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Ghosts Along The Way

A few ghosts and apparitions.

Uncle George's House:

I saw a few ghosts when I was a child. We lived in my great-uncle's house, and I thought the shadow people lived inside the walls. As a girl of two or three, I watched a shadowy figure bend over my night stand and take my necklace. Mother never did find it! I woke one night to see a shining, winged figure standing over my bed with his hand raised in a blessing gesture. I believe he was there to protect me.


The Hollywood Apartment Building:

As an adult, I've never seen a full-on apparition, but had significant experiences in an old apartment building my ex and I managed. I was pregnant with my first child. I saw a black dachshund run past my feet several times, and we had a lot of trouble with lost items that would later re-materialize where we had left them and looked for them before. Apartment keys, kept on a numbered board, were a favorite. It was easy to tell that they weren't just misplaced when they would not be on their numbered hook and then be there when you looked again later.

A watch that I placed on a ledge over the sink while I washed the dishes was gone when I reached for it to put it back on. The sink hole was about 1 1/2 inch with a strainer in it ... it didn't go down there!

My sister and I joked about the latest prank of the poltergeist in front of a tenant and watched the blood drain from his face as he said, "You know what happened there, right?" He said the previous tenant in that room was an elderly woman who had died inside the apartment and was not found for two weeks. We had no idea! She must have been the previous manager and was used to taking the keys to various rooms ... although she probably didn't need them.


Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery:

I like to walk through cemeteries. I like the artful stones and the peace. I used to skip out of church sermons and take a walk through the cemetery next door instead. I learned later that many of my father's ancestors are buried there.

In Santa Rosa, there is an old cemetery that dates to the mid-1800's. While there one day, I was sitting on a large tree stump in Potters' Field. Potters' Field is in the wash of a creek bed. I was looking at a grove of whispering eucalyptus trees and suddenly felt very impressed that there had been a large loss of life there, like a massacre of sorts. I attended a meeting of the cemetery's preservation society and tried to discretely ask a few people if they had heard of such a thing. Negative. However, I joined the society.

Soon after, I received the society's newsletter which recounted the story of a Native American woman, as told by a librarian who knew her. She said a tribe had once lived next to the creek near the cemetery, but they had all mysteriously died, perhaps poisoned by bad fish, the townspeople thought. Two children survived and were raised by people in Santa Rosa. The man who owned the property and whose wife later donated it for a cemetery was, by all accounts, a mean fellow with a mysterious past. He was tried in court twice for possibly murdering two strangers who had come to town looking for him. His workman was discovered burying their bodies next to the creek. He claimed they had become sick and died, and he was never convicted. It would appear that poisoning was his preferred solution for people he wanted to dispose of.

I've tried to follow up on the story, but haven't found a newspaper article about the incident of the tribe's death in the microfilms at the genealogy library here. It's as though they never existed, except for the old Native American woman's story. I wish I could find someone who would help me document the incident and let people know the story of this unfortunate tribe of people. If you can help, contact me through Perception9 or through my website, listed below.

There was a lynching in the cemetery in the 1930's. Three men were hung on a tree near the entrance by a mob of townsmen. There are many other interesting stories about the inhabitants of the old cemetery. The society puts on a "Ghost Walk" tour every year. There are actors, period costumes and sets at specific grave sites. The actors perform a history from the life of the person in the grave. It's very tasteful and professional. See more about the cemetery at Santa Rosa Cemetary.


The Smiling Ghost:

One night, in San Bernardino, California, my youngest son came down stairs while I was studying for an exam. He said he was lying in bed and the apparition of a big, disembodied smiling face loomed close to him and then disappeared through the wall. It happens that this spirit has been familiar to the local Cahuilla Indians for ages. I read about it later in a book I bought written by a Cahuilla medicine woman.

by MamaMacabre

MamaMacabre's Website

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