Haunted Houses and Family Ghosts of Kentucky

by William Lynwood Montell

  Emma made the decision to go for the doctor herself. She dressed up warm—socks inside and outside of her boots—and she saddled the horse herself. Emma rode as fast as she dared to, on the horse she trusted, on the road she knew. There was only a little light on the ridges, and almost none in the hollows…. Emma was praying that she could make it to the doctor on time. She did not have a watch, and the time she was thinking of had nothing to do with hands on a dial, anyway….

  Emma knew from countless trips before that she could look back from that point and see the light, far away, in the upstairs window of her house, the window of the bedroom that she shared with Elsa. Tonight, in the middle of the haste and the worry, she stopped and turned the horse and looked back through the darkness for that light. As she spotted it, she felt a great sense of calm and peace that grew more steady as the light, contracted itself from window size to a small radiating globe that danced inside the house like a lantern in the hand of a merry child, and then not like that at all as it gathered itself and concentrated all of its energy and flew out the window and into heaven like a backwards shooting star.

  Emma calmly headed back toward the house, walking the horse now across the frozen trail and singing to herself. She cherished the calm vision that she would carry with her to her own grave. Other people might have ghost stories with rattling chains and howling winds. Other people might be riding in airplanes, and before she died, men would walk on the moon. All of these things, for her, would somehow connect with a knowledge of how close we can come to God, and still come home again. On a cold winter night Between the Rivers, she, Emma, watched her sister’s spirit leave this world as a ghostlike star.

  38. “A Host of Unknown, Humorous Family Ghosts”

  Henderson County

  I was adopted and was raised in Louisville, later brought into Henderson County. Whenever I was on my grandfather’s farm, there was always creaking and rocking, strange things that happened. They always said it was ghosts from the cemetery. I was under three years old at the time.

  Then, when I was three, my parents bought a house in Henderson on Main Street. There was a man there who was shot on the corner of the street. He passed away in the house we bought.

  When I grew up, the house was always mainly dominated by young men talking and carrying on and moving things around the house, and pulling down the drapes that my Mom had put up. They would just do pranks and tricks and different things. My dad would always tell me to get off the phone and go to sleep. Well, I was never on the phone.

  Well, things would get so far out of hand, such as my school books disappearing or flying across the room, or somebody sitting down on the bed, tickling my ears, and other things that would keep me from going to sleep. “All right,” I’d say, “You all just come on out and get me. Come on.”

  Later on, I got married and moved into a couple of other houses, and these ghostlike things didn’t seem to follow me. But when I bought this older house that was built in 1865, they were always around. They’d run into me. Sometimes, if Fm upset about something, they’ll come in and calm me down a little bit.

  They also have locked me out of the house. I’ve had this key from day one, and there’s nothing wrong with the key, but they think it’s funny. And sometimes I’ll walk into them, or you can see a little puff go down on the bed. You can just feel them. And sometimes you can put things up, and they’ll move them.

  I have no idea who they are. But I do feel that they like me. They follow me. They are always with me. They were always with me on the farm, also there on Main Street where I grew up. Then I didn’t see them for a couple of years. But when I moved onto Clay Street, they wound up there on Clay Street.

  And they’re the same. They don’t let anything hurt me, even though I’ve had washing machines to turn over on me. I’ve fallen off the roof, they caught me. Many other things like that have happened, and they take care of me. But they think it is hilarious when they move things on me, and it drives me crazy. You can hear them laughing.

  Maybe they’re members of my family from way back then. I even see them occasionally. They’re young men—five of them.

  39. “Noises in the Kitchen”

  Barren County

  My mother’s sister, who died of a breast cancer, was never able to let go of the spirit of her mother. She was only eight years old when her mother, well her mother and her father, were shot and killed, but she was never able to let go of her mother all those years. And I had never known of this until after her death and my uncle told me that she would never let go of her mother’s spirit.

  He said that they could hear her mother—he used the words “her mother”—in the kitchen working and doing little jobs, just puttering and cluttering around. Said cabinet doors would shut and open, but there was no wind coming in through open windows or doors that would cause that to happen. He claimed that they would go in and turn on a light to see what was causing the noises, but there was never anything there. Said they heard these noises for years and years.

  40. “The Annual Appearance of Grandma’s Ghost”

  Simpson County

  On Chestnut Street here in Franklin, March 8,1984, it was a really creepy day for my family and me. This was also my grandparents’ wedding anniversary day. Their names were Golde and Bill. Grandmother Golde died on March 9, 1983.

  Well, I was sitting on my stool coloring, when all of a sudden I felt a tug on my shirt. I looked around but did not see anything that could have caused it. Then, all of a sudden, I felt another tug, and then something started pulling me backwards. When I looked around this time, it was a lady. She had short brown hair and blue eyes. Then she seemingly got scared and pushed me off the stool. When I yelled out, my mother asked me what was wrong. I told her my story. Then she told me what my grandma looked like. And it was amazing that she looked like the person I had seen.

  Nowadays, I see my grandma every year on the eighth of March.

  41. “Dead Grandfather’s Image in Photo”

  Jefferson County

  My grandfather died when I was about thirteen, about three days after Easter. You won’t believe this, but the next year after his death, we were spending Easter with my grandma because she didn’t want to be alone. It was the first time that all the grandkids had been together all at once in a long time, so my grandma wanted a picture of all of us standing on the outside of her house.

  When we got the photo back, it had my grandfather standing inside the house looking out the window. She said that you could see him peeking out from behind the curtain. His image was faint, like you could see through him all the way into the kitchen and into the hallway behind.

  I never saw the picture because my grandmother was so freaked out she got rid of it. But some other people saw it, and they said that it sure was creepy.

  42. “Father’s Ghost in an Old Two-Story House”

  Logan County

  My grandfather—I called him Pa—said that when he grew up and married and had kids of his own, he and my grandma lived in an old two-story white house in the Schochoh area of southeastern Logan County. The house was surrounded by a big, huge yard and lots of trees, and it sat on several acres of land.

  The hauntings started when their daughter Rita was only seven years old. She went into the backroom and came out screaming that she had seen my daddy whose name was John Green Pearson. In that same house, you could also hear the prettiest music playing when you were on the front porch. You could also hear chains going up and down the steps, and you could hear the doors slamming shut when there was no one in the house.

  Pa and Ma moved out after a while. Said they couldn’t take anymore.

  43. “Pranks of a Mother’s Ghost”

  Shelby County

  We were sitting in our house one day there in Shelby County, and our garage door opened by itself. It hadn’t worked for a long time, actually ever since my mom’s been dead. A lot of times, I’d notice lights on and doors open in the house, when you’d
know these things shouldn’t be that way.

  Well, we were sitting there one day and Dad came up and asked why the garage door was down. See, it hadn’t been working, and there was nobody else in the house.

  I told him that there was no one else in the house. Well, he put the door up and told me that it was working again. So he went on, but in a little while he came back and told me that the garage door was down again, and wondered why I was pulling these pranks on him.

  I wasn’t doing it, so I just figured it was Mom doing it, maybe pranking us. Since then, it’s been doing it a lot.

  44. “Noises of a Family Ghost”

  Hart County

  Old Man McCreery had a place in Bonnieville near Bacon Creek. From the way Dad described the place, it was a double-pen cabin. There were lofts at each end of the house that you could get into only by climbing a ladder. The owners of this old house proclaimed that you could always hear sounds with no origins. Dad said that he remembers hearing some of these strange, eerie sounds. When he would be downstairs, he could hear someone dragging a logging chain across the upstairs loft.

  One night, while they were all sitting outside visiting with my grandmother, the sound of someone throwing plates against the wall could he heard. When Granny asked them what in the world that noise was all about, the owners told her, said, “It’s just our ghosts.”

  She went back into the kitchen to see what the noises were all about, but said nothing had been disturbed. No broken dishes or anything.

  45. “A Ghost’s Return to Engage in Normal Pursuits”

  Warren County

  When I was a small girl, about nine years old, I went with my mother to visit a friend whose sister had passed away. I was not aware of the death at the time. I was playing outside with the friend’s small daughter, when I had to come in to use the bathroom. The bathroom was situated between two bedrooms, and it could only be reached by passing through one of the rooms. I entered through one side and for some reason decided to leave by the other bedroom. A lady was sitting on the bed in the bedroom, and she beckoned for me to come see what she was doing. I don’t remember exactly what it was other than it was some sort of hand work and that it was very pretty. I told her how pretty it was, and she smiled at me. I then left the room and came downstairs. My mother and her friend were sitting in the kitchen talking. I asked them who was the nice lady upstairs. They told me there was no one in the house but them. We went upstairs to investigate. The lady was gone, but there was still an impression on the bed of someone having sat there. I described the lady. Her description fit exactly the friend’s deceased sister. The room had been her bedroom. The mystery was never explained, but I can still remember the lady’s smile.

  Incidentally, I never knew the deceased sister.

  46. “Ghost in a Rocking Chair”

  Simpson County

  It was a hot summer night, and I was at my grandmother’s house on Cherry Street here in Franklin. Her name is Nadia Brindley. It was July 17, 1991, and time for me to go to bed to go to sleep. I had to sleep in the living room all by myself. I fell asleep about 10:30 that night. I woke up about 1:30 and looked in the corner beside the table and saw the red recliner moving. I was scared; felt weightless. I even had goose bumps! Then it stopped moving for about five seconds, but then moved again.

  Believe it or not, I got under a blanket and fell asleep. The next morning I didn’t wake up until 10:30 A.M., and I was still scared. I thought to myself, this is the day that I have a ball game. But I couldn’t concentrate on the game because of the red recliner that kept coming back into my mind. “Grandma, why did I see the chair moving last night?” I asked her.

  “It was your grandfather Brindley, and that was his favorite chair,” she told me.

  47. “A Ghostly Image’s Foretelling of Death”

  Hart County

  What I’m about to tell happened back around 1930 when my papaw was just a boy about twelve or thirteen years old. Back then, the most popular form of entertainment where they lived was visiting with neighbors. On this one particular night, there was a fellow there who lived a few miles away. He left fairly late, and when he got home and lit his lamp, he saw a woman’s figure wrapped in a shroud floating across the bedroom.

  It moved toward him, and when he saw its face, he realized that it was that of his sister-in-law. That man and this particular sister-in-law did not get along. Just as soon as he recognized who it was, the apparition disappeared. It scared this fellow literally witless, and he ran all the way back to Papaw’s house.

  They were getting ready for bed, and the man nearly beat the door down trying to get into the house. They let him spend the night there, as he was too frightened to go home and sleep alone.

  The next day, he received word that his sister-in-law had died.

  48. “Return of Dead Husband”

  Warren County

  A woman whose husband had died a few months back was outside working on her home in Warren County. She lived in a rural area and had a few acres of farmland. While she was working, she noticed a blue glow coming from one of the fields, so she decided to get a closer look to see just what it was. She was astonished to see her husband standing in the middle of the field with an electrical blue aura surrounding him.

  He looked exactly as he had always looked, and he spoke to her. He asked her how she was doing and then called for their dog that was by the woman’s side. When the dog walked over to the man, he got a shock and ran back to the house. The man and woman talked a while longer and then he disappeared. She hasn’t seen him since that happened.

  49. “A Brother’s Return As a Ghost”

  Oldham County

  One night, probably in June, I had gone to bed. Well, my brother had died in a motorcycle accident a couple of months earlier. I kinda woke up, and I was sitting on my bed, and my sister was laying next to me in a different bed. So, I wasn’t sure whether I was sleeping or not. Its not like I saw my brother with certainty, it’s like I kinda saw him. It was my brother, and he was telling me everything—that he was okay, that he was in no pain, and that he loved everyone very much and that we should quit crying over him. He said that he was happy now. Well, he sort of sat there for a minute, and then he told me to tell his girlfriend that he loved her very much. And that was the end of it. I was just sitting there after that, but he was no longer there.

  50. “A Husband’s Return in Human Form”

  Lawrence County

  I knew this lady that was part Indian. When her husband died, she was at a loss as how to run her farm and store business. One day while she was walking to her son’s house about a mile away, she met her husband in human form. He told her how to conduct the business. He also told her not to touch him, but she couldn’t resist so she reached out for him but he vanished.

  This happened about sixty or so years ago at Georges Creek here in Lawrence County.

  51. “The Ghost of a Murdered Woman”

  Barren County

  Beth left her apartment in Glasgow one morning with her two-year-old son. On her way to work she was to drop him off at her in-laws’ home, as was the arrangement of the court. His father was to pick him up there for his time with his son. Beth and the child’s father had been separated for a year, and the divorce was not final at this point.

  Beth was running. She hurried into the living room and dropped off the diaper bag and the child’s toys into a chair, then rushed into the kitchen to put the milk into the refrigerator. She had gone only a few feet into the kitchen when her estranged husband walked up behind her and shot her in the back of the head. She died instantly. It is believed that Beth and the child were unaware that he was waiting for them.

  The husband took the child to his brother’s house and left it there. He was later found in a wooded area. Apparently he had shot and killed himself when he realized what he had done.

  Before her death, Beth lived in an apartment above her grandmother’s house. Beth’s mother left when Beth wa
s a small child, thus Beth was reared by her aunt and grandmother. They were very proud of her. She had just completed her nursing program and had passed her boards. She had also received the highest awards for her efforts. Beth’s apartment had two entrances. One to the downstairs home of her grandmother, and one to the outside.

  After the funeral, Beth’s grandmother kept the inside entrance door closed due to hot weather. And they had cleaned out her apartment, thus no longer needed to leave the door open.

  Approximately one week after Beth’s murder, footsteps were heard in the upstairs apartment. They were heard so plainly that it was thought someone had broken in during the night. In checking the apartment, they found that the door to the outside entrance was still securely bolted from the inside. There was no sign of anyone.

  The door to the inside entrance of the apartment then began to open slowly. The grandmother had been sleeping on a day bed at the foot of the steps. When Beth and her husband began to have trouble and Beth moved to the apartment, Beth’s grandmother feared for her. Sleeping closer to the door made her feel closer to Beth. She continued to sleep there after Beth’s death. Every night the grandmother could still see the door slowly open, but no one would be there. She began to leave the door open at night, but it would slam loudly.

  One night as the grandmother was sleeping, she awoke when she heard the door open. She then saw a shimmering outline of a person walking slowly down the steps toward her. Terrified, the grandmother screamed. The figure turned slowly and went back up the stairs and into the apartment. Then the door shut.

  The next day, the grandmother called a friend of the family, a person well known in solving murder mysteries. He visited with the family there at the house. He told them that Beth did not want them to be frightened, that she only wanted them to take her son out of the house of the in-laws and let him move in with her sister-in-law out of town. He went on to say that the house where Beth died was evil and the boy needed to leave. He also told them that Beth only wanted them to know how much she loved them.

  At the time of writing this account, the footsteps and sightings have subsided; Beth appears to be satisfied.