True Ghost Stories From Elkview High School

True Ghost Stories from the 

Students of : 

Photo from Elkview High School FB

For its Wednesday, August 16th, 1961 edition of the Hinton Daily News, the Summers County newspaper ran an interesting column. Noting how popular ghost stories were with their readers, they printed a collection of true ghost stories that were submitted by students from Elkview High School in Kanawha County, West Virginia. The school ceased being a 'high school' a few years later and undoubtedly some of those who sent in their stories have either moved far from the area or are no longer with us entirely. But, their legacy is alive and well, thanks to the spooky tales that were recorded in the newspaper and which will now be shared on Theresa's Haunted History! If you recognize yourself or a family member as one of these authors, please drop by and say hi!

A Locked Door, by Dottie Davis:

About two years ago we lived in a house that everyone said was haunted. They said that a girl who had lived in the house before we did had died, and that a person could hear her making noises every night. After we moved there, we found the upstairs of the house, the part the girl had died in, was locked. 

Every night about the same time, we could hear noises that sounded like someone walking. One night I decided to sleep at the bottom of the stairs. I went to sleep. Later I was awakened by something. I looked around the room and saw standing before me a vapory mist shaped like a woman. So I covered my head with quilts. When I finally got nerve enough to look again, it was gone. The next morning I told Mom about it, and she said she had seen it too.

A Night Visitor, by Betty Jane Pauley:

My brother Jim was born one month after my father died. Jim never asked about his father. He did not recognize his pictures. One night Jim awoke my mother and told he that he had seen his daddy. Mother looked amazed and she questioned him further. Jim said his father told him nothing. He said he had brown eyes, was tall, had wavy black hair, and wore glasses. Mother told him to go back to sleep. Mom knew that Jim had not seen any color pictures of his father, but he had described him as if he were right in the room. 

One night a month later, Jim awoke and said that his father had talked with him. Jim just walks away when he is asked about the conversation.

The Creature, by Sam Burdette:

One time in Ritchie County, West Virginia, there was certain haunted grave. Close to the grave, a boy lived alone with his mother. One night his mother became sick. There were two routes to the doctor's home. The boy could go the long way by-passing the grave, or short cut past the grave. Since he was in a hurry he chose the shorter route. As he was riding by the grave, something screamed and jumped on the horse's back. The boy had a large knife and immediately made a stab in the dark at the creature behind him. As the knife sank into the creature, the boy gave a long hard pull. The creature fell to the path and the boy rode on.

The next day the boy and some men returned to the grave. There in the path lay a large panther, the terrifying haunt of the graveyard. 

My Great Grandfather, by Jimmy Anderson: 

My great-grandfather was a jack-a-leg lawyer; and as the tales go, he was fair to midland. On one incident he was attending a church service. There was very little response in the form of "Amens" and the like, from the congregation. So the preacher asked why some one did not say "Amen." No one said a word. About five or ten minutes later a drunk rose and said "Amen." This made the preacher and the congregation so angry that they threw him out of the church.

For some reason, my great grandfather took the drunk's case to court and won it. Of course this made a lot of friends for him.

One time my great-grandfather got in an argument with some poor man who read in his Bible about the 'publican and the sinner.' He thought this meant he was supposed to vote Republican. My great-grandfather was evidently a strong Democrat. As a result, there was a big argument and my great-grandfather lost a friend.

My great-grandfather was never a man to back down. He once commented, in the presence of some people, that one of his neighbors was the biggest liar in the county. Word got back to the neighbor's husband. My great-grandfather and the husband met. The husband said, 'I hear you said my wife was the biggest liar in the county.' My great-grandfather promptly said, ' I don't recollect whether I said county or state.' That ended it all.

On one occasion, my great-grandfather found himself traveling through a town that had a notorious graveyard. People had seen ghosts in it. One evening after dark, my great-grandfather was riding his mule by the graveyard. He came upon a white clad figure sitting on a tombstone, but he was not about to back down from the ghost which he did not believe in. He got off his mule, pulled a pistol and thought, "By gum, I'll shoot it." He started to move up before he shot.

Upon investigation he found an old woman in a white dress waiting on a ride. 

Hinton Daily News
16 August 1961

My (Maybe) Bigfoot Experience at Kanawha State Forest

I was born and raised in West Virginia and come from a family of avid outdoorsmen and hunters. Yet, personally, as much as I love nature, I've never really ventured that deeply into the wilderness. Therefore, I always thought my chances of running into a Bigfoot were slim to none. Oddly enough, I DID have a potential sighting of a white Bigfoot in Lawrence County, Ohio while a friend and I were doing some research at a small, country cemetery, but that was my only sighting of anything I would even remotely consider cryptozoological. But, it may not have been my only ENCOUNTER.

It's been over a year now, closer to two actually (March 2021), that I had a strange experience at Kanawha State Forest. I had seen my therapist that morning and after talking through some pretty heavy stuff, I felt the need to just reconnect with nature for a little while. So, I hopped in the car and drove to Kanawha State Forest. I made a couple of stops throughout the park, taking some photos and even walking one of the easy trails. I still had some time before I needed to be back to pick my son up from school, so I made my way down to a little area known as Dunlop Hollow that had some stories about being haunted by a woman who, folklore says was lynched from a large tree at the site.

I parked the car, took a few photos, and made my way over to a picnic bench and sat down with a book. I didn't stay too long, but spent probably about a half hour or so, just enjoying the sunshine, listening to the birds, and reading my book. For the most part, Kanawha State Forest is a really clean, well-maintained park. But, like any outdoor area, there had been some visitors some time before me that didn't quite get their garbage to the garbage can.Before I left, I spent about 5-10 minutes picking up the trash in the area, which was mostly some little things, like candy wrappers, fast food cups/straws, and random plastic pieces. Just as I had dumped a handful into the trashcan, I distinctly heard a deep man's voice say "Thank you." 

Thinking maybe a park ranger or other employee had somehow snuck down to where I was without me seeing them, I looked around but didn't see anyone. And, that's when I realized that I THINK I heard the words in my head, not aloud, and also got the feeling that someone, or something was watching me. I needed to leave to go get my son, but I was kind of...unsettled...about what had happened. Was I hallucinating? Did I hear a ghost? Or, did I experience Mind Speak, a type of telepathic communication that some believe these creatures known as Bigfoot may be capable of? The skeptical side of me absolutely believes it wasn't anything more than my imagination (or maybe an actual person that I didn't see). But, there's a side of me that really, really wants there to be some type of paranormal explanation. I'd love it if my actions, no matter how small, were appreciated by an elusive beast who called the area home. And, you never know---Kanawha State Forest IS known for sightings of a Bigfoot! You can learn more about at least one of these documented sightings, as investigated by the Wild and Weird team from the videos below!

Possible Bigfoot Activity in Kanawha County at the Salamander Site

Unexpected Sasquatch Encounter

Luke's Mothman Sighting

Luke and Mothman

My son, Luke, has always had a connection to Pt. Pleasant and the Mothman story. Although I was living in Putnam County, Luke was actually conceived while on a weekend getaway to the haunted and historic Lowe Hotel, located just across the street from the infamous Mothman Statue. His Halloween due date was pushed up to September 21 when my stubborn lil' boy decided that he was ready to be born well before the customary 40 weeks. That date of September 21 means that his birthday weekend falls on the same weekend as the annual Mothman Festival. Obviously, he's been to almost every Mothman Festival that has occurred since his first birthday, but we also just love to take small day trips down to Pt. Pleasant---which as a small child, Luke referred to as 'Mothman City.' One of the highlights of every trip was stopping for lunch at Harris' Steakhouse and ordering a 'Mothman Hamburger' from Caroline. 

Despite that connection, I was still REALLY surprised when Luke told me that he thought he had his own Mothman sighting!

I'm not sure if there's much, if anything to this sighting, but I posted it to the Facebook group, Mothman Sightings, as a way to document it and see if anyone else had seen something similar, or could give me some ideas of what he may experienced. It happened on Friday, December 18th, 2020 when he was 11 years old. Luke's grandparents and great-aunt had picked him up for an evening of Christmas light viewing. They left Hurricane with the intent of seeing the lights in Pt. Pleasant and neighboring Gallipolis, Ohio. Sometime between 5:30pm and 6pm, they stopped in Eleanor to pick up dinner at Dairy Queen.

According to Luke, while they were waiting in the drive-thru line, he saw "a Mothman on the roof of the building beside Dairy Queen." His grandfather asked him what he wanted to eat, so he turned his head to talk to him, and by the time he turned back around, the Mothman was gone. Needless to say, I was super intrigued. However, when I tried to probe him for more information, Luke was uncharacteristically reluctant to talk. He did say it looked like a man with wings, crouched down. I asked if saw red eyes, and he said no, because whatever it was had its head tilted down. After that, he just kind of shut down, and refused to say anything else about what he saw.

I thought that was weird. I thought the whole thing was weird. I mean, he is MY kid, so he's well aware of the Mothman. However, he has never shown any interest in my paranormal work, and quite honestly, thinks I'm pretty weird for being so interested in all things strange and spooky. Further, this kid is super serious and can't tell a lie to save his life, so I believe he saw SOMETHING. I just don't know what it was or why he refused to discuss it with me further. 

Unfortunately, I couldn't get over to Eleanor right away, but within the next few days I drove over there. I'm assuming that the building he was talking about is the Putnam County Vocational School. The building DOES have stuff on its roof, but nothing I saw looked like it could have been mistaken for a Mothman figure that was there one minute, and gone the next. The only explanation I can think of would be that there was a worker on the roof wearing dark clothes. Perhaps he was crouched down, working, his elbows out to the side, resembling 'wings.' Then, he got up and walked out of view, or stepped behind something and could no longer be seen. I asked Luke's grandparents, and they didn't see anything out of the ordinary. They confirmed that Luke was wide awake at the time and didn't seem...off...or anything. 

So, who knows what he saw, if anything. I had totally forgotten about this experience until recently when I came across it while searching for something else I had posted on that same Facebook group. Luke never mentioned anything about the Mothman after that, and I never pushed him for more details since he was so reluctant to talk about it. But, I figured I'd also document here on Theresa's Haunted History blog in an effort to preserve his story and reach a wider audience on the chance that someone else has seen something similar in that area. If you have your own Mothman story you'd like to share, whether in Eleanor or anywhere else, I'd love to hear it! Please share it in the comments below, or find me over on Theresa's Haunted History Facebook and let me know. Stay spooky, y'all. 

More Weird UFO Dreams

10,000 Volt Ghost from
Scooby Doo

I mentioned it briefly on my Theresa's Haunted History of the Tri-State Facebook page, but if you don't follow me on there or are new to my spooky gang, then you may have missed that early last November, I had to have emergency gallbladder removal surgery. The surgery went fine and I quickly bounced back into the swing of things. However, around this time, I had a series of strange dreams involving UFOs and/or alien abduction. I've been hesitant to share them publicly, mainly because I realize that there's probably nothing to them. I'm known for having really lucid, vivid, and WEIRD dreams, but for some reason I can't fully explain, I felt compelled to share them. Perhaps someone out there has had similar dreams and needs to know they aren't alone. Maybe someone else just needs a good laugh at the strange crap my mind comes up with. Either way, here goes:

On the night of November 3, I had went to bed fairly early. I had my car all packed up and was ready to head to Chief Logan State Park the next morning, where I had a vendor table reserved with Wild and Weird Con. I had to leave early, so I wanted to make sure I was fully rested. I had only been asleep for about 2.5 or 3 hours when I woke up at 1am gasping for air. This sudden awakening pulled me out of the dream I was having. I don't remember the 'beginning' of the dream. All I remember is that I was in this nondescript sort of space, which was white or gray and didn't have any corners. Two...beings? people?...were supporting me on either side and I kept telling them I couldn't breath. I don't remember them being much taller than me, or much shorter either...just around the same height as me. They took me to this third being, who I swear, looked like a gray version of the 10,000 Volt Ghost from Scooby Doo. This thing didn't have facial features. I don't think it was FURRY, but its outline was kinda choppy and non-defined. It was humanoid shaped, but shaped more like the 10,000 Volt Ghost, with no discernable neck area and a body that went straight down without tapering at the waist. I perceived it as being above or in charge of the two beings supporting me. 

One of the beings supporting me told this thing that something was wrong with me. He (I perceived both of these to be male) sounded panicky and I felt like they had done something to me that went wrong.  I didn't hear the 10,000 Volt Ghost's reply audibly, but more telepathically. It simply told them to send me back NOW. 

As soon as he said that is when I woke up, gasping for air because I was in so much pain. My husband took me to the ER and as soon as the doctor saw how I was sitting, he pretty much knew I was having a gallbladder attack. Scans and bloodwork confirmed that I had gallstones, and that one was most likely lodged in a duct. Within an hour of getting all the tests back, I was being wheeled back to the OR to have my gallbladder removed. It was a simple procedure, and I was released from the hospital around 3:30pm that afternoon. 

That following night, I had another strange dream. I was 'taken' to this space that once again, was that same whitish or gray color, but it was more...lively. It seemed very busy in this space, with lots of people around. I was told to go sit in this area that looked a lot like a combination of a restaurant booth AND one of those 1970's era recessed seating areas people had in their dens. There was someone already there and I had the impression that we were being grouped together in this particular area because there was something the same or similar about us and our reason for being there. I was quite surprised when this person turned around and it was Ozzy Osbourne! I was even more surprised that he seemed to recognize me, as if we'd been in this situation before. That thought was 'confirmed' when he patted me on the shoulder and in a somewhat sad tone of voice said, "The bloody bastards got us again, didn't they love?"  I don't remember anything happening after that, but I don't think it's because I woke up. The dream just stopped. The next day as I was napping, I had another dream snippet. I was in this HUGE elevator with a bunch of other people. This elevator was like, the size of a large room and if you wanted to ride it, you walked into it, and fastened yourself into these little stalls against the back wall. I remember getting on this elevator, but not knowing where it was going. And that's all I remember.

It's unusual for me to have such short dreams. Usually, my dreams feel rather long, as whole story lines play out. Often, I'll wake up and go back to sleep, only to have the same dream keep continuing. It might change direction, but rarely do I ever have a dream just stop. What isn't unusual is the subject matter. This isn't the first time I've had similar dreams of being in this or a similar location, often accompanied by a feeling that I was taken or forced to be there. In fact, the elevator dream is a recurring one. My entire life I've had a bunch of different types of dreams that some might say could be indicative of a potential alien abduction, the most disturbing ones being the dreams where I'm either forced to take care of a bunch of babies or small children, or the ones where my own baby is taken from me after its born. Aside from the dreams, I've had some other experiences that have really made me want to question and research the abduction theory further. I don't necessarily want to get into all the stuff publicly, but I have mentioned before that whenever I take one of those silly little 'Have you been abducted' surveys, I check off about 90% of the boxes. 

Anyway, for full disclosure, I WAS getting ready to attend a paranormal conference when the one dream happened and the other two happened while I was still pretty well under the influence of pain killers. Not to mention, I had recently been taking a deep dive into researching the subject of abduction, but had largely put it off because reading others' accounts actually started making me have panic attacks. During the first dream, my husband was awake beside me the whole time and can confirm that I didn't physically go anywhere. So, the skeptic in me wants to just dismiss it all as simple dreams influenced by the factors around me. However, there's a small part of me that just FEELS like some of it, maybe not ALL, but some of it just might be more significant in some way. I hope that by sharing it, not only will it help me to process it and think about my experiences more critically, but perhaps reach someone else who has had similar dreams that may just be more than dreams. One day I might feel comfortable sharing some of the other weird 'abduction-type' stuff I've experienced, but until then, stay spooky y'all!

Nazy Never Left

Last month our dog, Nazy, finally crossed the Rainbow Bridge after months of slowly deteriorating, both in physical health and cognitive ability. Nazy was almost 16 years old, and although we had given her a good life, she came from tragic beginnings.

When my nephew was in 4th grade, he and I went to the animal shelter to pick out a pet dog for him. As we were led into the back kennels of the shelter, so many dogs were barking at top volume, going crazy.  All except one---a little black and white dog who sat calmly in her cage. We asked to take a closer look at her, and when my nephew walked in, she jumped up and put her paws on his shoulders and her head on his chest, still not making a sound. We both knew right then that this was our dog.

Her name had been given as Nazy, which we decided to keep because we weren't sure exactly how old she was and we didn't want to confuse her by giving her a new name. When we brought her home, Nazy had no hair around her neck, on her ears, or on her hindquarters. We were told that she had been seized from her owner for abuse/neglect. She was terribly allergic to fly bites, which had caused the hair loss around her ears and back, and the missing hair around her neck was from a too-tight collar that had actually embedded itself in her neck and had been cut out. 

It didn't take long to figure out there was more wrong with Nazy than we thought. For the first several years we had her, she would have occasional seizures, possibly stemming from the abuse she endured. Her eyes always had a milky look to them, so we figured she probably didn't have the greatest eyesight either. You couldn't touch her hip area without her yelping in pain and snapping at you. Again, we figured this area had been injured during her abusive start to life. She hated having her nails trimmed and even bit a vet tech who decided she could handle her without a muzzle. 

Nazy wasn't exactly a GOOD dog. She had severe aggression towards other animals, and it took so long to get her to not attack our yellow lab. She would run away any chance she got, and did NOT listen. If you corrected her, or even raised your voice to her, she'd get mad and immediately go tear something up or poop in the house. She was the only dog I ever knew that was actually spiteful. 

Still, we loved her and spoiled her up until it was her time to go. I think it hit my mom really hard, because my mom had basically turned her life upside down to care for Nazy during her final months, as she needed so much care. But, I don't think Nazy ever really left...

I was the first to hear her. The day after we put her down, I was about to walk out the front door when I heard Nazy's signature bark. Nazy never was a normal, barking dog. If she was outside wanting in, she'd let out one sort of high-pitched, yip/woof noise to let us know she was at the door. It's a very distinct sound, and that's exactly what I heard. But, the dogs next door started barking right after that, so I figured that I was just missing Nazy and thus, misinterpreted another dog for her. So, I didn't say anything.

Recently, however, my mom told me that she hears Nazy EVERY night. Nazy was a creature of habit, and when SHE was ready to go to bed, she thought everyone else must go to bed as well, so she'd make that yip/woof noise to let my mom know that it light's out. 

Then, just last night my husband heard Nazy for the first time. He was standing in the kitchen, cooking dinner, while my mom and I were in the adjoining family room. He stopped what he was doing, looked out the kitchen window, then walked over to the patio doors and looked out. He was like, 'you're not going to believe this, but I just heard Nazy.' He described the same high-pitched yip as mom and I had heard, coming from the back porch.

Nazy isn't the only pet we've seen or heard in my mom's house, well after their bodily death. I just hope if she is sticking around, she's not terrorizing Ambrosis, my ghost cat, too much!

Gary's Phone Call--A Personal Spirit Communication

I believe that spirits can communicate with us in a variety of ways, including dreams.  In fact, I think that dreams are a rather safe way for them to reach out to us---dreaming about a loved one that has passed is far less scary to most people than actually seeing their apparition, and it allows for a more direct form of message communication than subtle hints and signs left during the waking hours that might be ignored or misinterpreted. 

Over the years, I've had plenty of dreams about those who have gone on before me, mostly my grandparents offering words of encouragement or advice. But one dream in particular stands out as potentially being an actual spirit communication. It was the time when I dreamed my uncle called from beyond the grave to ask a very special favor. 

My uncle Gary passed away when I was still in high school. It was my mom who actually found him, after going over to his house to help him with some paperwork stuff he had asked her to help with. Gary lived alone at the time with his big orange cat, Mozart. He loved that cat, and spoiled it like crazy. Whenever he'd have to go out of town, he'd pay me and my boyfriend to go over and feed Mozart and clean his litter box. So, I kinda assumed that after Gary had passed away, we'd be taking Mozart home to live with us.

There was a lot of stuff to do, however, to settle Gary's estate and clean out his house. Much of that responsibility was left to his daughter and her family. It was decided to leave Mozart at his home until everything was over.  When his daughter wasn't there, my boyfriend and I or my mom and I still would go over there to feed and take care of him. Then one day, deep into this process, I had the dream.

In my dream, the phone rang. It didn't sound any different---just a normal ring---and I answered it as I would normally do. It was Gary on the line. In my dream, I KNEW he had died, but for whatever reason it felt perfectly normal that he'd be calling. I wasn't at all concerned that I was receiving a phone call from someone who was no longer alive. He called me by his nickname for me, and asked if my mom was home. When I told him no, that's when his voice took on a sort of desperate tone.

He said that he had been trying to reach her but couldn't and that I needed to give her a message ASAP. He said that she needs to go get Mozart. Mozart needs her. PLEASE go get Mozart. 

I promised to give her the message, said goodbye and hung up. That's all I remembered of the dream, and at the time, it didn't really seem like a big deal. In fact, I wasn't going to say anything about it to anyone, but the next day, something told me that I should bring it up. Sort of in passing, I casually asked my mom when we were going to be able to bring Mozart home. She got a weird look on her face and said that we weren't going to be adopting the cat after all. Gary's daughter and grand kids had decided they wanted to keep him instead.

I was hesitant to tell her about the dream, but I went ahead and she got pretty shook up and told me some details that I had no idea about. Before Gary died, he showed a lot of signs that he knew his time was coming to an end---including asking mom to help him with the paperwork that she was at his home to complete when she found him. He had also asked her that if anything should ever happen to him, please take Mozart and take care of him. He had even set aside some money in his will for Mozart's care. My mom had promised him that she would take care of the cat, so when Gary's daughter told her that her family was taking him, my mom told her of the promise she'd made. She even told her that she didn't want the money in the will---just that she had made a promise to Gary that she had to fulfill. It didn't matter. Mozart did not come to live with us, and I never dreamed of Gary again. 

My Weirdest Personal Experience

Illustration by Arthur Rackman

Can you believe it's already July 1st?! 2020 is half over (thank goodness) and to celebrate a new month and a new Ultimate Blog Challenge, I thought I'd start off with sharing a personal experience that I've never shared before. I'm usually pretty open about sharing my potential paranormal experiences, but this one is so weird that I've had a lot of trouble wrapping my head around it...

So, several years ago I was awake at the literal ass-crack of dawn. I had gone to bed early the previous night, so by 5 am I was up and ready to go. It was a school day so I decided to go ahead and get everything ready to send Luke off to school. But, I had left his backpack, with his student planner that needed signed daily and his lunchbox in it, in my car.

I opened my front door and walked out on my porch stoop, but before I could step down off the stoop and onto the short, paved sidewalk leading to the driveway, I was startled by some movement. I looked down, fully expecting to see one of the dozens of rabbits that live around my yard, scurrying away.

What I saw DID scurry away, but as hard as my skeptical brain tries to rationalize it, I'm not so sure it was a bunny.

Running from the direction of my house, across the sidewalk, and disappearing around the back of my car, was a small creature. It was a light brown/tan color, very similar to our local rabbits. It stood a little under a foot tall, from my estimation. Being a late Spring morning sometime between 5 am and 6 am, there wasn't full sunshine, but it certainly wasn't super dark out, either. Plus, the porch light, while not super bright, was still turned on.

Everything about this encounter screams RABBIT to my rational side. It was about the same color and size as a rabbit, which are especially plentiful in my area around that time of year. It ran away, like you'd expect a rabbit to do when a human suddenly pops up, and it can be argued that in the early morning light, I couldn't get that good a look at the thing.

But...I did. I was standing only about 8 feet away from the creature when it stopped and looked directly at me for what seemed like much longer than it actually was. I wasn't looking into the eyes of any rabbit species I've ever seen. What I saw was a fully formed little man. He was nude, except for what looked like a tattered loincloth-type garment that was approximately the same color as his skin tone. He was barefoot. He had a somewhat stocky, not quite muscular, build. While he didn't seem dirty, per se, he just seemed sort of...weathered.

I couldn't see what color his eyes were, although for a brief second, he did look me directly in the eye before running off, on two feet, obviously. He didn't have a beard, and he wasn't bald, but his hair seemed very sparse, very light, and very wispy. His face reminded me of a combination of Dobby the House Elf from Harry Potter, Hoggle from Labyrinth and the Russ troll dolls from my childhood. It was heavily lined and creased, giving the creature a very old and wizened appearance. He seemed as shocked to see me as I was to see him. I also remember that his nose, while not huge, seemed to be his most prominent facial feature.

Dobby is a great example of a Brownie

Honestly, the description of it reminds me of a type of house spirit known as a Brownie, or sometimes called a Robin Goodfellow. According to Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns and Goblins, by Carol Rose, a brownie is defined as:

"A household spirit of northern English and Scottish folklore; in southern England goes by the name of Robin Goodfellow. The Brownie is described as being like a very small, brown, shaggy human, sometimes naked and sometimes wearing ragged brown clothes. Families were proud of their Brownies as they brought good fortune; to lose one was disastrous. Outside of the family, a Brownie was viewed with caution, as they were prone to mischief when annoyed.

In general, the Brownie was the most industrious of the household spirits, ploughing, reaping, grinding grain, cleaning the house and barns, churning butter-in fact, most of the tedious jobs he would gladly do. In return, the Brownie was entitled to a bowl of the best cream and new baked cake or bread, to be put within his reach. To offer the Brownie any form of payment other than this, especially to take pity and to give him new clothes, was an insult, and he would vanish immediately."

After standing there a few seconds in shock, I walked over behind my car where he had run off to, and couldn't find anything. No little man, no little bunny, nothing. I quickly grabbed Luke's school stuff out of the car and headed back in, telling myself I had just seen a rabbit, nothing more.

But, rabbits don't usually run on two feet and they certainly don't wear little loincloths. For several years, I've tried to convince myself that I must not have been completely awake, and simply imagined seeing what I saw, but on the off-chance I DID see something, I wanted to finally document and share it.

After all, its not the first time I've had something fae-related happen at this house! We owned the house for about 6 months before we could even move in. It needed a LOT of work, both inside and out, but as the renovations neared completion, we were staying much more often. One day, we noticed a very distinct fairy ring had popped up in the front yard. It wasn't huge, only about 4-5 feet across. If you've never heard of a fairy ring or fairy circle, it's basically a naturally occurring ring of mushrooms that take on a circle shape thanks to how the spores are released. But, they have quite a folkloric connection with the fae.

Fairy Ring, Source

It is said that anyone who enters a fairy ring may disappear, only to be lost among the fae world forever. Or in a scarier alternative, a child entering into the fairy world through such a fairy ring would be replaced by a changeling. So, when Luke saw the fairy ring and started running towards it like he was going to jump in the middle, the superstitious side of me overpowered the skeptical side and I plucked that kid out of air, mid-jump, and ushered him back into the house!

Those are the only two things I've personally noticed around here and I'm sure both have a perfectly natural explanation. However, I like to keep my mind open to the possibility of things surrounding our world that we don't quite fully understand. Let me know down in the comments, or join me over on Theresa's Haunted History of the Tri-State Facebook page if YOU'VE ever had an encounter with the fae!

Stay Spooky!

For more info on the folklore of fairy circles, check out the article 

'Never, Ever Step Into a Fairy Ring', by Marla Brooks

Family Death Omen

Like many people throughout the United States and elsewhere in the world, current events have left me with more than the usual free time lately!  I've gotten back into genealogy as a way to fill the time and escape the anxiety.  But, being the paranormal enthusiast that I am, of course I have to throw some family ghost stories into my work as well!

If you've read similar blog posts of mine, you may remember that I credit my grandparents as being a huge influence on my love of the paranormal growing up.  They would often tell me family ghost stories and personal experiences to entertain me during the many overnight visits to their home in Beckley, West Virginia.  Some of my favorite stories came from grandmother's younger days.  One such story is the tale of a bloody pillow and a calendar that refused to stay on the wall from East Beckley, which I've previously written about.  Another favorite is the story of the Woman in White.

Before moving into Raleigh County around the Beckley area, my grandmother and her family originally lived in Summers County, around the Hinton and Talcott areas.  Being your average Appalachian, the family could trace its ancestry back to Ireland and England, with a strong mix of Native American blood thrown in. In fact, most of the extended family lived in an area of Summers County known as Irish Mountain.  I believe that it was partly due to this lineage that led to such a strong belief system in the supernatural.  Anyway, I was fairly young when this tale was told to me, and when I recently asked other family members what they could remember, they didn't know a ton about it.  Apparently, I was the spooky kid in the family who begged for these ghost stories! 

So, piecing together what I can remember and what others could confirm, I believe these sightings did happen mostly around the Irish Mountain area prior to 1940, with at least one case happening during World War II in Beckley.  My grandmother would tell me that members of her family were known to witness the apparition of a woman in white along the road, while coming home after dark.  This woman would sometimes be seen standing by the side of the road.  Other times, she would be directly in front of their vehicle.  In at least one case, a witness believed he had hit the woman with his car and jumped out to find no one.

The witnesses all reported that it was a woman in a flowing white gown who was seen after dark out on the road, but other details seemed to change from person to person. Those who got a good look said she had no face.  Others said she emitted a strange wail or cry. To some, she seemed vaporous and ghostly, while to others she seemed as flesh and blood as you or I.  But no matter how she manifested, one thing was for sure:  seeing this woman was a bad omen, often heralding the early death of whomever came across her on that lonely, dark road.

My grandmother came from a family of ten children, raised alone by my great-grandma after my great-grandfather died when my grandmother was just a toddler.  She was the second to youngest child, and the family relied heavily on help from the older girls to support the family.  One of the older girls was Thelma.

My grandmother was not quite five years old when Thelma died, but she must have made an impression on her.  She always told me that not only did I look like her, but I reminded her so much of the strong-willed, vivacious Thelma.  As a side bar, a few years ago I started researching Thelma and found the greatest newspaper article of all time.  Thelma and her sister, Goldie, were apparently party girls who said to hell with Prohibition.  After being picked up several times for drinking, both girls were thrown in jail!  Anyway, my grandmother's recollection was that Thelma passed away from tuberculosis shortly after giving birth to a baby girl out of wedlock, who was raised as my grandmother's sister.  The father was said to have been a traveling salesman who left shortly after he found out she was pregnant.

Again, during my research, I tracked down Thelma's death certificate.  We were surprised to see that even though we couldn't find her marriage certificate, she was listed as being married.  And, she didn't pass away from tuberculosis---her cause of death was listed as diabetes! The facts remain, however, that she died at the young age of 21 years, and did leave behind a baby girl to be raised by my great-grandmother. It was also common knowledge within the family that shortly before her death, Thelma had seen the Woman in White and KNEW that her time on this earth would be cut short.

One other sibling was also said to have been the victim of the apparition.  My grandmother's brother, Paul, mysteriously vanished and was presumed dead after the Normandy Invasion.  Prior to getting the news no mother ever wants to get, my great-grandmother reportedly witnessed the faceless Woman in White.  However, unlike all the other stories, she saw the apparition not on the road, but in her own home this time!  The family had since moved from Irish Mountain and was living in Beckley at the time. Did the ghostly woman follow the family to its new home in order to resume her role as bad omen?

I've often wondered if there was a chance that my family's Irish ancestry was key here.  There are some similarities to the Banshee and this Woman in White, especially in the versions of the story where she was heard wailing before someone died.  As far as I know, Paul was the last victim of woman, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that other branches of the family who still live in Summers County still tell tales about a ghostly apparition heralding bad news.

Cold Hands: My Experience at the Ridges (Athens, Ohio)

Are your hands ALWAYS cold?  Mystery solved! Personally, this is one issue I don't have to deal with, although I do have a fitting story about holding hands with a ghost!  Way back in the spring of 2002, my friend and I went to visit another friend at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.  The entire TOWN of Athens seems to have a spooky past, with plenty of ghost stories associated with the campus itself.  While visiting, we went to check out The Ridges, a former asylum complex that the school had taken over.  A local guy who our friend had met while at school was showing us around the outside of some of the buildings and giving us a little history lesson on the area. When we got to the area where the former children's building was, my two friends decided to stay in the car, while I went up the hill with this local guy to where the building was located.  We were only up there a few minutes when we heard screaming coming from the car, so we started back off down the hill.  As I walked away from the building, I felt something cold touch my hand, causing me to just sort of freeze in place.  I'm thinking this dude is getting a little too handsy, but I look and he's already halfway down the hill, way too far away from me to have touched me.  After I realized that I was alone, I realized that the touch really did feel like a small child slipping his or her hand into my hand.  I took a second to look back at the building, and gently tell whoever or whatever had touched me that I had to go now and that it needed to stay there.

As far as I know, nothing followed me home that evening.  As for the screaming coming from the car---my friends had been trying to operate the micro-cassette recorder I had borrowed from my mom for ghost hunting purposes, lol.  Somehow, the recorder got put into fast-forward mode, and they were startled at the crazed, chipmunk-like voices of one of my mom's meetings being played back! The next morning, my friend and I returned to the area for some day-time photos.  This one is of me on the stairway to the building where the incident occurred. My little visitor who held my hand the night before was nowhere to be found, but I walked away from the experience grateful that I had had the opportunity for such an interaction.

 Anyway, if you suffer from constantly cold hands, just make sure to mention it to your doctor in order to rule out any circulatory or other issues.  Also, this cute lil' graphic comes from In Your Face Cake. You can check them out on Twitter and Instagram for more comics!

BONUS

My experience at the Ridges wasn't the only time in my life where I believe I physically interacted with a ghost!  As I was rushing down the hallway of my mom's house, I think I may have crashed right into (or through) our disembodied roommate!  You can read all about that experience here:  The Day I Walked Through a Ghost

On The Job Ghosts

I wouldn't necessarily say I'm the type of person that has ghosts follow her wherever I go...but over the years, I've worked at numerous locations that have had a reputation for being haunted!

In my late teens and early 20's, I had a bit of wanderlust, and never wanted to stay in one location very long.  Therefore, that led me to try various career fields and job titles over the years.  Maybe its just the sheer number of jobs I've held  giving me a statistical advantage for 'haunted' workplaces, because it certainly cannot be the locations themselves!  I haven't worked in any old, historical mansions, creepy cemeteries, or even hospitals.  In fact, most of the locations I'll be discussing are fairly modern retail/food service establishments!

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to tell you about a few of my haunted job experiences!

1. Private Nursing Home Facility---Buffalo, WV:  When I was in high school, my slightly older boyfriend got a job working the night shift at a local nursing home facility.  This was simply a large, modern house in a residential neighborhood where about a dozen elderly patients, most with dementia, resided. I volunteered at the home a few hours every week, and by the time I graduated, I had been offered a job, also on night shift.  The work was fairly easy; since I wasn't a nurse or CNA, my main responsibilities were cooking, cleaning, and just making sure everyone was safe and as comfortable as possible.  Before I even started volunteering there, my boyfriend had told me that he and a few others had witnessed an apparition in the sitting room!  There was a certain blue recliner where, when caught out of the corner of one's eye, it appeared as if a man was sitting there.  However, when you looked at the chair straight on, there would be nothing there.  Over the few months that I worked/volunteered there, I did experience this two or three times, but the eeriest thing I experienced was the shadow figure.  The office for the facility was added on after the original home was built and was connected to the main house via a short, narrow hall, which stepped down into the office.  Often at night when I was in the office filling out my paperwork, I could hear footsteps.  Thinking that it was one of our more mobile residents coming to find me, I'd turn around...only to see an inky black figure walking towards me.  As soon as this figure, which had the shape of a huge, imposing man, would cross the line between the original house and the addition, it would vanish without a trace.  Sometimes this would happen more than once a night, and I'd have to call my boyfriend, who lived close by, and have him come sit with me until I was calm enough to finish my duties.

2. Former Chevron Gas Station---Winfield, WV: When I was a freshman in college, I began working at Subway.  This Subway was located within the former Chevron gas station in Winfield, which is now a pizza restaurant.  I started noticing small stuff happening at first.  When I was back in the cooler area, I'd feel as if someone had tugged my ponytail or brushed up against me.  At first, I'd think it was a gas station employee, but when I would look, no one would ever be there.  So, I thought maybe it was a temperature thing since I was walking into the cooler.  I tried to use that as an excuse until I started actually SEEING the figure of a person walking around the office/prep areas.  Again, I'd immediately think it was the gas station employee on duty, but as I would walk out, I'd see them behind the counter, helping a customer or doing some other task.  Some of the weirder things that happened were one time I was at the sink washing dishes when I felt someone come up behind me.  I could feel their breath on my neck, their chest pushing into my back, and I even saw hands come around me and rest on the sink on either side of me.  I thought it was one gas station employee in particular being flirty, so I turned around quickly to playfully swat at them...and swatted at air.  Another weird thing that happened frequently affected my car, parked outside.  Even though it was locked and I had the only key, often I'd come out after my shift to find my radio turned to a country station that I would never have listened to, and my seat pushed all the way back.  The car itself had some weird activity, but that's for another blog!  Anyway, I finally asked some of the gas station employees if they had ever had anything happen to THEM, and was pleased to know that I wasn't alone.  They reported that gas pumps would 'ding' as if alerting them to authorize them for a customer, but no one would be there.  A few had even seen the figure flitting around the office area.  We were never sure if the suspected ghost was connected with the land, or even possibly related to one of the fatal accidents that occurred over the years at the intersection where the building stands. Here's my original blog on my experiences:  Haunted Chevron Station

Source

3. Former Dollar Tree---Teays Valley, WV:  Nothing really too significant happened during my time as a third key holder at the former Dollar Tree in Teays Valley, but there were a few things of note.  In this particular store, the aisles weren't really aisles, per se.  There were only a few actual shelves, with most aisles being separated by wire basket-type units.  Therefore, you could see through them and see who or what was in the aisle next to you.  And, of course, my luck---I would often see a man walking in a white T-shirt walking down the aisle next to me as I was cleaning up toward the end of the night shift.  Merchandise would also just 'jump' off the shelves/hooks/baskets in front of me as I was walking down an aisle and a few times, the vacuum would come unplugged from the wall, even though there was plenty of cord left to prevent it from pulling.  There was really only one other employee who was experiencing similar things, one of my managers who had recently lost her husband.  The strange thing was, her husband was my dad's cousin!  I had never met her before, but we figured out quickly how we were related since we both had a fairly uncommon last name.  She believed that it was her husband that was 'haunting' her at work, and we surmised that since I was family, maybe that's why I was experiencing things as well.

4. Walmart---Hurricane, WV: This is another location that I didn't experience a TON of activity, but enough to take note!  I was hired on at the new Hurricane Walmart before the store was even finished being built, so my first few weeks on the job actually included such tasks as stocking the shelves and putting together the checkout lanes.  During this time, there was a lot of controversy with the building of the Walmart and one local resident in particular, and at times things got pretty ugly.  There were also some weird plumbing issues and other problems that kept pushing the opening date back further and further.  With all this stuff going on, I remember jokingly saying that this building must be cursed.  But, we eventually opened, and I learned to hate my job as a CSS, lol.  So, eventually I moved to the overnight shift, and that's when things got weird. Just like at Dollar Tree, I'd see customers come in that would mysteriously vanish.  Weird electrical disturbances were commonplace, with one night in particular, my manager and I spending over an hour trying to figure out why the security shoplifting alarm was going off every 10 minutes or so with no one near it. It is interesting to note that at least one small cemetery had to be removed when the Walmart was put in, but whether a real-life Poltergeist scenario was in play or not is unknown.

Well, that's a sampling of my haunted resume...but I want to hear from YOU!  Have you ever worked somewhere that was haunted?  How did you deal with the activity? Were your employees open about the location's haunted reputation?  Let me know in the comments below, and if you're itching for some more haunted retail locations, check out my blogs on the haunted Toys 'R Us in Sunnyvale California or the haunted cash register located in a KMart in Idaho.  Happy Haunting!

Personal Experience at Cabell Huntington Hospital

If you follow me on Theresa's Haunted History of the Tri-State Facebook page, you may remember seeing a post from way back on July 28, 2018 asking for any information on potential hauntings or personal experiences from the Cabell Huntington Hospital in Huntington, WV.

Cabell Huntington (Source)

In the comment section, I did share WHY I was asking, but I wanted to go ahead and share it again here, just so that hopefully my story will reach more people and hopefully someone else will come forward with more information!  Anyway, here's what happened to me...

I'm pretty sure it was Thursday evening.  My son, Luke (8 years old at the time) had gone to the local library earlier that day to watch a program about wolves.  We were now sitting around the house waiting to go to a birthday party for a family friend when Luke started complaining that he was having some pain in the boy parts.  It wasn't real bad, so I suggested he take a nice warm bath before the party to see if that helped.  By the time he got out, the pain was worse and he decided he felt too bad to go to the party.  Luke has a pretty high tolerance for pain, so I knew if he was willing to miss a party, he was feeling bad.  And, even though I still didn't think there was anything really wrong, I decided to throw him in the car and run him down to the local MedExpress before they closed...just to be sure.  We were leaving on Saturday for the beach, and if he needed any prescriptions or anything I wanted to have plenty of time to fill them.

As we pull up to the MedExpress, Luke is now in so much pain that he can't sit down.  They take him right back, and at this point, I'm still thinking its nothing too bad.  My first thought was that he had a UTI, and that the doctor was going to tell Luke to stop using bubble bath. However, the doctor pushed on his left testicle and this kid let out a yelp of pain that I had never heard before.  THAT is when things got serious.  Luke was tentatively diagnosed with testicular torsion, but needed an ultrasound to confirm it.  The doctor told us we had a choice of hospitals:  Women's and Children's in Charleston, or Cabell Huntington in Huntington.  These were the only two options because she said if he needed emergency surgery, these would be the best two places to be.  We thought we could make it to CHH quicker, so we were sent on our way, with instructions to go straight there, without stopping.

Our doctor had called ahead, so when we checked into the emergency room at Cabell Huntington, we didn't have to wait too long until we were called back into the ultrasound waiting room.  And, this is where my experience happened!

There were a group of us who were called back to the ultrasound waiting room together.  There was a middle aged man by himself, a man in his 50s or 60s there with his wife, and Luke, along with my mom and I.  The six of us were shown into a fairly good sized waiting room to await our individual turns back to the ultrasound room.  This room was rectangular, running parallel to the hallway.  The side of the waiting room against the hallway was all glass.  The younger man sat near the door on the short wall; the older couple sat under the windows about 3/4 of the way from the waiting room door, and Luke, my mom and I sat in the corner furthest from the door.  Luke and I sat in the last two chairs facing the windows, and my mom sat in the adjoining chair on the short wall.

The only other person we saw the whole time in that area of the hospital was the nurse who came to take us from the waiting room to the ultrasound room.  It was shortly after the younger man had been taken back, that I noticed movement coming down the hall.  I looked up briefly and saw a young boy.  I couldn't get a great look at him, but he had dark hair, not quite a bowl cut, but similar.  From his height and size, I would guess him to be anywhere from 6-10 years old. I can't recall what he was wearing, but it wasn't a hospital gown.  It wasn't anything that would stand out, like old-fashioned clothing, either.  He just looked like a normal kid...mostly.

I have no idea what it was about him, but something just FELT off. I thought it was weird that this kid was being allowed to walk in this section of the hospital by himself, so I was focusing less on HIM, and watching the hallway behind him to see if he was accompanied by anyone.  No one else ever came down the hall.  While all this was going on, the kid was still walking down the hall, and he was passing behind where the older couple was sitting.  These people weren't huge, but they were bigger people.  They were tall and broad shouldered, so they took up quite a bit of viewing area.  However, I could still see the top of the kid's head moving behind them.  But, what was weird...he never passed by them.  There was still a good bit of unblocked window space between the couple and the wall and this kid just never showed up in that space.  I even got up out of my seat to look for a door or hall he could have gone through, but there was nothing but blank wall there.  It left me feeling a little eerie, but I kind of just chalked up the whole thing to the stress of the situation.

Luckily, whatever was wrong with my son corrected itself.  His ultrasound came back clear and he felt fine the next day. He has since had no more problems.  Although the ultrasound didn't indicate it, his doctor felt that perhaps he DID have a slight case of testicular torsion, but that the twisty bits had un-twisted themselves so quickly after that it didn't do any damage.  That still leaves the question of what I saw that evening in the ultrasound waiting room, around 9 p.m.  When I asked on my Facebook page, no one came forth with any similar experiences...but that's where things took an even weirder turn, lol.

So, last month I saw a new story pop up on one of my favorite websites, WV Ghosts.  It was from Cabell Huntington Hospital!  I'm reading this story, and with a few altered details, it is the same story that I had told back in July!  I thought that it was really, really weird...but hey, maybe someone had an eerily similar experience as me and this would be a great confirmation!  I contacted the owner of the site, and found out the story was submitted the same day that I made my post.  When we looked at it, there were even some of the same words used that I had used in my post...That post is still available, and can be found HERE.

I'm still curious, though.  If you have a similar experience, or ANY experience from Cabell Huntington please let me know!  You can drop me a comment here, or catch me over at Theresa's Haunted History Facebook page.  Stay spooky, ya'll!

Shadows From the Past in the Luna Park Historic District: Charleston

Theresa's Note: I've got another Guest Blog submission for you today, and I think it's going to be one you're absolutely going to love. Kimberly Taylor, a local law librarian and paranormal enthusiast, has shared these experiences from her residence in Charleston's West Side. Possibly stirred up by some local construction projects, her formerly tranquil apartment became a passageway for citizens of another time. Kimberly then looked into the history of the area, and may have found the cause of these spooky disturbances!  A HUGE 'thank you!' to Kimberly for sharing this well-written, well-researched account of local activity!

Luna Park Entrance Sign Postcard
Source: Wikipedia, courtesy of My WV Home

I live on the West Side of Charleston, West Virginia in an apartment building that includes a nice view of the Kanawha River.  The location's tranquility drew us in; then the construction on Kanawha Boulevard began.

In an attempt to make the West Side more inviting, the City Council decided to expand the riverside walking path and add a bicycle lane.  This meant reducing the four-lane Boulevard to three.

Soon surveyors and heavy equipment showed up.  Monster size machinery ripped layers of concrete and rebar up like they were peeling an onion of its layers.  Backhoes exposed decade's old oil and river residue and deposited it in neat piles in front the apartment building.

Other than the inconvenience of road construction in my front yard nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

Washing dishes is mundane so I like to pass the time daydreaming or staring into the living room at the television.  I'd been in our small kitchen for a while one particular afternoon and staring mindlessly at the television set for quite a while.  Then, what the hell was that?  A guy just casually strolled through the living room followed by another!  I rushed into the living room thinking the worst of the West Side had finally intruded into our quiet space only to find no one there. 

I wasn't frightened by the occurrence because shades have been a part of my life experience since childhood.  Startled, yes.

The next construction phase brought in more equipment including earth movers as tall as the apartment building that churned up soil and river residue so old it smelled like swamp and sickness.  Sometimes it burned my eyes.

Workers showed up before dawn and frequently stayed well past dusk.  Glaring spot lights became the norm and quiet time was pushed later and later into the evening.  Eventually I took to wandering the apartment in the middle of the night, peering out windows.

During one late night roam, I lingered in the office looking at a friend's painting, getting lost in the swirl of colors and, then got further distracted by the pages of a familiar book.  Reminding myself that it is a work night, I move toward the living room for one last glance out the windows.

Except between me and that last glance is a man leisurely sitting on the couch eating his lunch from a tin pail.  What the hell?!  Now he's looking around and unscrewing the lid to his thermos!  I slowly move into the living room barely stifling a shout to my sleeping husband, when the man stands up in a fluid motion and heads toward Kanawha Boulevard disappearing through the corner wall.

Heart pounding and palms sweating I quick step it back to bed, pulling the blankets close for comfort sure that the morning will bring clarity.  Sleep didn't come and dawn's light certainly didn't make the night's event any clearer.

An old building such as ours probably has a secret or two and, I intended to uncover those secrets with some property research.  There was even a date etched into one of the basement walls that would provide a good starting point.  Though it was faded from time, I could make out the 193 and part of the last digit as either a 1 or 9, 1931 or 1939.

The property searches turned up nothing.  Nothing except an old building with a perfectly normal history of tenants moving in and out.

So I smudged the apartment with sage and put the lunching and strolling shadows behind me.

Driving home from work one evening I noticed a new sign on Park Avenue.  The sign read, Luna Park Historic District.  Luna Park?

Once home I raced to do an internet search on Luna Park, Charleston, West Virginia.

Frank Ingersoll invented, designed, and commissioned the construction of a series of amusements to house the roller coasters his company manufactured.  These parks became known as Luna Parks. 

Crowds at Luna Park, circa 1915. Photo from WV History on View

Charelston's Luna Park opened to the public in 1912 and was owned and operated by John Crowley and Sam Moore of Moore Books.  By 1913, thousands of people were visiting Luna Park.  They came by street car and steamboat.  A local newspaper reported that street cars sometimes delivered people to the Park's entrance at a rate of 1,200 per hour.

The more I read the more curious I became about the grand entrance that supposedly could be seen from the decks of the steamboats chucking up the Kanawha River.

At last, I found a trove of Luna Park pictures and among them one of the entrance.  It was indeed grand for the time period.  The arched gateway spanned more than a city block and was flanked by two tall towers covered in colorful flags and bunting.

I continued looking through the pictures, marveling at the sheer number of visitors depicted and just how sad and kind of creepy the Park's clowns and other entertainers appeared.  Most of all I was in awe of the massive public swimming pool made of timber and sheet of tin.

In 1923 Typhoid was rampant.  The City's response to the epidemic was to pump the pool so full of chlorine that it is said a single welder's spark set the pool afire and ultimately devastated the whole park.

Plans were made after the fire to rebuild Luna Park to its' original glory but the funds fell short.  And in 1925 the swollen Kanawha River rushed the banks leaving ten feet of water covering what was once Luna Park.

The water eventually receded but, the City decided to parcel the land into private land plots and through streets.  The last photo I found showed a map of those plots of land and streets superimposed on Luna Park's grid.  The answer to the mysterious lunching and strolling shadows was right there.  The apartment building was built alongside Park Avenue and on top of the once grand entrance to Luna Park.


If you'd like to learn more about Luna Park and see some excellent photographs from its short time as a Charleston landmark, then please check out the My WV Home website. And, if you'd like to read about and see some current photographs from the Luna Park Historic District, its National Register application is available online at the WV State Archives site.  Again, I cannot thank Kim enough for sharing these experiences with us and allowing me to publish them on my blog. Please make sure to share this with all your spooky friends on social media and if you have a story you'd like to share, please contact me at Theresa's Haunted History Facebook. Stay spooky! 

Past Life Regression Workshop

On Wednesday, January 10th, my mother and I took part in a past life regression workshop at the Crystal Lotus Shoppe, located in St. Albans, WV!  And, it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who knows me, but apparently I was a patient in an insane asylum sometime during the 1940s. But, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself...

The workshop of about 9-10 students was led by Arken Skywalker. Arken works at the Crystal Lotus doing massages, readings, and offering various other services and handmade products. While the participants passed around a bay leaf, giving over any negativity we carried to it, Arken prepared the room with a smudging. The bay leaf, containing any unwanted thoughts and baggage of the room, was then burned. We were ready to start the process.

We got comfortable in our chairs. The room was lit only with a single candle and the sounds of binaural beats provided the background noise. Arken then verbally led us through a 45-minute guided meditation, deep into our subconscious, where we would hopefully be able to catch a glimpse of a former life. After the exercise, we wrote down everything we remembered and then had a brief discussion about what we experienced and past-life regression in general.

I don't want to give too much information about what I experienced, because it is somewhat personal. However, I DID experience something. We were led through the meditation to walk down a hallway and to choose a door to enter. My door was a large, heavy wooden door with a Victorian flair and a rounded top. However, as soon as I reached to open it, that door literally fizzled away and in its place was a fairly modern metal hospital door.

As I stepped through that door, I stepped through time and found myself as a 16 year old girl. I was barefoot, standing on dirty, dingy, yellowish tiles. I was wearing a hospital gown. My nails were bitten down to the point where they were bloody. My long brown hair was disheveled, and I kept hearing someone in authority telling me to do something, but I either couldn't hear them or didn't care. I felt both anxiety and an overwhelming sense of sadness, to the point where my physical body actually teared up a bit.

I was released about a year later, and I remember getting on a train with a man who was slightly older than me. I was wearing a burgundy skirt suit and matching hat. My once-disheveled hair was pinned up in a classic 1940s style, and I was carrying a small brown suitcase. We were then taken further into the future, and I saw myself as in my 30s, looking at a photograph of a man in an army uniform, as I sat in front of the fire. I had three children, a boy and two girls, yet I felt something was missing from my life. I was not happy. As we progressed further, I saw myself in my 40s, lying in a hospital bed, dying.

From what I could gather of my visions, I was someone suffering from severe depression. I was first hospitalized at what I think may have been Weston State Hospital (better known as Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum) while in my teens. Over the years, I would go be admitted several more times, and received electro-shock therapy at least once.

I don't think that life was productive to my soul's spiritual journey---as we were led out of the room we had entered and back into the hallway, I saw my reiki guide standing there. There was a man, who I couldn't really see, but understood to be more powerful and 'higher up' spiritually than my reiki guide, there as well. My reiki guide looked at my sympathetically and patted me gently saying "We'll try again next time." We were then led back out of the meditation and invited to start writing our impressions.

I filled a whole page and was still writing long after everyone else seemed to have stopped, lol.

During the discussion following the guided meditation, I learned that what they show in the movies isn't necessarily true---when you go through a past life regression, you don't automatically start at the life previous to your current incarnation. You can end up anywhere, especially if there is something going on in your current life that could benefit from the wisdom gleaned from a past life experience.  I also learned that the actual meditation may not be the end to this particular experience, and that dreams and 'flashbacks' sparked by the regression could occur following. As of this writing, I haven't fallen asleep yet, so I can't vouch for the dreams...but almost immediately I started to have flashes of more information.  What's even weirder is that I think the universe (or at least, my guides) were preparing me for the information to come. I weirdly had a few things happen today that make a LOT of sense now, such as a phantom smell I experienced, an odd pain that popped up out of nowhere, and some other things that are personal.

I am so glad I took this workshop. Before we were guided out of the meditation, we made a plea to leave behind any hang-ups from that life that are affecting our current one. I am hoping that the path I'm taking now (which is eerily mimicking the one I saw during the meditation) will be changed for the better. It was a really interesting experience, and I would recommend it to anyone, at least once!  If you're close to the St. Albans area, make sure you follow the Crystal Lotus Shoppe on Facebook for updates. There will be another past life regression workshop later in the year, but the shop offers plenty of classes, workshops, and other events in addition to their regular services, such as massage, reiki, yoga, and psychic readings.

Aunt Kate and the Booger: Guest Blog #2

Nolan, WV

Theresa's Note: Today's blog post is another wonderful Guest Blogger submission, this time from local paranormal researcher, Chris May. Chris has shared this awesome story, passed down to him from his Grandmother, about a suspected witch living in the small coal town of Nolan, WV. Enjoy this fascinating tale of what happens when you don't give a witch what she wants...and make sure to share this post with anyone you'd think would also appreciate a little spookiness from West Virginia's southern coalfields! A HUGE THANK YOU goes to Chris for sharing this story; I personally love hearing these old tales passed down from generation to generation, and I'm a sucker for anything related to our state's coal history. 

My Grandmother told this story to me. According to her when she was a child, an old woman lived next door to her and her family in the small coal town of Nolan. My Grandmother stated that many strange things happened in and around the old woman’s home. On one occasion my Grandmother, who was scared to death of old Aunt Kate, witnessed the old woman stick her hand back into a coal burning stove and pull out hot coals and wiggle them in her hands without being burned. 

Grandmother also stated that Aunt Kate would openly admit to witchcraft and on one occasion claimed to have fought with the Devil himself, ripping his leg off and throwing it behind a bed. 

The most disturbing story about Aunt Kate pertained to the old woman not getting something that she wanted....

My Great Grandfather had produced a garden several miles from his home every year. This particular year was very dry; water had to be carried to the crops as well as extra care needed to be taken with ensuring the crops survival. My Grandmother helped her father throughout the growing season and when time came to harvest the crops my Grandmother worked with him to bring the crops the long distance back to the old home place. As my Grandmother and Great Grandfather were wheeling the crops past Aunt Kate’s, she stopped them and stated, “Harrison, give me some of them beans.” 

Now, my Great Grandfather was a very generous man, but felt that due to the hard work that they had put in, the family should get first choice on the crops. He replied, “Old woman we’ve worked hard for those beans and your not gonna get any”. Aunt Kate was very angry at this reply and stated, “Ok Harrison, you’ll be sorry”, and were they ever. 

That night after the family went to bed my Grandmother stated that she heard something walking in the house. According to her the “thing” walked into her room and stood at the head of where she was sleeping and then it would turn and walk out of the room. My Grandmother said she had never been so scared. Because of this walking, she did not sleep all night. The next morning my Grandmother came in for breakfast and was confronted by my Great Grandfather about the “thing” that walked the night before. My Grandmother stated that she and my Great Grandfather were the only two in a house of twelve to hear it walk. My Grandmother stated that her father took old Aunt Kate the beans without haste and as he gave them to her, he told her to “take your booger back!” She replied in an evil tone, “it won't bother you no more” and it didn’t.

Chris May is a 42 year old married father of two. He resides in Barboursville. He holds a master’s degree in leadership studies and a master’s degree in counseling. Chris has worked in the law enforcement field for nearly 13 years as a probation officer. When he is not reading or researching the paranormal and history, he enjoys bass fishing with his 10 year old.