A Premonition of Her Death

The Charleston Daily Mail
November 29, 1915

Saturday, November 27th, 1915 was a bad day for the Baisden family of Laurel City (Boone County), WV. Around 5:30pm, Mrs. Baisden got into a pretty brutal argument with her neighbor, Mrs. Chandler. The fight turned physical, and Mr. Charles Baisden, hearing the chaos, started to approach the women to break it up. Unfortunately, at the same time, Miss Frankie Chandler, daughter of Mrs. Chandler, came out at the same time with a pistol. She shot the approaching Mr. Baisden twice, hitting him in the arm and into his side, hitting his spinal column. 

Mr. Baisden turned to flee, but realized his wife was still in jeopardy. He turned to try to reach her just in time to see her being shot in the breast by Frankie. She died ten minutes later. Frankie was later indicted for the incident and claimed she was not sorry for what she had done, and that she would do it again. It really makes you wonder what details the newspaper articles are leaving out---what started this fight and why did it turn so deadly?

This tragic tale also has a supernatural twist. 

A week before the shooting, Mrs. Baisden traveled to Madison to pay taxes and visit friends. While there she shared that she had a premonition that something was going to happen to her. She even shared that she had a dream about her deceased little girl who warned her to "be good." 

Be good? Does that mean that this horrible tragedy could have been avoided if Mrs. Baisden had done something differently? Was it she who started the horrific fight that quickly turned deadly? Could all of this have been prevented if the warning of a little girl's spirit had been heeded? We may never know, but that warning has earned this story a place in West Virginia's paranormal lore. 

*This isn't the only WV story where a daughter has issued important information to her mother through a dream or visitation. Please see my article on the Greenbrier Ghost.*

Door Dogs

Schipperke
Source

I like to keep a running list in one of my many notebooks about topics I want to share here on Theresa's Haunted History blog. Some time last year, I added 'Door Dogs' to the list. I distinctly remember reading a quick blurb about the door dogs in a book (I'm pretty sure it was an e-book), but when I went back over my reading log for 2021, I could NOT figure out which one! So, I turned to the internet to help me out, and was really disappointed in the lack of information out there on what I consider a really cool piece of folklore. 

The concept of door dogs seems to be most prevalent in Tangiers, Morocco, but most likely has spread throughout Africa and into Europe as noted by William S. Burroughs, who wrote extensively about door dogs in his work, Western Lands. So what is a door dog?

A door dog is a death omen. During the weeks leading up to a person's demise, a small dog with a pointed nose is seen following them around. The dog is most often spotted when the person is crossing a threshold, especially as they enter through a doorway, giving the spooky little creature it's name! It's important to note that the dog, which is seen and never heard, is ONLY witnessed by others around the 'marked' person. You will never be able to see your own door dog. 

Although you could easily make the assumption that the door dog only heralds the upcoming death of a PERSON, my mom and I may have had an encounter with a door dog that served as a death omen for our dog, Captain. About two months before Captain unexpectedly passed away from kidney failure, my mom and I both saw, on several occasions, a jet black dog following him. Full disclosure, we actually HAD a jet black dog at the time named Nazy. But, there's no way we were seeing her. Nazy's fur was very short, and she had rather thin back legs and a thin, long tail. 

Whenever we'd see Captain's door dog, we'd always see just it's hindquarters, disappearing around the corner from the foyer into the living room immediately after Captain had walked through the area. We never saw the front of it, but we both described the back of it in the same way. This dog had fur that was way more...fuzzy...than Nazy's. It had strong, thick back legs and a fluffy tail that curled upward like a chow chow's. We both saw it maybe 3 times each before Captain crossed the Rainbow Bridge, and never saw it again. 

After the first time spotting it, my mom had a really bad feeling that this dog was an omen of something bad to come, and I tried to play it off as it simply being just another ghost that had wandered into our home and would soon leave, like so many others had. Even after Captain passed away, I really didn't give too much thought of it being connected, and sort of filed the situation away as just another weird thing. Even when I first read about the door dogs as death omens, I still didn't make any connections between what we saw and Captain's death. Until...

The Obscurban Legends Wiki Page was the best source of information I came across when preparing for today's blog. When describing the physical characteristics of the door dog, it mentioned that it had a pointed snout like the schipperke. Admittedly, I am not very knowledgeable about dog breeds and I had never heard of the schipperke. So, I looked up what this type of dog looked like, and lo and behold...the pictures that popped up were EXACTLY like the dog my mom and I had seen several years ago. 

*If you enjoyed this blog post, you might also like the story of my own 

FAMILY DEATH OMEN!*