Note: A couple of the incidents I'll be describing have been mentioned in previous posts in this blog. Rather than referring you to these posts, for the sake of continuity, I will be describing these incidents again in this series.
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Within months of the grate moving, another curious incident transpired when the family was out of town. Family friend Lucy was staying at the house while we had driven to Pittsburgh to visit relatives.
One day she returned to the house after work and found the front door wide open. Alarmed, Lucy went inside and checked all the rooms. She found that burglars had broken in at the back of the house through the flimsy pine door to the summer kitchen. (This was when the summer kitchen was an unheated addition.) Nothing was disturbed on the first floor, but on the second floor in the master bedroom, Lucy found two dresser drawers pulled out and their contents dumped on the floor. A jewelry box containing some costume jewelry was missing, with a few pieces strewn on the stairs, in the foyer, and on the front porch. Cash and a watch belonging to Lucy that were clearly visible in the guest room were untouched.
The entrance to the summer kitchen at the back of the house before conversion to an all-season room.
The break-in had probably lasted only a few minutes. Why were these burglars in such a rush to flee that they left the front door open? Why did they risk running out the front door in broad daylight, where neighbors or passersby might see them? Why did they open only a couple of drawers before quitting?
The answer: They thought that someone was home. Did they hear footsteps coming down the stairs from the third floor? Were there sounds of someone moving around in the parlors or dining room? Whatever happened, it seems obvious that the thieves were in a big hurry to get out of there, choosing to escape through the front, rather than retracing their steps to the back.
During the 'Eighties friends of my daughter Ceridwen who came to the house to take care of our pets when we were out of town had stories to tell about their encounters with an unseen resident--perhaps the same resident who had scared off the burglars. Six of these friends had similar stories to tell (and this is important), not knowing about the others' stories. Four girls related how after hearing heavy footsteps on the second floor as they were feeding the pets in the kitchen, they couldn't wait to get out of the house.
The front staircase after restoration.
The two teenage boys who had come to tend to the animals were completely freaked out by their experience. In the words of one of them:
"We went in to feed the dog. We went upstairs to feed the bird. It was really cold out. We heard the front door open. A blast of cold air came in. We thought you guys had come home early from your trip. We shouted down the staircase [that] it was us. We heard someone slowly walk up the stairs. We waited and spoke toward the sound. We crept toward the stop of the stairs. . .There was nothing there.
The door was wide open.
I am agnostic, but this was a huge event in my spiritual formation."
Only one other break-in attempt occurred while I lived there--again via the back--but my dog Viggo stopped the would-be burglar and scared him off. Fortunately, thanks to Viggo, the ghost with the heavy boots did not have to put in an appearance.
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