The Sallie House Haunting: A True Story

by Debra Pickman

After hanging up, I let out a big sigh—not in relief because I felt better about our situation, because I really didn’t feel that at all. I was just so overwhelmed with the information I had accumulated in the conversation with Barbara that I was relieved it was over and I wouldn’t have to take in anymore.

  For the next few hours, my in-laws, Tony, George and I talked about some of the things that Barbara had brought up. Eventually it was time to go home and Tony and I were able to discuss things in a little more detail. It had been hard to talk about things the way we wanted to at my in-laws’ house because we both knew that their religious beliefs would dominate our discussion, and their lack of acceptance would obliterate any plausible theories and scenarios we might offer.

  What we discussed most was how we were supposed to confront Sallie when we returned home. Although Tony was being forced to accept the idea of a ghost living and interacting with us in our own home, he didn’t accept it easily or take it well. In fact, he didn’t want any part of it. “You’ll have to be the one to do the talking, because I just can’t,” he said. Then he informed me that a ghost is something that is supposed to be dead, and that the idea of holding a conversation with something that is supposed to be dead was just too weird for him. Thinking that perhaps he would eventually grow accustomed to talking to our ghost, I said “That’s fine.”

  Reprimands

  We got to the house a few minutes later. I was a little nervous and uncomfortable with the idea of doing what needed to be done, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do it right. As we approached the front door, I couldn’t help wondering if the things I would tell Sallie would just piss her off. I certainly didn’t want to send this little ghost off on some crazed binge of retaliation, and who knew what she was capable of in a fit of anger?

  We cautiously opened the front door, peering in to see what, if anything, had moved or taken place during our absence. As we stepped over the threshold, I could feel my heart rate increase tenfold. However, as we looked around, nothing seemed to be amiss. We put the baby, still in his car carrier, on the end of the couch near the front door (the same spot where Tony had been sitting when he got scratched). After taking a minute to figure out how I was going to go about this one-sided conversation, I called out in a controlled voice. “Sallie, we are very angry and need to talk with you, so you better get in here right now.” I hoped I hadn’t been too harsh, but then I remembered something Barbara had said. “She needs to feel loved and know she’s cared about, just like any young child does.” Barbara had also expressed the idea that children need and desire the strong upper hand of a parent.

  A few minutes later, Tony and I looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders, wondering whether she was in the room with us, let alone the house. How would we have known? On the other hand, what if she was in the room, waiting for us to talk to her? If she was, I certainly didn’t want to lose her attention, so I continued with my half-planned lecture. I started out by firmly telling her that what she had done to Tony was bad and we wouldn’t stand for that kind of behavior. I explained that Taylor was our baby, not hers, and she could play with him nicely, but she was not to interfere with what we needed to do for him. I also informed her we were his mommy and daddy, we loved him very much, and we would never do anything to hurt him.

  I kept looking around the room for some sign of her presence, but found none. Usually when a person talks to someone, eye contact is made. I felt really odd not knowing where to look as I continued speaking to her. I also felt strange about reprimanding someone who was probably floating above me or, worse, not there at all. After a short pause, I informed her that the house she lived in was now ours and even though she may have been there first, it was still ours, which meant we were the bosses. “If you want to stay, it’s okay with us, but you will have to follow our rules.” Then I listed the rules she would have to follow: No hurting people, no playing with the pictures on the wall, no waking the baby, and after she played with the toys, she would have to put them back so no one would trip over them and get hurt.

  As I talked, Tony began to notice a few odd things, especially the behavior of our cats. He had been watching them for several minutes and finally caught my eye to get me to notice them, too. Usually they roamed around whatever room we were in, contemplating trouble they could get into or searching for something to play with. However, this time all three of them were sitting on the floor of the dining room about ten feet in front of us. Silence fell as we observed the back and forth movements of their heads. Their movements were perfectly synchronized with each other as they watched something in the air above. They looked as if they were following each volley of the ball in a tennis game. Apparently the cats were watching something we just couldn’t see. Perhaps this meant that Sallie was in the room.

  A few minutes passed, and not wanting to lose my audience of one, I resumed my talk while Tony kept an eye on the curious movements of the cats. He noticed that their attention was now focused on the ceiling fan above us. Again, he gently nudged me and motioned for me to look. From the fan hung two separate balls on separate chains. One ball was brass and controlled the light, and the other was wooden and controlled the fan speed. What had caught Tony’s attention was the fact that the wooden one was steadily swinging in a six-inch circle.

  Tony and I glanced at each other. We had not turned the ceiling fan on when we got home, nor was there a draft from an open window or door because were all closed. On top of that, we had never seen the wooden ball on our fan or on anyone else’s fan swing in that way. We must both have been wondering if the ball on the ceiling fan in the dining room was swinging too, because suddenly we both looked over at it. When we found no movement there, we looked back to the one above our heads.

  Over the next ten minutes, we noticed more strangeness. The little wooden ball would occasionally come to a complete stop—not as if naturally slowing down, but stopping somewhat abruptly. For a couple of seconds, it would remain perfectly motionless. Then, for no apparent reason, it would start swinging again in the opposite direction.

  Watching the ball, I continued to talk to Sallie and, as I did so, noticed a strange coincidence. Each time the ball stopped swinging, the baby would wake up and stare ahead with what seemed to be great concentration. Within seconds, he would fall back to sleep. Looking back at the wooden ball, we would find it swinging once again. It didn’t take us long to conclude the cats—and the baby—had been observing Sallie’s antics.

  Her initial flight above and about the room had entranced the cat’s attention until her efforts were directed to the balls on the ceiling fan and then to the baby. We concluded Sallie was making her presence known. Just like normal children do when you’re trying to talk to them and their attention leaps toward something more interesting. She was moving around. It also seemed as if she was trying to show us she could wake the baby whenever she wanted to.

  I was concluding my talk with Sallie when the phone rang. I informed Sallie that after I answered the phone, we would finish our talk. The caller was Barbara. She talked about how interested she was in what was going on at our house and that she really wanted to be sure her interpretation had been accurate. She asked if she could come to the house. At the time, I didn’t sense that her interest was mercenary; she simply wanted to settle her own mind and confirm what she had said to us. While she continued to talk, I told Tony of her request. Since both of us were at a loss as to how we should deal with our little ghost, we thanked her and extended an invitation.

  She said she would be in Kansas City the next day for a radio interview and asked if the following evening would be a good time for her visit. Without consulting Tony, I agreed. Before hanging up, I asked if I should say anything to Sallie about the visit. She said, “That might be a good idea.”

  Although I was ecstatic about Barbara’s visit, I reminded Sallie of what we had talked about before the phone call. In a much more pleasant ton
e of voice, I told her about my conversation with Barbara, a very special person who was able to see and hear spirits, and that Barbara would be coming for a visit in two days to try and help us get along and be happy.

  While talking, my mind wandered and I realized how nice it would be to have some sort of two-way communication with our little ghost. But how? Perhaps if Sallie liked crayons, she would use them to write to us. Not expecting an answer, I asked, “Hey Sallie, would you like me to leave some crayons and paper for you to draw on? You know, if you drew a picture or wrote something to us, we would be very proud of it, and we would hang it on the refrigerator for everyone to see.” Then, as if I had really gotten a response from her, I said with a great deal of enthusiasm, “Yes, that sounds like a really good idea, doesn’t it?” I could tell by the look on Tony’s face as he watched and listened to me he thought I’d gone nuts. Not wanting any more looks of disapproval, I told Sallie we loved her and we were really happy to have her in our family.

  Later at night, I went upstairs and found some blank yellow paper and a brand new box of crayons. I had put the paper and the crayons on a clipboard and was standing in the nursery with thought that maybe I should write her a note. I picked a red crayon, and on one of the blank sheets of paper wrote, “Hi, Sallie. How old are you?” I placed the crayons and the clipboard on the floor in the northeast corner of the nursery. “Sallie, here are your crayons and paper. Maybe you could draw me a picture.” Then I told her “good night” and left the room.

  We took the film to be developed, anxious to see the images Tony had photographed when George saw the bear spin around. Two days later, I brought them home. Tony and I looked through them and were amazed to find that the camera seemed to have picked up something odd in that particular shot.

  You could barely make out what object was in the center of the viewfinder, because it was very blurred. However, it was blurred only in the center and along the lower edge of the picture; everything on the other outer edges was clear and in perfect focus. Looking at it, it was easy to see that the fuzzy area resembled a person’s head and shoulders. It was as if someone’s unseen or transparent head was very close to the camera when the picture was taken, and consequently that area in the picture was out of focus.

  We tried to come up with logical explanations for the strange photo. My first thought concerned Tony’s unsteadiness when taking pictures. In the past, it had often left us with many blurred photos. However, in this specific instance instead of the whole photo being blurred, only the center was blurry. There wasn’t anything wrong with the camera lens, because the photos before and after showed no anomalies.

  After exhausting all logical possibilities, we decided that the blur must have been Sallie. When Tony spoke the words, “Smile and say cheese,” just before he snapped the shutter, she had been standing right in front of the camera.

  Maybe Sallie enjoyed the attention of having her picture taken. Excited about the possibility of getting a better picture of her, should she pose for us again, I remembered some of the many things I had read about ghosts—in particular, ghost photography. Apparently, they showed up better when infrared or Polaroid film was used. Tony and I racked our brains trying to think of who might have a Polaroid camera that we could borrow for use during Barbara’s visit the next day.

  seven

  The next day was July 28, and I noticed nothing out of the ordinary that morning. Shortly after Tony left for work, George stopped by with a college friend who was quite interested in ghostly subjects. George told me he had spoken to a few people since his last visit and had gotten some vague information about a little boy who’d died in front of the house some time ago. No one he’d talked to had mentioned anything about a little girl.

  His friend asked me about the history of the house and the previous tenants. Although I didn’t have any answers, I mentioned my plan to do some research that afternoon to see what I could find out. He offered to assist and I took him up on the offer. He was familiar with the research facilities at the library and I was not. We agreed to meet after lunch.

  I arrived at the library shortly before 10:00 a.m., thinking I might get a head start on George’s friend, but he was sitting at the large table in the center of the research room and had already pulled out several layers of books, printouts, ledgers, and other reference material. I sat down across from him, surprised by his enthusiasm, and asked, “Okay, where do I start?” He gave me a summary of historical properties called the Kansas Historic Resources Inventory Reconnaissance Form.

  The records had interesting information on many old homes in the area. The legal description of 508 North 2nd Street was referred to as the North 8 1/2’ of lot 9 and all of lot 10 of block 70 in Old Atchison. The house had been purchased by Kate Finney; she’d built a home on that land in 1872. The Finneys were a fairly prominent family who owned several other lots of land within and around block 70, including lots 8 through 12. The records also established that members of the Finney family had occupied the home well into the twentieth century, when it became rental property owned by Dr. C. C. Finney. The property remained in the family until 1946. I was stunned to learn that our house was 127 years old.

  I also tried to acquire reliable information on the property from before the Finney ownership. Eventually I found a record stating that the land had previously been part of a much larger land holding. The owner of the larger tract was Samuel Pomeroy, who bought the land from the Atchison Town County on April 17, 1857. After this transaction, the land moved into the hands of two brothers, Theodore and Thaddeus Hyatt, on April 5, 1859. Within seven years, a feud between the brothers led to a legal event which resulted in the Hyatt partition in 1866.

  Much of the information dating before the Pomeroy ownership was indecipherable, due to the illegible handwriting of the person who recorded the information. Atchison had two floods in 1858 in which many of the historical records had been destroyed. As far as I could make out, the land was at some time owned by a flower company. A person better versed in the legal records time would surely be able to make better sense of what I was trying to decipher.

  The records referenced three generations of Finneys. Michael Cromen Finney married Kate Kathrens, producing James, Charles, and Agnes. James was a single man until at least 1881. In 1899, Kate Finney purchased the land just to the north of our house (Lot 11, and the South 1’ of lot 12). Kate and her children lived in the 508 house until Charles married. Kate gave or sold the land to Charles and he built the house at 510 North 2nd Street in 1905. The third generation of the Finney family also had a Charles H. Finney born to Charles C. Finney and Louise Marie Zibold Finney, and he also became a doctor. Charles C. Finney eventually owned and/or controlled all the family property well into the late 1940s. Through more research, we learned that in March of 1946, Charles C. Finney deeded lots 9 and 10 to his son Charles H. Finney for “one dollar and other considerations.”

  The Record of Historical Properties mentioned that Agnes Finney True (the daughter of Michael and Kate Finney) and a Catherine Boyes (or Bayes) and Joanna Barnes were involved in the land transactions concerning the Finney lots 9 and 10. There were no clear records to show how Catherine and Joanna fit into the family at the time.

  When I continued my research on the deeds several months later, I noticed many conflicting records. The property changed hands several times until 1958, when it was mortgaged to Billie Joan Butler and Ethel Anderson, both single women, and remained so until 1991. In November 1992, just over a month before we moved in, the house was sold to Les Smith.

  Having already tied a variety of names to the house, my next objective was to see if any girl child bearing one of those last names had ever died while residing in the house. However, with all the ambiguous records I thought that maybe there were other names that I should consider.

  Weeks later, I was researching telephone directory publications preserved by the local libra
ry from the beginning of the town’s phone service. Instead of searching the directory for a particular name, I had to scan each page for the 508 North 2nd Street address and then note the family name listed with it. Working page by page through eighty-seven directories was very meticulous work. Although there were a few books missing, compiling the results did support my theory that the property was used as a rental.

  With my list of names from the deeds and phone records, I headed to the four binders of computer-generated cemetery records. I was relieved that the listings were alphabetically listed by last name. Even though the information wasn’t always complete, it made available information such as the full name of the person who had died, what cemetery they were buried in, their gender, the years in which the person lived, the date they died, and sometimes how old the person was at death as well as the cause of death.

  I was sure that the information we had gathered, along with the cemetery records, would pay off and we would find the child who was haunting our house. I was looking for a girl between the ages of four and seventeen. As I flipped through the pages, however, I was disheartened. A majority of the listings of young children were boys, and none of the children had a last name that corresponded to anything on my list. This suggested that no child had died in the house.

  All I could think was that we couldn’t stop here. There had to be something of significance I was missing. Feeling empty-handed, I again enlisted the help of a friend and we began searching newspaper articles and obituaries, as well as church records of births and deaths. Not only were the older records handwritten and worn, but church records, possibly the most informative records available, were in Latin. We looked at microfilm and photos, and pulled even more books and files from their shelves. Eventually we broadened our parameters to include young females with a date of death between the late 1800s and the mid to late 1900s.