Apparently,
some of the former occupants of our house loved it here so much, that
they never left. Even after death. When Yvonne and I first looked
at the house, we asked if there were any ghosts. The answer we got
was "yes". This just made us want the house even
more. We put in our offer on the house and the offer was
accepted. Over the next few weeks, prior to the closing, we would
talk to the owners who (after a few beers) confirmed that the house was
indeed haunted. We were told some very interesting tales. As
the closing grew closer, Yvonne and I began to get a little nervous
about the whole idea of ghosts, but we absolutely loved this house and
we weren't going to let it get us down. Soon, the closing came and went
and we moved into our new home. Keep in mind that we moved from a
small two bedroom townhouse into this huge seven bedroom Victorian
house. That alone was a little intimidating. We had no real
furniture, so the house had a bit of an echo to it. The first
spectral experience happened on the second night that we here...
April
2001 - It was sometime in the middle of the night, probably around
2:30 a.m. or so when I woke up and went to the bathroom. During
the day we had been moving boxes around. There was a pile of
boxes in the hall next to the third floor staircase. Among the
items waiting to go to the attic was an old Springfield rifle from the
Civil War. ( I own a number of artifacts from two of my Great,
Great Grandfathers who fought in the war) While I was walking
back, I was suddenly startled by a very heavy and loud SLAM! sound
at my feet. With my heart pounding, I made my way over to the light
switch and turned it on. The rifle which had been leaning
against the far wall, had somehow been thrown a distance of about 7 -
8 feet. For the record, this scared the bejesus out of me.
Granted, I was already a little bit on edge from the stories I had
already heard. So, I decided to take the logical approach.
I'm thinking, I must have stepped on a loose floorboard or something like that, that
caused this to happen. So, I put the gun back where it was and
proceeded to dance around the hall in search of the loose
floorboard. When I realized that there was no logical
explanation for this, I became really freaked out. I didn't want
to wake up Yvonne, because there was no sense in scaring her too, so I
went down to the kitchen, sat down and attempted to reason with Mr. or
Mrs. Ghosty. I won't get into the details of what I said, but there
hasn't been any more scary incidents in the middle of the night.
I believe we have an understanding. By the way, I was skeptical
about the existence of ghosts prior to that night. My views on
the subject have since changed. - Craig Schaible -
April
2001- My first encounter was in the kitchen. I usually
listen to dance music but, every once in a while I put on WSOU because
I used to be a heavy metal chic. I don’t mean Bon Jovi; I’m
talking ”Kill your mother, Satan music”. Ok so I’m bangin’ my
head, and I hear a voice telling me to “turn it down!” or “turn
off the radio!” Craig was in the basement, so it wasn’t him, and
we were the only people in the house... I’m not sure who it was, all
I know is that I quickly changed that station. - Yvonne
Schaible -
May
2001 -My
second encounter happened on a bright sunny afternoon, while on the
phone with my sister Jessica. I was sitting on the couch in the Living
Room just chatting away when I clearly saw a large figure of a
man walk past the room! He was about 6’1” tall. He walked from the
Dinning Room toward the front doors and then was gone. I said to my
sister “I just saw the ghost”. But then played it off to nothing,
I didn’t want to scare her away from visiting. - Yvonne Schaible
-
June
2001 - It was a bright, sunny afternoon in the early part of
June. I just returned home from work. I went out and got
the mail and made my way upstairs to the second floor where my office
is. I was walking standing at the bottom of the staircase
leading to the third floor. The sun was brightly shining through
the window at the top of the stairs, lighting up the hall were I was
casually sorting through the mail. The sun shines directly onto
the hallway floor during that time of the afternoon. I didn't
notice it until it moved. When I looked at the floor, there was
the silhouette of a man standing in the window. The instant that
I noticed it, the man turned to his left and walked into the third
floor bedroom. I instantly spun around to see but there was
nobody at the window. I immediately ran up the stairs and into
the bedroom but it was empty. I was so excited! I yelled
"that is soooo coool! I immediately called Yvonne and told
her what I had just seen. The thing that makes this encounter
rather significant is the fact that the shadow was so clearly defined
and it was right in front of me, not in my peripheral vision. If
I had to venture a guess, my impression was that it was a man between
six feet and six feet two inches tall. One thing is for sure, he
didn't weigh very much as none of the creaky floor boards made a sound
as he walked by. -
Craig Schaible -
October
2001 -We bought a new kitten and one of my Beagles wants
to eat her. We have been keeping the kitten upstairs. So,
we decided to try to introduce them. I bought a soft padded
muzzle for the dog to keep her from biting the kitten. I figured
that she could smell the kitten and maybe see that she wasn't prey.
Anyway, the muzzle attaches behind the dog's neck with a plastic clasp
that requires two hands to release. Anyway, needles to say, the
dog wasn't too thrilled with the muzzle, but it was only for a few
minutes. She tried really hard to get it off, with no success.
We introduced the kitten and the dog still was going nuts. So
after a few minutes of that we called it quits. Yvonne went into
the kitchen and I brought the kitten back upstairs to safety.
Yvonne while in the kitchen saw (what she
thought was me) a man walk into the reception hall. A few
seconds later, she walked into the hall just as I started to come down
the main staircase to take the muzzle off the dog. She was
startled to see me upstairs after thinking I was in the hall.
Then we both looked at the dog. The dog was no longer wearing
the muzzle. Upon closer inspection of the muzzle, we noticed
that the clasp had been intentionally released. We both agree
that there is no physical way that the dog could have opened the clasp
on her own. I had double checked it to be sure that it was
secure for fear she would eat the kitten. So who was the man in
the hall? Who ever he was, I guess he likes dogs... Craig
Schaible
November 2001 -Some time in the middle of the night, I
woke up to get something to eat. (not an uncommon occurrence for
me) I quietly slipped out of our room as not to disturb Yvonne who was
sleeping and I closed the bedroom door. I always close the door
even if I'm just going across the hall for a second, otherwise we will
have a few cats in bed with us. Anyway, I finished my snack and
made my way back upstairs (using the Servant's staircase) The hall was
dark but I heard Yvonne coming out of the bathroom and could just make
out her image crossing the hall going back to the front bedroom where
we presently sleep. She left the door open for me as I was only
five or six steps behind her. As I walked into the bedroom, I
expected to see her climbing back into bed, but rather she was lying
EXACTLY where I had left her when I got up, and she was sound asleep.
I didn't get it at first. I was absolutely perplexed! Then,
I understood... what I had just seen wasn't Yvonne at all, but rather
someone else who walked across the hall, opened the bedroom door and
vanished into the night. I thought about waking Yvonne up to
tell her about it, but instead I just went back to bed...Craig
Schaible
April 2002 -
Mywife was in Arizona visiting her Sister who had just had a
baby. I was alone in the house for a week. I had been
doing alot of restoration work on the house and the quiet was nice
because I was really able to lose myself in what I was working on.
Anyway, I had a late dinner in the Living Room. When I finished,
I shut off the television and made my way to the basement to do some
painting. The area of the basement where I was painting is right
below the Living Room. I was down there for 20 minutes or so
when I heard a very deep, authorative voice kinda yell something.
"Bla bla...bla, bla bla..." (keep in mind it didn't
actually say "Bla Bla Bla", I just have no other way of writing words
that I couldn't make out...) When I heard it my thinking was it
was the T.V. Then, "BLA BLA BLA...BLA Bla bla" That is when it
dawned on me that I had shut off the T.V. Now, I am looking up
at the ceiling of the basement, where the voice came from upstairs and
it happened a last time "Bla Bla BLA BLA BLA... bla bla Bla"
Obviously I could not make out what it was saying through the floor.
All three times it was a deep man's voice, almost like he was barking
out orders, firm, but not mean. Kinda like an adult would say
"Hey you kids, stop doing that" . It's kinda hard to describe,
but all three times the voice started out faint, got louder, then
faded out. Almost like someone trying to yell something out to
you from a moving car. I stopped what I was painting for a moment and
walked upstairs. The Living room was dark, the T.V. off and the
dogs were just sitting there. I finished my painting and went to
bed. This was one experience that I can honestly say there is no
explanation for. It was very real and very clearly coming from
inside my Living Room. All I know is he was yelling at someone,
but it wasn't me...Craig Schaible
November 2002 - I was home
alone, it was around 5:30 p.m. and I had just arrived home from work.
We are in the process of having the wallpaper hung un the Parlor and I
was anxious to see the progress of the day's labor. It looks
amazing! The room is finally coming together. I walked
around the room for the better part of 10 minutes and decided to head
upstairs to change clothes. I stepped into the hall and there
was a woman at the other end of the hall in the doorway to the Dining
Room. This was a little different than other times as she was
more "ghost-like" as I could see the dining room table right through
her. I no sooner saw her and she faded away. the incident
was very Hollywood in nature, almost like the way I always thought it
would be like to see a ghost. It wasn't scary at all, it had a
peaceful feel to it. I know that sounds a bit nuts, but you had
to be there to understand. Craig Schaible
April 2004 - It was well
after midnight when I woke up to go use the bathroom. As I
opened the bathroom door (on my way back to bed) I looked down at my
cat who was lying on the floor in the hall. I immediately
noticed a very strange look on his face. I walked out of the
bathroom and directly INTO a bluish whitish ghost-like thing, which
needless to say startled me. I know I said something out loud,
exactly what, I don't remember. I went back to the bedroom and
turned the lights on. I woke up my husband and told him what had
just happened in the hallway. He reassured me by asking:
"Did it try to hurt you?" My reply, "No." "Did they ever try to
hurt us?" My reply, "No." "Were you just startled by it?" My reply,
"yes." Feeling a little better, I cuddled up next to my husband
and went back to sleep. But that is not the end of the story.
Sometime around 5:00 in the morning I awoke to a woman standing at the
foot of my bed, holding onto the bedpost. She was staring right
at me! I immediately grabbed my husband and loudly said "There
is someone standing at the foot of our bed!" My husband did not
want to open his eyes right away, but when he did, she was gone.
She had been much different than what I had seen in the hall hours
earlier. She was just a regular person, in the flesh (so to
speak). She was quite matronly with dark brown hair that was
pulled back away from her face. She was wearing dark rimmed
glasses and was wearing a very plain dark dress. Yvonne
Schaible
So, the stories stop in 2004...what
gives???
First, I have to give my own personal
disclaimer. The fact is that there are plenty of things that are
unexplainable. Before I moved here, I did not believe in any
sort of spirits or ghosts or any of that sort of thing. As of
today I have a much more open mind as I simply cannot explain away my
experiences. After doing a great deal of research, I pieced
together a lot of history and some of it correlates to the paranormal
activity in the house. The following is my theory based
on what I found out.
In 1890 the house was purchased by the
Reilly Family. My Reilly was an executive for the Lipton Tea
company and was known travel abroad quite frequently. We know
that the Reilly's had at least two children. A boy and a girl.
The boy was born sometime during the 1890's and the girl: Elaine
Reilly was born in May of 1900. Records show that all of the
Reilly's died leaving little Elaine the sole survivor and heir to the
family's two homes at the tender age of ten. She spent the
remainder of her childhood in an orphanage in Brooklyn NY.
Inheritance law was quite different
back then as opposed to today. There were no such things as
Guardians in the event a minor inherited property and money.
They just couldn't sell it or spend it. So the house sat empty
for the next eleven years until it was sold off. Back to my
paranormal theory. This ten year old girl witnessed the death,
probably by disease, (as there is no police records of any foul play
at that time) of her parents and brother. At least the first one
or two were probably laid out in Victorian style in the parlor.
She watched her whole life just slip away in this house. We know
that she never married and was known as a bit of a recluse in her old
age, wearing black clothing, most of it mens. She passed away in
1980 at the age of 80.
After learning all of that, I started
looking at the dates of the paranormal activity. It started
right around the time that she passed away. I had collected
those dates much earlier than ever learning about Elaine Reilly and
her life and subsequent death. My feeling is that her spirit may
have returned to the place of all her childhood trauma. Looking
for God knows what. What was even stranger was that it was in
Spring 2004 that I found all the information about her and completed
the pieces of her life story, and that is when the apparition of the
woman appeared in our bedroom. The next day all paranormal
activity in the house ceased, never to return. Maybe she just
needed someone to hear her story, before she could be at peace.
Again, just a theory, but it made lots
of sense to me, and that is what I believe may have happened.
Here
are some stories from the former owners of the house. Maybe were not
so nuts after all?
October 1980:"I
was in sixth grade. I ran home from school and was the first
to get home. Normally, my mom was home when we got there, but
this day she wasn't. I decided to call my neighbor to see if
they knew where my mom was. I was sitting in the Dining Room
looking down the center hall. As I was on the phone with my
neighbor, I watched my bike roll across the floor from the Living
Room into the Den. I started screaming! My neighbor sent
her son over to come and get me, because I couldn't move, and I was
screaming into the phone". - Bridget Jaramillo -
December 24,
1980: "My parents were invited to a Christmas Eve
party. My cousin was visiting us for the holiday, and
he decided that he wanted to work out. We knew that we
had some "free weights" in our storage room in the
attic. My two brothers, my cousin, and I went up to the
attic (about 10:00 PM) to see if we could find the
weights. While we were all looking, it was very
quiet. All of a sudden, we heard a woman
singing "The First Noel", and it was coming from
the same room that we were standing in. While she had a
beautiful voice, she sang it in a scary way....kind of like
Marilyn Monroe singing "Happy Birthday" to
President Kennedy. We all freaked out and
ran downstairs. My cousin thought maybe there were
Christmas Carolers in the area and that somehow their voices
echoed in through the windows of the attic. We ran
downstairs and outside, and there was nobody around. I
will NEVER forget that as long as I live"!!! -
Bridget Jaramillo -
June 1985:
"My boyfriend (now husband) was over my house with
his friend. We were hanging outside in the backyard having a
barbecue. It was about 7:00 PM or so. I went inside to
get us all drinks and to start washing the dishes.
I turned around and glanced out the kitchen window facing Watson
Road. As I looked, I saw Nelson and his friend jump over the
bushes, run down the hill, and get in their cars and leave.
Later on, Nelson called me to tell me what happened. While
they were outside, they heard me calling to them. They said
I kept yelling "Nelson, come here, I need you for a
second." The voice was coming from down in the
basement. They went through the outside entrance into the
basement (off the back yard). The voice got louder as
they got into the basement. They got to the middle of the
basement, and then the voice just started
laughing. Nelson said it sounded exactly like me, only
I wasn't there. The voice was actually whispering in his
ear, as if someone was standing right next to him, except nobody
was there. They ran out of there as fast as they
could! The ghost really liked to mess with Nelson. I'm
surprised he ever came back again"!!! - Bridget
Jaramillo -
November
1985: "Nelson and I rented the movie "The Evil
Dead". He was working a late shift at Mobil. He
didn't get out of work until midnight. He and his friend
came over so we could watch the movie. Since it was so
late, we had all the doors to the Living Room closed. When
it got to the part in the movie where the camera went to the
basement, things started happening. The single door in the
Living Room used to stick because there was carpeting in
the room and the door was too big. The door started
shaking, as if someone was trying to come in. We thought
it was one of my brothers or sisters trying to scare us.
Nelson and his friend decided to go through the double doors and
into the hall to scare whoever was out there. When they
got there...nobody was there but the door was still
shaking. They came back and sat down next to me. All
of a sudden, a blue light came shining through the top of the
door, and the door swung open. We were petrified! We
finally ran out the double doors and left. I called my mom
to tell her I was spending the night at Nelson's house.
She then told me that she watched the movie earlier with my
brothers and sisters. When it got to the part where they
went into the basement, the lights flicked on and off and boiler
made a terrible "explosion-like" noise. They
ended up not watching the end of the movie. I guess the
ghost didn't like that movie!!!" - Bridget Jaramillo -
Summer
of 1988: Kandice was 4 years old. Her and Nelson were the
only ones home at the time. It was just before sunset.
Nelson was downstairs making them something to eat while
Kandice was playing upstairs (left at the staircase, front
room facing Watson and Martine). There was no light switch in
those days. There was a pull-down string light that a 5 foot
person would have to reach up to shut off (trust me on
that...all 5'2'' of me). Anyway, the door was slightly ajar
(less than a foot open), and the light was on. Nelson came
upstairs to tell Kandice the food was ready. Before he got to
the room, he heard her talking to someone. He just
assumed she was playing with an "imaginary" friend. As he
approached the door, Kandice ran out and started to close the
door behind her...simultaneously, the light went off. Nelson
asked Kandice who she was talking to, and she said "the old
man". Then Nelson said "how did you turn off the light?"
Kandice said "the old man did it". Nelson opened the door and
stepped into the room. He looked up and saw the light string
still swinging. He turned on the light to make sure it didn't
blow out. He then put Kandice on the bed to see if there was
anyway that she could have jumped off the bed and turn off the
light. There was NO WAY!!! Nelson then picked Kandice up,
and they spent the rest of the night downstairs!!! Kandice
(as well as the other kids) had many conversations with
the "imaginary" beings in the house! - Bridget Jaramillo -
September
1992: "My sister Kerri was AWAY at college Freshman
year when she had a dream about my grandmother coming to
her and
showing her everyone sleeping. It was kind of like
when the "ghosts" from A Christmas Carol showed
Scrooge scenes with his family. She called my mom the next
day, and my mom told my sister that she had the same
dream. A few months later, my dad was out of town on
business, and my sister couldn't sleep. She was
visiting for the weekend. She went into my mom's room
(about 2 AM), and while they were sitting on the bed, they saw
something...it ended up that they both saw a white figure
floating from the mirror and into the dresser. It was
pretty scary!" - Bridget Jaramillo -
