often get asked if I know who exactly
these ghosts are.
Of all the reported sightings (by myself
and others) only a handful could be positively identified.
Below is a list of the positive identifications we have made over the years. Bear in mind, we can only I.D. the ones we have actually seen and cannot say with 100% certainty who is responsible for the myriad of noises (footsteps, knocks, bangs, voices, etc) that happen. Who is causing those is anyone’s guess.
The ghost seen most often is my maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Ramey (Lizzie).
I have written about her a fair amount elsewhere on the blog, largely due to the fact of the number of times she has been seen in the house long after her death.
Background info:
She was born in our house in 1891 and lived
to be 90 years old. We attribute this milestone age to a few different things:
#1: Luck. Back in those days, a bout of the
flu or something much less curable such as tuberculosis was taking out people
left, right and center. So the fact that she escaped all the potentially lethal
diseases she could have contracted was pretty impressive.
#2. Medications. Remember the large 4 liter
ice cream containers you used to be able to buy? My grandmother had one of
those FULL of pills that her so-called doctor prescribed for her--even though
there was very little, if anything, wrong with her. All she had to do was show
him a broken fingernail and he’d shove 6 prescriptions at her. She loved it.
Also, she was known to get into a bottle of brandy and her homemade chokecherry
wine several times a day. I would say she felt pretty good most of the time from
this combination, which possibly contributed to prolonging her life.
#3. Attitude. To say some of the Joudreys
were stubborn is a bit of an understatement
from what I heard about some of them over the years. My grandmother 100%
had this trait. (I may also have it). So when she insisted that she was never leaving her house for any reason,
she meant it. She was completely against going into any nursing home or
anything else even remotely resembling one and was hell bent on staying in her
house until her dying day.
So she did manage to live in her house
right up until the last few days of her life (which she spent in the hospital)
and true to her word, she has never entirely left the house as she has been
seen here multiple times following her death in 1981.
Number of times she has been seen: 5
Number of witnesses to Lizzie’s ghost: 3 (2 people saw her twice)
Evidence besides eye witness testimony: She showed up in a photograph taken of the outside of the house many years after her death. Her face is very clearly in a window. (see ghost #3 below)
Conclusion: Obviously, she
is not here constantly. But based on
the reports of her spirit seen on the premises 5 times, I can say with 100%
certainty that she definitely comes to visit. In 3 out of the 5 sightings, she
was interacting with the witness and not simply appearing suddenly in a
residual kind of way, oblivious to her own whereabouts.
When I say interacting, this is what I
mean:
Two of the incidents involved her staring
menacingly at the witnesses. She could see them. They could see her; just like
an interaction between two living people. In a third incident, she stood next
to my aunt who was in bed and had her arms outstretched towards her, as if she
wanted an embrace. Again, they were clearly seeing each other.
She has been interactive in other ways
also. One time, quite a few years after her death, she called my mother on the
phone. And many years ago I heard her call my name when I was in the kitchen.
Do I believe she is still here? Most
definitely. I concluded that the ongoing noises in the dining room when no one
is in there is likely her shuffling around and moving about because she always
sat in her rocking chair in that room beside the window. It was her favorite
spot. I fully expect to see her one day.
The second ghost we have positively
identified is Willie Joudrey.
Background info:
He was the son of my great-great-grandparents
and Willie’s father, Simeon, built our house. When Willie was 5, he came down
with the measles and died here in 1873.
Around the year 2000, I was asleep in an
upstairs bedroom when I was awoken by the bedroom door opening. When your door
opens in this house in the middle of the night, you sit up and take notice.
There stood a small boy. Part of me knew this was not my son, who was also 5
and supposed to be asleep across the hall in his room. But I was trying to be reasonable.
And there were no other children on the premises. I was 100% not asleep and
dreaming this.
I immediately got up, at which time the boy
laughed and turned and ran out into the hall from the direction he had come
from. I followed but found no one in the hall. I went in my son’s room. He was
asleep. Sound asleep—I checked in
case this was some prank by him. It definitely wasn’t.
The next day while telling my mother of
this incident, she concluded it was probably little Willie, based on the
ancestral tree of those who have lived and died here.
Number of times he has been seen: 1
Number of witnesses to Willie’s ghost: 1
Evidence besides eye witness testimony: Previously on the blog, I recounted the incident of mysterious
child-size footprints that appeared on the living room floor mid-renovation.
Refresh your memory here: LINK
As we know there is a child ghost in the
house (because I have seen him) these footprints could belong to him. Other young
family members have also died here in the 1800s so I cannot say with 100%
certainty the footprints are Willie’s but it is very likely.
When my son was young, he would often refer
to an imaginary playmate and sometimes wanted a place set at the table for him.
Once, I heard him outside playing in the snow having a conversation with
someone, but when I looked he was out there all by himself. This does not mean
he was interacting with a ghost but it’s a possibility since they were, and
are, on the premises.
Within the last year there was also a day
when I heard little quick footsteps on the stairs, which seemed like what a
child would sound like if they were going up or coming down the stairs. Once,
again, I attributed this to Willie.
Conclusion:
We know he’s around ever since his
appearance in my bedroom that night. He probably had a traumatic death here
being sick with the measles with little to no treatment as anti-virals hadn’t
been invented yet. He appeared to me once, maybe he will show up again. Let’s do it in the daytime next, okay,
Willie? Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of him.
The third identifiable ghost is my father, Murray.
Background info:
He died in our house in 1981 from a sudden
massive heart attack at age 51.
Number of times he has been seen: 1, in a photograph taken many years after his death.
Number of witnesses to Murray’s ghost: 0
Evidence besides eye witness testimony: While my father has not been seen in the traditional sense
like other ghosts have, there are indications he has been around. I have
included him in this post about “ghosts we’ve seen” because the picture I took
of the outside of the house one day shows him clearly in the dining
room window, above the ghost of my grandmother (Lizzie), who died the same year he did. That's his face in the top circle, looking off to the side, while my grandmother (bottom circle) appears to be looking straight ahead, at me. This is pretty solid proof he has been here after his death. My mother was sure
he was responsible for the kitchen light coming on by itself not long after he
died, although she was assuming so once
again, we cannot be completely certain it was him.
The picture:
My father for comparison:
Conclusion:
The picture speaks for itself. I was innocently
playing with my camera that day and decided to take a few shots of the house.
When I took a closer look at my amateur photography, I was quite astounded to
see my father and grandmother looking out the window. If this is not proof that
these two were posing for the camera that day, then I don’t know what is.
Showing up unexpectedly in a picture is the same as materializing right in
front of someone. It’s still proof a ghost was here.
So this is three of our ghosts that we can actually put a name to. Who the other spirits are/were (and there were lots of sightings spanning many years) who like to drop in from time to time is anyone’s guess. A long list of relatives have lived here since 1871. Any one of them could come back at any time. And this doesn’t account for the 5 ghosts my mother has seen on the premises, which she could not identify. Or the one my brother saw in an upstairs bedroom in the 80’s who he could not identify. Or the one I saw in the upstairs hallway in 1996 who I could not identify.
It has been fairly quiet as far as ghostly
activity is concerned over the last couple of months. As I have mentioned quite
a few times, this is normal. No one has ghosts 24 hours a day 7 days a week. I
don’t know why but that’s just not how they operate. Of course, they could be
around more and we just don’t happen to notice. I have reminded them they
better get their act together as I have blog to write so hopefully something
will happen again soon.
Lastly, for those of you who aren’t aware,
our house was recently written about in the book “Even More Ghost Stories of Nova Scotia” by the award-winning
author, Vernon Oickle, published in August 2025. I suggest you pick up a copy of this intriguing new
release as soon as possible. There’s lots of haunted places in Nova Scotia you
need to know about.
LOTS.
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