Life at Willow Manor

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain

Thrilled me---filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;

So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,

'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door,

Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door.

This it is, and nothing more."

from The Raven, Edgar Allan Poe

Since it is the season for all things scary, Cynthia shared a few

favorite hair raising ghost stories and asked if anyone else had any

that they especially liked.

Well, as I have mentioned before, Willow Manor is haunted. We have

all heard, felt, smelled and actually seen ghosts at various times in

this old house. Every once in a while, the heavy scent of a woman's

perfume hangs in a certain place in the master bedroom, which was at

one time the guest room, and also the room where the former family's

funeral urns were stored in a window box. It is not a scent I, or anyone

I know, wears. It usually can be detected between the hours of 3:00

and 4:00 a.m. and Friday night WT noticed it again on his way to the

bathroom. It's very strong, very distinct and very unusual.

Sometimes it's so strong it wakes me. Our daughter also noticed the

scent in our dining room last Christmas Eve when we were up late

chatting in the living room and she passed through the dark room on

her way to the kitchen. One thing we do know is this lady ghost has

very classy taste in perfume.

Saturday night, WT and I were sitting in the family room, which is

an open area off the kitchen, watching Hitchcock's Rebecca on TCM.

We were chatting during the movie, and right after I mentioned

something, we both heard a loud shriek come from the landing area

between where we were sitting and the kitchen. We both jumped,

looked at each other and at the same time asked, "Who was that?"

It was definitely a female voice and a loud enough scream to be

heard by both of us over the TV volume, which was cranked up fairly

high, and our conversation. WT got up and looked around, but found

no clues.

Another thing she likes to do, is open my kitchen "junk drawer"

during the night, leave it open, take some of the contents out

and place them on the counter top. Once part of the drawer had

actually been cleaned out and organized. She must not like the

messy contents and state of my junky drawer. Sorry Mrs. G.

All three of our children have seen the form of a small older woman,

hunched over, in a white nightgown late at night, in various spots in

the house. And they still randomly see her when they come home to

visit on holidays. Our youngest son is convinced that she fell on the

steps leading up to the front door area from our dining room, because

he saw her curled up at the foot of the steps late one night this past

summer. We do know that an elderly lady died here in the summer

of 1976 at the age of 88.

All of us have been awakened in the night by the sound of a woman

whispering in our faces. This only happened once to me, and I could

actually feel the force of her breath on my face! The whispering is

always very fast and unintelligible. She can also be heard descending

the front staircase between 3:30 and 4:30 a.m. Many of our overnight

house guests have asked, the next morning, who it was walking down

the stairs late at night.

The most frightening lady ghost episode for me was one night last

spring when she actually turned the latch and opened my bedroom

door at precisely 3:30 a.m. That made me sit up and take note At

least it's not at 11:11. That would creep me out even more.

But, seriously, after living here for twenty years, we are all very used

to these occurrences and feel no harm or ill intent. If she intended to

inflict harm, she would certainly be doing more than just opening

doors, turning on lights and cleaning out kitchen drawers.

If you happen to enjoy reading these hair raising episodes, these are

just a few of our resident lady ghost. Stay tuned, I'll save the

experiences associated with the male ghost for a later post.