New Activity for an Old Spirit – Ghost Story

At one time, it seemed as though an uncomfortable female presence was once in my home, but it had seemed to disappear with the passing of my grandfather. It was as though he cleared house as he went.

We had heard nothing of any presence here except for those made by our male ghost, who is really a part of the family, I suppose….It may sound strange, but I respect his privacy, and have refused the “help” of investigators because of this…

Anyway…a few weeks ago, I undertook the in-depth cleaning of a spare bedroom in my house…this room has not been used, except for storage, for many years..long before my grandparents died..and when I took up residence here, I simply added to the chaos…

It was a long, but fascinating process for me…there was just so much…stuff…some junk, needing to be discarded, but some things that I consider treasures…old photographs, letters, postcards..from as far back as 1917, complete with one cent stamps..my great grandfather's cane…a collection of old tab collars…some old coins….and a lot of family things that would be considered junk to others, but precious to us. Needless to say, it took several days, going through closets and drawers…partly because there was just so much to go through, and partly because I would become sidetracked by one find or the other… The first few nights after I began working on the room…I would jolt awake during the night, thinking someone had been calling me…but I told myself that I was just dreaming, and would slip back off to sleep…

But then, one morning, I awoke and sat on the side of my bed, trying to get my bearings (LOL)..my mother, the only other occupant of the house, came in my room and sat, too. As we sat there, we suddenly heard a female voice calling out what I thought sounded like “Julie” or “Josie”. The sound seemed to be coming from the stairwell. We both froze for a minute, and then I asked my mother “did you hear that?”, to which she replied, “I heard something”..and we heard the voice call out again..muffled so that the words were not clear, but loud and plain enough to know where they were coming from. I got up and went to the head of the stairs, but no one was there (which was as it should be…both doors were secured when we went to bed the night before)…my mother and I then went down to the first floor-no sign of anyone…at least, not until we reached the back, built in porch..where we found the back door wide open–it had been secured by a dead bolt on the inside). We were a bit startled, to say the least, but have learned to sort of take such occurences in stride, they have been happening for years, though the sound of a female voice was very unusual…

That night…both my mother and I were awakened by her little Pekingnese…who was standing in my doorway, facing the stairs, hackles rising, barking a very unusual bark…unusual enough to almost convince both of us that we had an intruder…not a sound could be heard elsewhere in or around the house…the dog continued this behavior for at least several minutes until she finally quieted, and returned to her spot at the foot of my bed.

After that, it became more common to catch the sound of a woman's fleeting voice….or the glimpse of someone moving, just at the corner of your eye, from the bedroom mentioned, and around the hall and stairs….

Also, when entering the bed room, the distinct odor of brown beans and salt pork…which we had not cooked…would be waifting through. I began to imagine that through my rambling, I had somehow disturbed the dormant female spirit…but who could it be?

Now here is where the coincidences start happening….. About a week into the cleaning, I was talking with my sister, and began telling her of the things that had been happening…when I got to the part about hearing the name “Julie”, or “Josie”, she displayed a very strange reaction.She turned very pale, her eyes filled with tears, and the world's largest goosebump display, all over her body….

When she had contained herself a bit, she finally managed to say “She wasn't saying Julie or Josie, she was calling Joseph.” It seems, a short while ago, my sister had had a very vivid dream in which she had made contact with the spirit in our home..when she askes his name, on a large sheet of nearby paper, the letters J-O began to appear in beautiful Victorian script…she immediately assumed it was spelling John, the name of a great uncle who had shot himself on the property in the '70's-though this could not have been the origional ghost. But instead of John, the handwriting spelled out Joseph…also the word Cleveland (which she assumed was Cleveland, Ohio, a date in the late 1800's, and an age…she could not remember exactly, but it was either 31 or 41, she thought. She was not familiar with the name Joseph…but somewhere in the back of my mind, it began to ring a bell….I had found a laminated obituary for my great grandmother in the things I had been going through…and I could vaguely remember my grandmother telling me of another of her brothers who had committed suicide years before..his name was Joseph. Thinking that the obituary might give me a clue as to whether he had died before or after my great grandmother, I went and retrieved it. Imagine, the goosebumps I had, when I read, “survived by six sons (listing each and their hometown), ending with..Joe Wilson, of CLEVELAND, VA!!!! Though it might be coincidence, it was errie enough to give me a chill or two…Afterwards, through a little investigation, some more weird coincidences showed up……that date my sister had mentioned as being what she remembered…it was the year of birth for yet another great uncle…who had been murdered later…at the age of 31…and Joe had died at 51… pretty strange, hum?

My great grandmother died when I was only one, so I have no real personal recollection of her…But from what I have been told of her, she was a strong willed, domineering woman, who used fainting spells and vapours to get her way….she did not like what she considered intruders in her home…so perhaps the female spirit that had manifested so long ago was her…and perhaps she's back right now…though some helpful friends from the ghost discuss list think that it is possible that both she and my uncle are in need of assistance in crossing over. So now I am trying to prepare myself for just that…though I've never attempted anything like it before, and it sort of spooks me thinking about trying…

© Paulette Boyd

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