My first experience was when I was probably no more than two or three. It is one of my earliest memories. I remember being in the kitchen and suddenly a big, round ball of light rolled out the dining room door into the kitchen. No one else saw it but me, but I still remember this.
Then, when I was five or six my mother moved me upstairs to the large bedroom. There was a washstand in the room with an old-fashioned basin and pitcher set on it. One night the sound of those dishes rattling woke me up. I “knew” that it was a mouse and I also “knew” it was going to run across my face, which it did! I can still recall how it felt when whatever it was passed over my face. I began screaming and my mother ran upstairs to see what was wrong. I was practically hysterical and told her a mouse ran over my face, but of course there was no mouse. She had to spend the rest of the night in my bed because I was so frightened.
One of my most frightening experience happened when I was a teenager. My mother and father slept downstairs (in the room I now sleep in) and one evening my father had gone to bed and mom and I were still up listening to the radio. Suddenly, music started to play, sounding like it was coming from upstairs. I remember being very frightened and screaming, “What’s that?!!” and my father got up and came out (in his long-johns which he slept in) saying, “I hear music!”
My mother didn’t hear a thing. It sounded as if the radio, which was upstairs in my room, had come on, although there was no way that it could have. Mom and I started to go up the stairs to check on it and when we were half way up it stopped just as suddenly as it had started. That was the first time my hair stood on end! Whenever anyone would mention it for years afterward, I would get chills up and down my spine. I do not know if they were forerunners, but there were two deaths in the family within the year—my grandmother, Sarah, in April and Lilie, who lived here, in July.
There is a rocking chair in this house which, when I was a little girl, used to be in the kitchen. It is very old and my mother told me that her grandfather brought it with him when he moved from Lower Northfield in the mid 1860’s. I woke up one night when I was a small girl and heard this chair rocking slowly, as it creaked when you rocked it. The next morning I innocently asked my mother if she didn’t sleep well the night before. She said she had slept fine and wanted to know why I was asking. I replied,” Because I heard you up rocking in the night.” At this, she became very upset and said that was her grandmother’s chair and she used to rock very slowly in it, the same way I had heard it. Growing up, I heard it rocking “by itself” many, many times.
Many years later when my son was in his teens, he slept in that room and awoke one night to see a girl with long brown hair leaning over his bed. A few years earlier my other son was alone in that same room one Sunday afternoon, lying on his bed reading a comic book, when the door on one side of the room opened and closed and a few seconds later the door on the other side of the room opened and closed. Someone passed through, although he saw no one.
The spare bedroom directly above the living room seems to be the scene for most of the unexplained activity. In summers past, when relatives were visiting from Ontario, they would sleep in that room. One of them told me she awoke one night to find my mother standing at the foot of the bed. I have also heard footsteps and sounds of floor boards creaking from that room when no one was occupying it. Rebecca’s bedroom shared a wall with that spare bedroom and there were many nights as a child and teenager when she would hear noises, knocks and mysterious banging coming from that room. My grandson also saw my mother sitting on the bed in that room, petting the family cat.
There have been numerous times when there is an overpowering smell of perfume, which I associate with my mother. Every year when I do my spring cleaning and wash all of the good dishes in the china cabinet, most of which were Mom’s, I am sure to smell perfume. She loved her dishes and up until the last few years she lived, she washed them herself. She would get me to carry them to the sink and back in to the cabinet after they were washed and dried. Every year I do this and can smell her perfume and I know she’s there. Also, sometimes there is an unpleasant smell that Rebecca refers to as “old people smell”. My mother was born in this house and lived here her entire life (91 years) so it must be hard for her leave, which is why we know she is still around.
About a year after my husband died (1982), our church held a Memorial service to honor members of the community who were no longer living. Members of the congregation were asked to come forward and light a candle in memory of a family member, so I lit one for Murray and Ricky, and Rebecca lit one for her grandparents. That night while we were in bed I awoke to find the kitchen light on. I laid there for a few minutes thinking that one of the kids had gotten up to go to the bathroom, but I didn’t hear anything so eventually I got up and turned the light off. They both told me the next morning that neither of them had been up in the night. The following night the light came on again and after a few minutes it turned off. I told my brother about this a few days later and he said the switch was probably worn out so he took it apart to check it but found nothing wrong with it. My theory is that since we lit candles in church in memory of our loved ones, they did something similar for us!
Perhaps the single most terrifying experience I personally have ever had occurred on Sept. 26, 1982. I know the exact date because I told relatives about it as I was leaving their house the next day after their daughter’s first birthday party.
I was in bed and had been asleep for a while when something woke me up. There was a tall woman standing right beside my bed staring down at me. It was dark in the room but I could see her perfectly. She had very pale skin and dark hair which was piled up high on top of her head, and very dark piercing eyes which were staring at me. She was dressed in a long loose dress or robe, and it was pale green and pink in a damask pattern. I remember I screamed when I saw her and she immediately disappeared. The strangest thing about it was she seemed to have Chinese features and it was certainly no one I had ever seen before. I slept with my light on the rest of that night and for weeks afterward, but I never saw her again.
One night quite a few years ago, my nephew’s daughter and a few friends were here at the house and they wanted to play with the Ouija board. They lit candles and went to the living room with it. During their ‘session’ a plant stand in the corner fell over. I had been in bed but awoke to them screaming. The next morning, the phone rang. I answered it and said “hello” and an old woman’s voice said “hello”. I said “hello” again and so did she and then the line was full of static and I couldn’t hear anything so I hung up. I pressed “star 69” to identify the last caller but I got a message saying the call could not be traced. I am convinced it was a caller from the Great Beyond, possible stirred up the night before by the Ouija board session.
One afternoon I was expecting my son and his girlfriend to come visit as they usually did on Sundays and I heard a car drive in. I looked out and saw their car backing into the field on the other side of the driveway. I went on with whatever it was I had been doing, expecting them to come in at any moment. After a bit, I wondered what was taking them so long and when I looked out again the car was gone. I supposed they had forgotten something and left and gave it no further thought. A half hour or so later, they did come in. I asked them why they had been there and left earlier and they looked at me in astonishment and asked me what I was talking about because they had just left home for the first time. However, I had seen them before!
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