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The Frontiersman and I, and our kids, to a lesser extent, have lived in many houses in several states but never have we had the strange experiences that we've had while living in this house.
When we were first married, and for about 5 years thereafter, The Frontiersman and I lived mostly in apartments; partly because we traveled so much and partly because we couldn't afford a house right away. Although we did live in a house we rented in Columbus, Georgia and then another rental house in Savannah, Georgia.
The first house that we bought was an old ( circa 1900), Sears "kit" house in a small city in Western New York. Although it was old, it was well cared for over the years and had only one owner previous to us buying it. It had the beautiful natural oak woodwork throughout the house and a wonderful pantry; a real, actual wood pantry. All the shelves and drawers were natural oak. It was beautiful, but as time marched on, the section of the city became more and more rundown and more and more dangerous in which to live.
When our daughter was seven years old, we moved to a farm house (sans farm), in a beautiful small town about thirty-five miles south of our first house. The house needed lots of work, but we weren't planning to move, so we had lots of time and energy to work on it and I loved planning the renovations with The Frontiersman and then decorating each room as we worked towards our goal. That was a very busy time in our lives. The Frontiersman had a job where he was required to work three shifts; I was busy holding things together at home, being there for our daughter and volunteering at school and in the office of the American Cancer Society, the office of Literacy Volunteers of America and tutoring students and teaching workshops for them. When our daughter was thirteen, our son, The Computer Genius, was born so you can imagine that event added to my already busy schedule.
A few months after moving into the house, Roxanne was playing in the driveway next to the house. It was near dinner time and she came running into the kitchen where I was preparing our dinner and excitedly asked me to come out and see whatever it was she was doing. I turned the stove off and went out the side door. As I stepped off the last step onto the driveway, a light in the basement caught my eye. I told her I'd be right back. I went back into the side entrance and opened the door to the basement. Everything looked dark so I flipped on the stairway light. I went down the basement stairs and walked to the back of the basement, where it looked like the light had been on. Nothing. Completely dark. I went back upstairs and turned off the stairway light. I returned back outside to watch Roxanne play for a few minutes, but the thought of that light never left my mind. I told The Frontiersman about it when he came home from work. He went down and looked around, but not surprisingly, didn't see anything.
Then there was the day, I was sitting at the table in the dining area of the kitchen when I thought I saw someone walk up the driveway, past the window. I got up to look because the only thing at the end of our driveway was our detached garage. It was the dead of winter, with several inches of snow on the ground and I could have sworn I saw a gray-haired man walk into our garage in just tan colored casual pants and a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. I didn't see anyone, but he must have gone into our garage, but why? Since I was home alone with Roxanne and it was beginning to get dark out, I decided to call the town police. They came very quickly and looked in the garage with their flashlights, they walked all around outside the house and the garage and when they were finished, they came to the door to let me know that they didn't find anything, not even footprints in the snow. They told me that if I really did see "someone", it must have been a ghost. Once again, when The Frontiersman came home from work, I told him about it. He went out to check out the garage, but nothing; nothing out of place.
There were several other instances of unexplained noises but we never actually found a reason for them. On a couple of occasions, after we had gone to bed at night, we would think we heard our little Chihuahua pacing in the hallway (The floor was hardwood.), but when one of us would get up to let her out, we would discover she was sound asleep on her little doggie bed in the corner of the room and Roxanne was sound asleep in her room.
After living there for seventeen years and working our butts off to make the house a home, the company The Frontiersman worked for started a massive downsizing. Just about that same time, our daughter, who was in the Army, stationed in Virginia, had just signed papers to buy a house. Anyway, to make a long story short, we, along with The Computer Genius, put our house on the market and moved into the house in Virginia with Roxanne and life moved on.
The house was a beautiful two story colonial with a 2 car garage, built in 1984. It was located in a gated community with a creek through our back yard. We had a dock for fishing and the best neighbors we had had anywhere. After we lived there a short time, we were told, by one of the neighbors that a young boy, about ten years old, who lived in our house, died when he fell through the ice on the creek one day. When I inquired from another neighbor about the story, she confirmed it. She said the young boy had stayed home from school one day, saying he didn't feel well. His parents and all the neighbors went off to work. At some time during the day, the boy put on his ski pants and jacket and his winter boots. He went out onto the ice-covered creek. The ice was never very thick on the creek and usually whatever ice formed overnight, melted in the warm daylight sun. He was young and probably didn't pay attention to those things. At any rate, once he fell through and his clothes got wet and his boots filled with icy cold water, he was unable to help himself and no one was home to hear him if he called for help. I always had the uneasy feeling that we might get an unearthly visit from the little boy but we never did. We lived there for eleven years when The Frontiersman decided that since he was nearing retirement, we should move back to Western New York and get away from all the traffic and the hustle and bustle of a growing urban/suburban area. Although The Computer Genius and I would much prefer the hustle and bustle and dealing with people rather than farm animals, we moved to Western New York.
Three years ago, we bought a cute little three story cottage ( circa 1865) on twenty-four acres of land on two sides of a dirt road with a creek running through our land on both sides of the road. We have a two car detached garage, a shed that at one time was used as a chicken coop and a playful ghost. How do I know this? The ghost makes himself (?) very obvious. First of all, you have to know that there was a devastating flood in this area in 1902. From newspaper accounts of the time, it was reported that the family who lived in this house got out safely, but, "the husband and father went back in to collect some personal belongings and was drowned. His body was found later in the kitchen under the wood stove".
The first time I noticed something a little strange was during our first day in the house. Roxanne had come up with us from Virginia to help us unpack and get settled a little before she would return to Virginia and wait for the closing on her husband's house.
Jason and The Frontiersman were bringing cartons in from the garage for Roxanne and me to unpack. I was washing dishes and Roxanne was putting them in the kitchen cabinets. All of a sudden, a cereal box that had been placed on top of the refrigerator literally flew across the kitchen. Roxanne and I just looked at each other in amazement. I think I was the first to speak. "Did you see that? Did that cereal box fly off the refrigerator or did it just fall?" "Oh no", she replied, "it definitely flew across the room." We told the guys when they came in with more cartons, but they just teased us that we must be tired.
A few nights later, Roxanne had returned to Virginia and The Frontiersman and I were just about to go to bed. We had turned off the TV and most of the lights. I walked to the windows in the living room that face the back of the house. As I reached up to close the first one, I asked The Frontiersman if he heard someone talking. He said he didn't hear anything so I put my ear closer to the screen of the open window and listened. I could very plainly hear a conversation but I couldn't make out the words. I asked The Frontiersman to call to The Computer Genius in the basement and ask him if he had his TV or music on. After calling down the stairs a couple of times, The Frontiersman went downstairs only to find Jason fast asleep. The next morning, Jason came upstairs for breakfast and said his sound system woke him up. I didn't really think much about that comment because I just assumed he has set his alarm until he said, "The strange thing about it is I haven't plugged it in yet". We were still unpacking and finding our belongings. He had found his sound system in a box the evening before and just set the components on the floor of his room, but not put it together and not plugged it in. He had decided he was tired and would do that the next day.
There were other oddities that happened such as our two little Min Pins, Mia and Gia would lie at the end of the bed in the upstairs master bedroom and on occasional nights would sit up and growl into the empty hallway, but the next time something really noticeable happened was Christmas Day 2006. It was about eight o'clock in the morning and The Frontiersman and I were the only ones up. Roxanne and Bill were coming over later to unwrap gifts and spend the day with us, eating and making merry. I was going to take a shower before the day got started and The Frontiersman said he was going into town to the local convenience store to buy the newspaper. He went out the door and I went into the downstairs bathroom and locked the door. I took my shower and as I was washing my hair, doorknob began violently turning back and forth with breakneck speed and jiggling up and down at the same time. I called, "Wait a minute", in an annoyed tone. Again, once out of the shower, as I was drying off, the same thing happened with the doorknob; I saw it that time. I couldn't believe that whoever was on the other side of the door had to go that badly that they couldn't wait for me to get dry. I again called, "Wait a minute; I'm just getting dry". I rushed through drying and practically threw my clothes on and unlocked and opened the door and to my amazement, I was the only one there! Mia and Gia were resting on the couch, but they're way too little to reach the doorknob, and I'm not sure they would know how to rattle a doorknob anyway. I went down to the basement to find The Computer Genius still snoring and The Frontiersman's truck wasn't back in the driveway yet. When he got home, I told him what had happened and he checked the doorknob but found nothing unusual' with it.
There have been so many noises and happenings' since then, we now just say, "There goes the ghost again". I've had a little stone thrown in my direction when I went into the basement to do laundry. A few weeks ago I was in the kitchen making a salad and a screw flew through the air in my direction. We never have figured out where that came from. There have been lamps overturned after we've all gone to bed and last week, The Frontiersman found a used' plastic fingernail on the carpet in my office shortly after I vacuumed. Neither The Frontiersman, The Computer Genius nor I wear plastic fingernails and no one else had been in the house. Things go missing and then sometimes show up again in an entirely different area of the house. My theory is as long as no one gets hurt, the ghost can continue to live and play here.
It's so sad that we all come from God and Heaven and yet traumatic things do happen to us to 'trap' us here after death. Then we are 'stuck' and have to fight so hard for so long a time just to return to Heaven and to God. If you pray FOR the ghosts they appreciate it as prayer for them raises their vibrational levels and helps them to return as it sends angels of mercy and of rescue to show them 'the light' and it counts well for you as you are doing service for 'the other side'.It's always heartbreakingly sad, to me, that people feel that they can 'live with ghosts who don't harm anyone' because ghosts are truly trapped spirits who often do need our spiritually enlightened help to return them to where we all come from,Heaven.Paul Schroeder
Thanks, Paul. I pray every evening and every morning for lost and wandering souls, but will specifically mention this man by name. Thanks for the advice.
» left by Paul Schroeder from nyc (2 days 5 hours ago.)
God bless you, Shari;After reading your( heartbreaking) stories about trapped lost souls, I have prayed for all of the spirits in the very specific locations that you mentioned, especially for that of the very likely ghost boy youngster who drowned when he was home from school on that 'sick day who probably did try to get your attention. As he was a child, he may not even know that he's dead and without our compassion and prayers may continue to be wandering, not at peace and lost for hundreds of years; Paul Schroeder
Wow! I guess you have no questions in your mind that ghosts exist. As for the prayer (even though I have my doubts), I figure it can't hurt. I say a prayer for all the little animals I encounter that have died through mishap and disastrous encounters with humans.
Interesting stuff. Thanks for sharing, I think. Kind of gives me the creeps. :)
You're right; there is no question in my mind. I realize that not everyone believes as I do, but not everyone has had the experiences I've had and continue to have. I also know others might chalk these experiences up to wind or fog or something, but I know what I know. Sorry if it creeped you out. I didn't mean to; I'm just reporting what happens in my life, as usual.
Thanks so much again, Dianne, for reading my article and commenting on it. I truly do appreciate the support.
» left by Anonymous (18 hours 55 minutes ago.) New Comment!
Great timing for Halloween! Its a shame that it is true though. However, you forgot about the ghost (or whatever it was) under the steps in the basement! That made my straight hair curl! Love, your daughter :)
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