Strange Things Happen #maryfrancesstories

There are things in this world you just can't explain. 

My sister used to tell me about my grandmother's ghost. When Elaine first got married, she lived in my grandmother's house next to our house in Seaboard. Years before, when she was a little girl, she and our parents lived there for a time with my mom's parents while my Dad saved money and built our house. My grandfather passed away in 1960, and my grandmother in 1969.  A few years later, shortly after Elaine graduated nursing school and got married, she and her husband, Jesse, lived in "Grandma's house" for a few years before they moved out to our farm. It was a old, old house. My great aunts had lived there prior, and others before them. I can recall vividly the white, one story, clapboard house with it's odd hallways, shady interior, and welcoming porch. It's  skeleton is still standing. 

Elaine said that at night, from time to time, she could feel my grandmother's cool hand on her cheek or forehead, exactly as Grandma had placed it on her when she was a child. Elaine said she clearly saw her, but was never frightened, because she knew Grandma meant no harm. Grandma never made a sound. It's not hard to imagine this being true. My Grandma never got over the loss of her only son in WWII and developed "hardening of the arteries" (Dementia/Alztheimer's) by the time I came along. I can barely even remember her speaking when she was alive. She was an unsettled soul. 

Mary Frances Stephenson Draper, Maggie Vassar Stephenson, Elaine Draper Fisher and me 

My own experience with the unexplained happened in the mountains  with my parents in the late 80s. An "accident" had occured a few months prior at the Chestoa View Overlook. A man, Jim Gibbs, was accused of pushing his wife and her friend off an overlook to their deaths. He described it as an accident, despite many facts not adding up. Mom, Dad and I ventured out to enjoy the view but a morning mist was enveloping the nearby mountaintops and the contrast between dark shadows and filtered beams of morning sun was distinct.The nearby trees seemed to hem us in until we emerged on to the stone outcrop. The rock footing was slick with dew. And it was silent. As silent as a grave. 

I looked at Mom and she looked at me and, there's no other way to put it, we skeedaddled. There was just a sense of evil about the place. I know this sounds overly dramatic, but the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up. We both agreed that something felt terribly and in explicably off. My dad, in his own pragmatic way, didn't feel anything at all, but Mom and I talked about it for years. 

Jim Gibbs was exonerated. 

Chestoa View Overlook 

Find here a little audio clip I made of my Mom about two strange things she rememberd in her life. This was recorded in January of 2020.  

   

Mary Frances Stephenson Draper in front of her childhood home. 

Always leave a little room in your beliefs for things you can't explain.