Haunted Holidays

by Roberta Simpson Brown

  “My sister thought that maybe her neighbor had simply forgotten to call, but that didn’t seem likely. It was Columbus Day, though, and the neighbor wasn’t used to my sister’s being home before she was.

  “When my sister hung up the phone, she looked out the window to see if she could see her neighbor. She was surprised to see an older lady at the neighbor’s window beckoning to her. If she hadn’t known the mother was dead, she would have thought it was the old lady. Who could it be?

  “My sister quickly ran to her neighbor’s house. The door was open, so she cautiously went inside.

  “She looked around the room and noticed something first thing that unnerved her very much.

  “The brown paper bag filled with groceries sat on the kitchen table. It was still upright, but the celery had fallen out. The melting ice cream had turned the paper dark brown as it soaked through the bag. It had run down the back of the chair, dripped off, and mingled with the pool of blood on the floor. Then she saw her neighbor by the blood pool, unconscious and barely breathing.

  “My sister was shocked at the sight and then immediately afraid that the intruder might still be in the house. She stood perfectly still, but there was no other sound or movement that she could hear.

  “Still, she knew she had to get help for her friend right away, so she dialed for help from the phone in the kitchen.

  “While she waited, my sister kept listening for any sounds in the rest of the house. There weren’t any. The intruder must have grabbed her neighbor’s purse and run off. Maybe her phone call had scared him off. Maybe the old woman had scared him off. Whatever the reason, my sister was certainly thankful he was gone.

  “In the commotion that followed, my sister forgot about the reason she went over to her neighbor’s house to check on her. She rode to the hospital with her neighbor and stayed there until the doctor came out and said she would be all right.

  “When her neighbor had recovered and come home, the two were talking about that afternoon. The neighbor asked why my sister had come over.

  “My sister said, ‘I saw an older lady motioning to me from your window. It looked just like your mother! I guess it was her ghost, because no old woman was there when I arrived.’

  “The neighbor laughed and said, ‘You and Columbus have something in common. He wasn’t the first to discover America and you weren’t the first to discover me! You both had help from other people.’

  “My sister said, ‘Other people? What do you mean?’

  “The neighbor said, ‘You just told me yourself. You said an older lady motioned for you to come over. Obviously, my mother’s ghost found me first.’

  “It made them both feel a little spooky, but they were glad to know that the dear old lady was still around.”

  Halloween

  Halloween is celebrated on October 31, but it did not become a holiday in the United States until the nineteenth century. The traditions of the Puritans still lingered, and this restricted the observance of many holidays, including Halloween.

  Then nearly two million Irish immigrated to the United States after the Irish Potato Famine (1845–1849). They brought with them their heritage of Irish legends and Halloween. Scottish immigrants to Canada and the United States brought their own version of Halloween.

  Many celebrated the holiday with home parties centered on children’s activities, but outside pranks and mischief became common as well.

  Children began going door-to-door receiving treats (thus reducing tricks), and what became known as “trick-or-treating” had become a widespread custom by the 1950s. Manufacturers began producing masks, costumes, and yard decorations such as jack-o’-lanterns, scarecrows, witches, foam tombstones, and lots of other scary-looking things.

  Halloween is now the second most popular holiday (after Christmas) for decorating in the United States.

  In many places, trick-or-treaters are welcomed by lit porch lights and jack-o’-lanterns. If the porch light is off, it is a signal for the trick-or-treaters not to stop at that house. Because some people choose to harm trick-or-treaters, it is now becoming a trend to have trick-or-treating confined to set hours and supervised events at malls, firehouses, or other safe places.

  Some people do not recognize Halloween for religious reasons, and some object to the commercialism now connected with the holiday, but most people celebrate Halloween as a time for fun.

  Halloween is the perfect time to share scary stories like the following.

  Graveyard Pumpkins

  We were always cautioned not to take dirt from graveyards because it would bring bad luck. We never challenged this warning, so we had no way of knowing if bad luck really would result. We did hear of one story so strange that it was hard to believe, but those in the area close to the Smith Woods in Adair County swore it really happened.

  Lonnie tells this story about a graveyard near the Smith Woods.

  When I was a boy, Mom and Dad moved our family to the edge of the Smith Woods, where an old graveyard had a boundary in common with a field about a half-mile or so down the road from our house.

  There were all sorts of tales told about those woods. Babies were heard crying near a branch, but a search would turn up no evidence of anyone being there. Some said spirits lived in the trees and that they would wail when a storm was coming or when men brought saws to cut them down. It was also believed that one should “knock on wood” (the trunks or limbs) when passing the trees so they would know you were friendly and meant them no harm. Being in the tree’s good graces meant that no bad luck would come to the knocker.

  Inside the woods were open patches and the remains of an old dirt road that had been worn down to leave banks on each side. Huge, mouthwatering dewberries grew on vines along these banks, and one could stand in the road and pick the berries.

  My mother and her sisters were picking berries there one day when they heard horses and a wagon approaching. They could even hear the harness jangling and the horses snorting. They climbed the bank and waited for them to pass, but nothing ever appeared. There were many reports of mysterious sounds of riders in the woods, too, but nothing was ever seen.

  The Sinclair family owned the house and the field that joined the old cemetery near us. They had two children, and we quickly became friends.

  As Halloween drew near, we began to make plans on how we would celebrate. When we asked where we could buy some pumpkins for jack-o’-lanterns, the Sinclair children looked faintly disturbed and said we would have to buy them in town. In fact, they said they had not had any jack-o’-lanterns for several years. Curious about why they didn’t, we urged them to tell us the reason.

  Finally, the Sinclair boy told us. Several years ago, when they were about six and seven, their father had some pumpkins growing in the back of their field, and he told the children to go gather two pumpkins for their jack-o’-lanterns.

  When they got to the back of the field, they could see that a pumpkin vine had grown over the boundary into the graveyard. That vine had pumpkins that looked bigger and were a brighter orange than the pumpkins in their field, so the children stepped into the graveyard, picked two big pumpkins, and took them home. They had been told not to take things growing in the graveyard, but this vine was growing from their field and the pumpkins were just sitting on the graveyard dirt—not growing from it.

  The children said nothing to their parents about where they had gotten the pumpkins. They cleaned out the insides of their pumpkins and carved smiling faces on them. Then they placed them on the porch and left to go trick-or-treating.

  When they returned, they were shocked and frightened by what they saw. The faces on their jack-o’-lanterns had changed! They were now wearing expressions of pain instead of happiness. The children looked closer, but they couldn’t figure out how the original carvings could have been altered or who would have done it. If it hadn’t been a prankster, then it had to have been a spirit!

  “Did you get these pumpkins from our field like I told you?�
�� asked Mr. Sinclair.

  His look was stern, and they knew they couldn’t get away with lying to him. They confessed that they had gotten them from the graveyard.

  Without a word, he took the two jack-o’-lanterns to the back of the field and smashed them on the graveyard vine.

  When he got back to the house, he ordered the children to go to their rooms without their treats.

  “Mark my words,” he said when they objected. “There will be consequences worse than this.”

  A week passed, and the consequences came. Grandma and Grandpa Sinclair came down with the flu. The local doctor treated them, but he couldn’t save them. When the Sinclair children saw their grandparents just before the old folks died, they noticed that both had expressions of pain on their faces just like the faces on the pumpkins.

  When we heard that story, we understood why the Sinclair children had not wanted any jack-o’-lanterns on Halloween.

  Halloween Hut

  Noel, a school friend of ours, lived with his family near Paducah many years ago when he was a boy. He told us a story of a very memorable Halloween he spent there.

  There were only two other boys who lived near him. Since they went to the same school, they became friends. They didn’t have much to do for fun out in the country, so they were wondering how to celebrate Halloween.

  The kids who lived in town talked about the parties they were having and the costumes they were wearing to go door-to-door trick-or-treating. There were only a few houses in the country, so Noel and his friends didn’t think it would be very profitable to go door-to-door there.

  “Why don’t we dress up and go to town to trick-or-treat?” suggested Noel.

  His two friends agreed, and the three started planning their costumes. They decided the easiest thing would be to go as cowboys, so they got their costumes ready before checking with their parents.

  Noel’s parents were not sure that it would be a good idea to go into town on this particular Halloween night. Dark clouds crept in unnoticed until a rumble of thunder called attention to the large bank that had formed.

  “Son,” said Noel’s father, “I think it is going to be raining in a couple of hours. I don’t want you caught out in a storm.”

  “I’ve made some cookies,” said Noel’s mother. “You boys could stay here and play games.”

  “We could do that after we go trick-or-treating,” said Noel. “They give out lots of candy in town. Couldn’t you drop us off, Dad? We could get our treats and have time to walk home.”

  Reluctantly, Noel’s father drove them to town.

  “Do you want me to come back and get you in an hour?” he asked.

  “No!” all the boys answered.

  “Okay,” he said, “but keep an eye on the clouds.”

  Even as Noel’s father said this, the boys were already off, hurrying down the street to ring doorbells. Clouds were not on their minds. Wherever they went, they got lots of candy and chewing gum.

  They were at the end of the last street when they heard it.

  KABOOM!

  The thunder rattled windows in houses and scared the boys into heading home as fast as they could go. A wind had picked up, and leaves swirled around them as they ran.

  “We’re never going to make it,” said Noel.

  “Let’s take the shortcut through the woods,” said one of the boys, leading the other two off the road through the trees. “There used to be an old hut in here. Maybe we can find shelter.”

  Breathless from running, they broke into a clearing and saw the old hut in the middle. It looked deserted and dilapidated; but as they approached, the door opened and an old man motioned them inside.

  “This is going to be a bad storm, boys. You’ll be safe here,” he said.

  The boys and the old man did not try to carry on a conversation because the storm was too loud for them to hear each other. Lightning bolts struck trees nearby, and hail the size of golf balls hit the ground around the hut. The rain sounded like a tap dancer on the roof. The boys thought the storm was going to last forever!

  Finally, the rain let up and the clouds moved on. The boys thanked the old man and left. He only smiled and nodded.

  As the boys reached the road, they met Noel’s father and the fathers of the other two boys, who were out looking for them.

  “Where have you been?” Noel’s father asked. “We drove through town and all along the road, but we couldn’t find you!”

  “We took the shortcut and found shelter with the old man in the hut in the woods,” Noel explained.

  “That’s impossible,” said one of the fathers. “The old man was killed in a storm a couple of years ago. That old hut has been locked up ever since!”

  The boys were adamant about what they saw. The fathers decided to show them they were wrong, so they all went to the hut in the woods.

  When they reached the door, the boys couldn’t believe what they were seeing. A padlock and cobwebs were on the door. It was obvious that nobody had been inside.

  The boys insisted that the old man had opened the door and let them in.

  “Maybe you’re right after all,” said Noel’s father. “Look at the ground.”

  They all looked and were amazed by what they saw. Three sets of footprints made by the boys clearly led away from the door!

  Did the old man come back from the other side to save the boys from the kind of death he had? They didn’t know. They only knew that they all saw the old man and that they would never forget him.

  The Star Theater

  Almost every Halloween, we go back to our hometown, Russell Springs, Kentucky, to join our friends, author Irene Black and her husband, Ford Nash, to do a Halloween show (The Ghosts of Russell County), with all the proceeds collected from the event going to the public library. The event is held at the Star Theater at 546 Main Street in Russell Springs. Every year, there is a wonderful turnout to support the library.

  Construction started on the Star Theater on May 2, 1949, by a Mr. A. V. Lutrell. It opened on February 28, 1950, with the movie Mrs. Mike, staring Dick Powell and Evelyn Keyes. Roberta’s class attended that first movie as a field trip, and she still remembers how excited she was to get home and tell her family how much she loved it. The theater had a special place in Roberta’s heart from the very first day.

  The Star Theater thrilled audiences for three decades. The two of us and our friends loved the Saturday afternoon serials (mostly westerns), which always ended in cliffhangers that lured us back the next Saturday to see what happened.

  Once the theater was showing a comedy that Roberta wanted to see. Our neighbor had a car, so he made several trips to take carloads of us to town. He’d let one load out and then go back for another.

  Considering all the feelings associated with the Star Theater, it is little wonder that it is haunted.

  After the theater closed in the 1970s, the building was used as furniture stores, clothing stores, and even a restaurant and disco, but none of these businesses stayed very long. Many people just came and went.

  Then, in the early 1990s, the Star Theater was renovated and was reopened in July 1994 by the Russell County Arts Council. Since then, hundreds of shows have been staged there very successfully.

  More than one person has reported seeing the ghosts of one of three different people who cared deeply for the theater before they died.

  Two of our personal acquaintances, both totally sane and levelheaded, have seen the ghost of a young man. In one account, the apparition was seen on stage and out in the lobby. In another, he floated just above the floor in front of the curtains before the show started. It does not surprise us at all that anyone who was connected to the theater in any way might want to come back after death to visit the old theater over and over again.

  The first year we did our Halloween program there, our friend let us in and then went back to get some things from the car. We heard a noise from the projection booth area and thought someone was up there looking at us. Wh
en we looked up, we saw nothing, but we still felt like we were being watched. At the time, we assumed that someone else with a key had come inside to set up something for the program.

  Now, when we go in early on Halloween to set up, we still have the distinct feeling of being watched, even though we know nobody else is there.

  On May 17, 2014, we went to the Star Theater with our friends, Sharon Brown (a ghost hunter) and Irene Black and Ford Nash (authors of books of “haints” and mystery). With them, we encountered some paranormal activity in the aisle on the left side of the theater. A rehearsal was in progress on the stage, so we assumed that some ghostly presence was there, enjoying the performance.

  Unknown Visitor

  Lonnie tells this story about something that happened one Halloween when he was a boy.

  A neighbor of ours, old man Edwards, had a cabin way back in the Smith Woods. He didn’t come out often, but now and then he would stop by our house when he was on his way to pick up some supplies.

  One day, shortly after Halloween, he arrived at our house one morning right after we had finished breakfast.

  “I’d like to start a project right away,” he said. “I want to finish it before bad weather sets in.”

  “Oh?” said Dad.

  “I need your help, Mr. Brown,” he said, “if you can spare the time.”

  “What do you need, Mr. Edwards?” Dad asked.

  “I need you to haul some logs I’ve cut,” he explained, “and I need you to help me build another wall around my cabin.”

  That sounded a bit odd to Dad. He had seen the old man’s cabin, and it seemed quite solid. Dad never turned down extra work, though.

  “I have time to help you out,” Dad told him. “When do you want me to start?”

  “Like I said, I’d like to start right away,” he said. “I want the work finished before cold weather sets in. Something happened Halloween night that made me realize this needs to be done.”