My Haunted House I : Something's Happening Here

                   "There's something happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear."

Steven Still's song isn't about the paranormal, but this quote quite aptly describes what many people think after they witness something that seems unexplainable.

1978 was a banner year for my family. It marked the completion of the exterior restoration of our 1885 Queen Anne house begun the previous summer and the birth of a second daughter in July. In September I interviewed several neighbors about ghostly-goings on in their homes, and then wrote them up in an article for the Wedge newspaper. (Read the article here: "Enter Ghost" "Enter Ghost" Wedge 1978.) 

These interviews led to other interviews and other articles. I talked to Eleanor Steckert, Professor of Folklore at the University of Minnesota, and read the books she suggested. The first was the 1981 classic by Jan Harald Brundvand, The Vanishing Hitchhiker: America's Urban Legends and their Meanings. I learned that a folklorist does not need to believe in nor try to disprove the claims in the stories they collect. The important thing is to listen, record, and document. Thus I became not a ghost hunter, but a ghost story collector.

In The Vanishing Hitchhiker, Brunvand says that the hitchhiker story is the one he's heard most often in his collecting of urban legends: 

Someone driving at night sees a girl (or guy) by the roadside in distress. They offer her a ride to her home. After they drop her off, they realize that she's left her sweater/umbrella/purse/whatever behind. They go back to the house. When her mother answers the door, she get very upset and tells them that her daughter is long dead. 

There are a number of variations on this story, but they all present the girl or guy as a solid apparition that can be touched, one that leaves physical evidence behind. In fact, I heard variations on this story from two people, one from Georgia and one from New England, stories that they had heard from other people. My daughter Ceridwen heard a Christian version of this, with the hitchhiker as Jesus.

So much for urban legends. But what about firsthand accounts of spooky encounters? These are what I was interested in. Then, in 1983, something happened at our house that intrigued and baffled me. I was in the foyer talking on the phone, and my younger daughter, whom I'll call "M," was in the back parlor, when I heard a loud, metallic "clunk" in the dining room. I immediately opened the door to the dining room and saw, to my astonishment, that the cast iron floor grate had moved from its place against the wall to the rug under the table. Our dog Tessie was standing several feet away near the kitchen doorway, staring at the grate with a "WTF?" look on her face.

How did the louvered grate move a couple of feet on its own? I asked M if she had moved the grate, and she emphatically denied it. She had been sitting on the sofa watching TV in the adjoining parlor. We moved the grate several times from the floor to the rug in an effort to determine what could have moved it. We tested how much force it took to move the nine-pound grate from the floor to the rug. There's no way Tessie could have moved the grate. The openings were big enough only to fit fingers, not large dog paws. The air from the forced-air furnace could barely lift a piece of paper, let alone move a heavy grate.

I applied Occam's Razor: The simplest explanation is the best one. At that point, I had heard enough stories to recognize the elements of paranormal activity. Did a ghost move the grate? If so, who was it that wanted to get our attention? It would take a few more incidents over many months and more research to come to some sort of a conclusion.

                                                   The front parlor of our house in 1981

Months passed. Then one afternoon, my younger daughter, M, was by herself in the house, upstairs watching TV in her room over the dining room when she heard a metallic clunk from the first floor. After having witnessed the moving of the grate previously, she recognized the sound. Fearing the worst, she crept downstairs and looked into the dining room. There it was: The grate had once again moved from its place in the floor to the rug. When her father came inside shortly thereafter, he found M nearly hysterical with fear. M had heard me declare my suspicions that the movement was possibly caused by a ghost, and the grate moving again freaked her out.

Witnessing the grate moving was significant, as it was a clear physical manifestation of an unexplainable force. Hearing footsteps, seeing apparitions--these common paranormal incidents are ephemeral and hard to document. Someone wanted to get our attention--and did. The grate never moved again, but it marked the beginning of a decade of sporadic unexplained incidents in the house which I will describe in my next posts.

                                                     

This Property Protected by a Watch Ghost

 I've mentioned previously that my family and I lived in a haunted Victorian house in Minneapolis for over four decades. It's a long story, with many episodes. In the early days when we were getting the initial clues that the house was haunted, several others told their stories of spooky experiences at the house.

When we left town, we would ask someone to watch the house. During one longer trip, a friend stayed at the house.  A few days before our return, she called to let us know that someone had broken into the house, but little had been taken.

What apparently happened was this: The burglars had busted through the pine door of the summer kitchen in the back, and had gone directly upstairs to the master bedroom. They had pulled out only one drawer of the dresser, when they suddenly ran down the foyer stairs, unlocked the solid ash front door, and fled--this during broad daylight. They had grabbed the jewel box full of costume jewelry off the dresser, spilling some of its contents as they ran down the stairs. As they fled, they left the front door wide open. There was some cash and a few pieces of gold jewelry on the nightstand in the guest room that were left untouched. 

                                               The thick ash front door with brass doorknob.

What had scared the burglars off? The experience of two of our older daughter's high school friends offered a clue. We had asked the boys to care for the animals while we were away. This is how one of them described what happened:

"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."

                                                           The front porch and door

Another couple of teenagers who came to tend to the animals heard slow, deliberate footsteps on the second floor. They fed the dog, practically throwing the food in her bowl, and beat a hasty retreat. 

I heard footsteps once when I came home one morning after walking my younger daughter to Jefferson Elementary School a block away. I came in, closed the door, and heard heavy footsteps in the upper hallway. I called out, and then went directly upstairs, but found no one. On another occasion I was in one of the bedrooms on the second floor when I heard the locked front door open and close. I looked down. The door was closed. When I searched the house for an interloper, I again found no one.

All of these incidents happened during the first years we lived in the house. They seemed to suggest that something paranormal was going on. After doing some research into previous owners, we decided that the likely ghost was that of Frank Cartwright, who had lived in the house until his death in 1942.

                                                                    Frank Cartwright
 

Sleeping with the Light On

 

                                                      Colfax Avenue in South Minneapolis

One of the first stories I collected was from two musicians that had rented the first floor of a large converted house on Colfax Avenue in Minneapolis's Wedge neighborhood. Frank had a year's lease on the apartment, and he shared it with his friend David--who stayed there for only five months. 

One night David, who worked nights, came home to find the light on in Frank's room. Frank told him that he was awakened in the middle of the night by a "presence" at the foot of his bed. This presence awakened Frank a number of times during his tenancy at the house.

From the front door to the kitchen stretched a long hallway. David said that when he walked down the hall, he sometimes experienced a "creepy, tingly feeling in the spine" when he passed by the doorway to Frank's room. After he moved out, David wondered if he was hallucinating this feeling because he knew about Frank's experiences. But when he told his wife and another friend about this sensation two years later, they both said that they also had had a creepy feeling in this hallway--although none of them mentioned it to the others.

Both roommates felt that there was a lot of unusual house noise, including a loud unexplained bang in the middle of the night. One night while Frank was in his room with the light on, David tried to lure out the ghost by playing his drum set, but nothing happened.

David asked a neighbor, Jerry Trigg, who lived down the block, about the former occupants of their apartment. Jerry told him that the owners, an elderly couple, used to live in the downstairs unit. Their bedroom had been the room that Frank was staying in, and the wife had died in that room.

Neither roommate saw anything; they only felt a ghostly presence and heard unexplained noises. When he moved out, Frank commented that "there are too many ghosts in this house."

 

The house has undergone an impressive restoration since Frank and David lived there. These incidents occurred many years ago, and it's likely that the haunting has faded or completely disappeared. Nevertheless, whenever I pass by the house, I can't help wondering if the former owner is still hanging out in the first floor apartment. I hope not.

Ghost of a Winter Solstice Past

 

      Andy Serkis scares the dickens out of Scrooge as the Ghost of Christmas Past (BBC 2019)

One of the most delightful traditions of my family was the Winter Solstice party and carol sing, held each year on the solstice itself. Guests would bring holiday treats to share, and a large pot of glögg (Swedish mulled wine, very potent) and another of apple cider would be simmering on the stove. After socializing for an hour or so, the guests would assemble in the parlors of my Victorian house for a short program of readings of the season--for example, Wallace Stevens' "The Snow Man", Thomas Hardy's "The Oxen", Clement Moore's "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" or a humorous holiday story. 

After that, people would arrange themselves around the tree and baby grand piano in the front parlor for the carol sing. Since many attendees were from the St. David's (Welsh) Society, we'd sing carols and songs in English and a few in Welsh in four-part harmony. We'd sing all the favorites, as well as some unfamiliar ones, always ending with "Silent Night" in English and then in German.

                  Singing around the tree, Solstice Party 2014, with David Evan Thomas at the piano.

Most years, 15-25 people would show up to celebrate the solstice. But one time in the early '90s, heavy snow falling kept away all but the most avid carolers. Around 9 p.m., five of us were in the front parlor singing as the snow fell silently with about 8" already on the ground. Few cars and pedestrians were out and about.

We were therefore quite surprised when we heard the sound of heavy boots coming up the steps to the porch and across to the door. All of us heard the footsteps, but we couldn't see anyone out the front window. I got up from the piano, went into the foyer, and opened the front door. But no one was there. I looked out onto the snow-covered porch and was nonplussed to find no footprints there or on the walk from the gate. When I went back to the parlor, everyone wanted to know who had come to the door.

I knew. It was Frank Cartwright, the owner of the house from 1912 until his death in 1942. Frank had been putting in appearances since the early '80s. A number of friends and family had been witness to Frank's shenanigans, which ranged from making the sound of footsteps and opening doors to turning lights and the TV on. He wasn't scary--a protective ghost. 

                                                        The front porch in falling snow.

Several years after this, we had another party that Frank showed up for. In this case, the house was filled with people who were going to listen to or to tell the stories of their ancestors' experiences during the American Civil War. I was in the front parlor with my friend Mitzi and several others awaiting the arrival of Colin, who was going to play the trumpet for the parlor concert. Clomp, clomp, clomp went the heavy footsteps across the porch. I was facing the window, but couldn't see anyone pass by. I went to the front door and opened it. No one there. The people in the front parlor were a bit freaked out that there was no one at the door after they clearly heard the footsteps going up to it.

I could go on and on with Frank stories--and one day I will write them up for the blog. But suffice it to say that Frank's daughter, who was a professional singer, told that us that the Cartwrights often held musical soirees in the house, with people gathered around the piano in the back parlor. It's possible that Frank came to other musical parties at the house, but because of the noise made by all the party-goers, we didn't hear him. 

                                                                  Frank M. Cartwright

Haunted Apartment

With so many stories to tell, I've had a hard time deciding where to start. I suppose the best place to start is the beginning, with stories from people who contacted me right after the Wedge article was published in 1978.

In early November '78 I got a call from a woman stockbroker in her late 20s who lived in a 1910 apartment building not far from our house in the Wedge. Over the phone she told me that she feared her apartment was haunted, and she and her roommate were moving out, enough though it meant losing several hundred dollars in rents and deposits. She invited me to the scene of the alleged haunting on the third floor of the brick building. 

               The apartment where these incidents occurred has been converted into condos.

When I arrived that November evening, it was dark and dreary outside. A couple dozen boxes crowded the entrance to the apartment, as if they couldn't wait to get out. She, her roommate, and a friend gave me a tour of the apartment, showing me the corner in her room which emitted an obnoxious stench that scrubbing and painting could not erase, and pointing out the window in the air shaft where a black cat had entered on three occasions. They showed me the shaft, and I could not see any way a cat could get up to the third floor in it, let alone get into the shaft itself below. These things did not initially scare the roommates, although they later thought there might be a connection between these and the incidents that conspired to drive them out. 

         Many 19th and early 20th century buildings had ventilation shafts to allow in light and air.

The two roommates had moved into the apartment nearly three months previous to my visit. The apartment was roomy and attractive, with hardwood floors and varnished woodwork. The roommates found it a comfortable place to live--until three weeks before my visit.

The woman came home late on a Friday night. Her roommate was still out. As was her custom, she turned out all the lights in the apartment and went to bed. Exhausted from a long day at work, she immediately fell into a deep sleep.

But an hour and a half later, around 1 a.m., she was suddenly awakened by an odd feeling that someone else was in the apartment. She immediately noticed that the light in the bathroom across the hallway was on. She called out to her roommate; there was no answer. She searched the apartment. No roommate. Nothing had been disturbed. She tested the pull chain on the bathroom light. It worked as before. She sat up for a long time, racking her brain for a reasonable explanation, but could think of none.

A week later, she and her roommate were sleeping in their respective bedrooms when click, the large portable radio by her bedside came on at 1:30 a.m. Loud music blasted forth, startling her from sleep, her heart pounding. Both roommates were so shaken by this rude awakening that, even though it was in the middle of the night, they decided to go to relatives' homes to sleep.

                                       The interior of a similar apartment in the neighborhood.

The last straw came the next day, a Sunday, when the woman was in her room listening to the Vikings game on the radio. She heard the front door being unlocked, heard the doorknob creak and the door close, followed by footsteps coming down the hall toward her room. She looked up, and seeing no one, concluded that her roommate had gone into the front bedroom.

But when she called out a greeting, there was no answer. Hoping against hope, she went from room to room. No one was there. The front door was closed and locked. All was still.

Terrified, she fled the apartment, vowing to move out with all haste and never to stay there alone until the last stick of furniture was carted away. 

Her roommate wasn't eager to risk further disturbance by remaining there, either. When they gave the apartment manager notice that they would be leaving early in the month, he asked them why they didn't like the apartment. Hesitantly, they decided to tell him about the spooky incidents. He then told them that an elderly couple had lived in the unit for many years and had passed on several years previous, adding that two other sets of tenants had also moved out of that apartment before the end of their leases. Hearing of others' premature exits from the apartment made them feel better, validating their own experiences.

The next week a moving truck came and hauled their furniture and belongings to another apartment--one that they hoped would be quieter and less nerve-wracking than the one they had just evacuated.

                                                          The front entry to the building

Exactly 43 years have passed since the young woman told me that story. Judging from the experiences of others who related stories of their ghostly experiences years ago, I'd say it's very likely that the current residents are not being harassed by unseen persons. Claims on TV shows notwithstanding, active hauntings do not continue unabated for decades--at least, so I've been told.

                

"Enter Ghost" Reprint from Wedge newspaper, Minneapolis, October 1978

                                                            ENTER GHOST

Horatio: Look, my lord, it comes! 

Hamlet: Angels and ministers of grace defend us!/ Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd,/ Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell, /Thou com'st in such a questionable shape/ That I will speak to thee. 

A 19th Century Hamlet, Henry Irving, confronts the Ghost at London's Lyceum Theatre in 1874.
 

Few of  us have, like Hamlet, met an apparition of our dead father at midnight and discussed family problems with it. We assume, quite understandably, that ultimately the cause of so-called "ghostly" shenanigans can be found in the physical world. But many people--more than most realize--have experienced things as strange, and perhaps stranger than Hamlet did, virtually right in your own back yard. The Lowry Hill area on both sides of Hennepin seems to be a fertile area for ghostly occurrences. The common explanation for the higher proportion of psychic phenomena reported here is that our neighborhood consists almost exclusively of turn-of-the-century houses which have housed several generations. Why this fact should be significant is a matter of continuing debate among people who are concerned with such things.

Curiously enough, the people whom I interviewed in the Wedge became interested in the theories about ghosts only after some thing very peculiar occurred in their house or apartment. For example, when Peter and Mark (all the names here are fictitious) moved into the ground floor of a big old house on Colfax last year, they were pleased with their new quarters. Peter's work kept him out past midnight most of the time. When he returned home, Mark would already be asleep.This routine went on for over a month, when one night Peter came home to find the light on in Mark's room. This seemed odd, so Peter peeked in to see what was going on. Mark was very puzzled and a little upset. He was a big man, a no-nonsense carpenter who had never had an experience like the one that had happened that night: He was sound asleep when all of a sudden he was awakened by an overwhelming sensation that someone was standing at the foot of his bed. He quickly turned on the light, but there was nothing to see. The incident was inexplicable to him, and he didn't feel very comfortable afterwards. So he decided to sleep with the light on that night. The next night he slept through without disturbance.

Peter noticed. . .along with a couple other close friends. . .that sometimes as they passed through the hall, at the entrance to Mark's room they'd feel a "chill" like the sense of an alien presence. Several weeks after Mark's first midnight wake-up Peter arrived home to find the lights on again in Mark's room while Mark slept. This happened a couple of other times while they lived there, although nothing spectacular ever happened. Eventually they moved out, and at the time Mark suggested that the nocturnal disturbances were partly responsible for his decision to leave.

Further down the street is another late nineteenth century house where the inhabitants have also had some unusual experiences. One night when I was visiting there, Tom complained that he was having trouble laying a floor in the front room. He would carefully line up the parquet block as he knelt in the doorway. Twice, he had turned away for an instant, only to find the blocks scattered helter-skelter when he turned back to work. Other peculiar things have happened to him, too. One day he saw a boy pulling a wagon down the upstairs hallway. . .a child who seemed inexplicably to vanish. Another time a faint glow emanated from part of a back room, a glow that Tom tried in vain to find a source for. These experiences are so strange that Tom, quite naturally, does not fully trust his recollection of them. Others in the house, however, have also reported uncanny events: the upstairs hall light comes on, unbidden, in the middle of the night sometimes. Also, a study lamp goes off and on at odd hours and there appears to be nothing wrong with the wiring.

A few blocks away on Bryant is an 1980's house where only one peculiar thing happens, and this happens over and over again. When they shut the door to one bedroom, it often opens as soon as they turn away. The latch and the hinges appear to work fine. The room used to belong to the son of the original owner, both now deceased.

Up the block is a house which the current residents have owned for two years. When Karen and Jim first moved in, even though they liked the house, they frequently got the feeling that the house wasn't completely theirs, as if someone else's presence sill pervaded certain rooms. One night a while back Karen and a friend came home and entered through the back door. The rest of the family was not at home, and the two women remained in the kitchen, occupying themselves with petty tasks. They dawdled there for some time, when the friend finally remarked, "Don't you feel like running through the house, looking under the beds?" After the friend broached the subject, they both admitted that they felt a presence in the rest of the house and just couldn't bear going into the living room. In a while this feeling passed and they felt they could proceed as usual.

Karen and Jim's daughter, who was three at the time they moved in, quickly acquired the unorthodox habit of leaving her room in the middle of the night to sleep in the hall. This practice has continued to the present day on the average of two or three times a week.

Recently, when Karen slept in this room, she was awakened by the disturbing impression of a hellfire-and-brimstone sermon delivered by a male voice like that of a sidewalk evangelist. A stranger experience yet is that of their son. Last year as he was coming out of his room, he saw a misty figure emerge from the bathroom, turn to look at him, and disappear into his sister's room. The apparition was that of a man, his mousy brown hair wet as though he had just washed it. Who the preacher and/or bather might be, they haven't yet discovered. Some time ago, though, as he was working the the yard, Jim was approached by a funny old man carrying a violin case. He told Jim that he had lived in an upper bedroom (indicating the son's bedroom) for 25 years and he had recently been having recurrent dreams about the house. At least the family knows they aren't alone in having their sleep disturbed by something connected with the house.

All of the people I've mentioned so far have talked about feelings and impressions. But one couple on Bryant has had rather a different experience. Claire and Paul have lived in their house for nearly six years. During that time, some odd things have happened. One night, for example, they came home to find all the basement windows wide open, but most of these incidents could be explained without straining one's imagination. One night last spring, however, this was not the case. 

It was about ten at night and they were preparing to retire after a long day. Paul was already in bed and Claire was just climbing in--when, suddenly, the chest next to the bed began to shake violently. This large, heavy antique chest was not merely vibrating, but rocking rapidly from side to side. They were absolutely boggled by the chest's antics and began to look around the room for clues to its behavior. The light cords the window shade pulls, the drapes, the other furniture--seemed perfectly still. While they sat in bed staring at the chest, the foot of the bed began shaking, too. For the few seconds this went on, they huddled in bed, astonished and frightened at the same time. Then all movement ceased. For the next hour they checked out every possibility as to the cause of the disturbance. Was the chest off balance?. . .Had something fallen elsewhere?. . .An earthquake? etc. But they couldn't come up with an answer. Finally, they gave up and went to bed. Paul soon fell asleep, but Claire lay awake, plagued by a feeling that it was going to happen again. Sure enough, in another half hour or so, the chest started shaking again. Paul awakened and reached out toward the chest. As soon as his fingers touched it, the shaking stopped. They at once felt greatly relieved and spent the rest of the night undisturbed.

What possible explanations for these experiences can be proposed? The theory most frequently advanced, especially by those who haven't had such an experience, is that these weird events are products of the percipients' overactive imaginations or disturbed minds. Somehow, there must be a "rational" explanation; there must be some physical cause which, once discovered, will explain all. For those who find this scientific skepticism inadequate in terms of evidence, there are three possible approaches to take: First, that there is a spirit in all living things which is independent of the body and which lives on after physical death. Thus through seances people try to make contact with this spirit world. Over the centuries this has certainly been the most pervasive and simplest of explanations, although modern psychologists have attacked it. They suggest on the other hand that all living beings emit a psychic energy which can reappear in various ways, independent of space and time. Thus if someone dies in a disturbed form of mind, his agitated psychic force may appear after death in a place he feels comfortable. A third possible explanation is that "ghosts" are subjectively perceived in an extrasensory way and are essentially hallucinations emanating from "mid-level consciousness." Psychic phenomena are really part of the enormous power and faculty of the mind, the nature of which we have barely discerned.

I myself can hardly tell you what to think, let alone decide for myself. Last week I went to Kenwood to interview the owner of a house with a poltergeist, a prankster ghost. Before I left home my portable tape player recorder worked fine, but when I arrived at the other house the apparatus refused to work. After a number of futile attempts to get it going, the lady of the house said resignedly, "Well, I guess Betty doesn't want to be interviewed." I took down the story on paper, then rushed home to see if my record would work there. It did.

Do you have a ghost story to tell? At the suggestion of Ellen Steckert, director of the Institute for Minnesota Folklife, I am collecting stories of urban ghosts. If you or someone you know has such a story, I would be grateful if you would contact me about it. All information will be strictly confidential. If you can help, please call me at 377-XXXX. Many thanks!

NOTE: I have corrected a few misspellings, typos, and punctuation errors. See next post for comments about the article and the events that followed it.