Ghosts

I have always loved the romantic notion of ghosts, but never had any
reason to believe in their existence, until we moved to Willow Manor
twenty one years ago. Now, I realize there are many readers who will

completely poo-poo this subject. There are even those who have gone

so far as to ridiculously suggest that demons are trying to possess

me. This, in my opinion, is stretching it just a tad. All I can advise, is

for you to spend a night or two at the manor and you might be willing

to change your mind.

Since the house was built in 1927, there have been at least two

deaths, that we know of, which occurred at the manor; an elderly
woman in the late 1970's and a man in his early 40's, who committed
suicide by hanging himself on a tree, in the early 1980's. We do,

however, consider the manor's ghostly visitors to be friendly ones;

we have never felt threatened or put in harm's way.

All three of my grown children have seen a small woman, hunched
over, dressed in white, who wanders the manor at night. She has
been known to whisper unintelligibly in your ear, late at night or can
be heard descending the front staircase around 4:30 a.m. Many
overnight guests have asked, the next morning, who was up in the

night, leaving the house around 4:00.

The most recent occurrence was when we had a couple spend the
night here in May. We were eating breakfast the following morning,
and I asked if they slept well. The woman's hands started to tremble
slightly and she said, "Well, since you asked, I might as well tell you.
In the middle of the night, I felt someone sit down on the edge of the
bed. I thought it was ___, but when I sat up and looked, no one was
there. And ___ was sound asleep beside me."

I am the only one who has seen the male ghost, and it happened just
once. About 17 years ago, one summer day in June, as I stood in the
kitchen, cupboard doors open, looking into the shelves, I got the
distinct feeling someone was looking at me. Thinking it was my
daughter, who was about eight at the time, I shut the doors, and
turned to look down at her, but she was not there. Instead, a very
tall, transparent, stern looking man, was standing to my left, looking
out the kitchen window. He turned his head and looked down, over
his shoulder at me. The hair on the back of my neck and head stood
on end and I screamed like bloody murder! He vaporized within
seconds.

Since then, I have done quite a bit of research and found a picture
online of the man who killed himself at Willow Manor. I immediately

recognized him as the tall man I saw in my kitchen that summer day,

gazing out at the huge old pines. I also found that he died in June.



*For additional manor ghost stories click on the "ghosts" label at

the bottom of this post.
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on the link and join in the fun.

photo: Front Staircase at Willow Manor