Ghosts As Houseguests Ghosts are often described as acting like a ghostly houseguests, engaging in activities intended only to remind the workers or residents of their presence. Both interviewees at the Andrew Johnston House, as well as the interviewee at the Grove, described the ghosts in this manner. Below are the stories they shared. One interviewee at the Andrew Johnston House, Mrs. Rowlette, gave an example of that type of activity telling of an instance when a ghost opened a window in one of the bedrooms in the house. So, we [Mrs. Rowlette and Mrs. Tate] went up to the bedroom. … Rachel [Tate] looked up and said, “No wonder they’re fussing about the heat.” She said, “Somebody’s come in here overnight and pulled the window down.”. . . I said, “You didn’t do that?” She said, “No I didn’t do that,” and she is very religious. And I said, “ Do you believe in ghosts?” and she said, “Oh yeah. Do you?” and I said, “Yes, I do.” In addition, at the Andrew Johnston House, Mrs. Tate told of the time a ghost walked into the house and ran the vacuum downstairs when she was vacuuming upstairs. I was vacuuming upstairs and I heard somebody run the vacuum down here. I come down and I thought it was Barbara [Rowlette]. I come down and it was nobody, nobody at all. And so I went back and started working again and it wasn’t any time before I heard the door slam – like someone had walked in. I hollered again and said, “Barbara is that you?” But nobody was there. Mrs. Rowlette remembered a time during the first year the museum was open, around Christmastime, when she and other volunteers and employees were working late in the house and heard noises. I would come at Christmas and help decorate and I would be in there until late at night with a couple people that I know and we would hear all these little noises and we would just look at each other. The same interviewee remembered a time when Habitat for Humanity workers from Winston-Salem, who were working in the area, wanted to tour the house. About 25 people came through with that group, including a chaperone who was a priest. She said, So, we get upstairs and I was standing there and telling them about the little room and the beds and the quilts and the rocking chair was, I guess, maybe four feet from me. I couldn’t just reach and touch it and there was no one closer to the rocking chair than me. And one of the girls in the group said, “Mrs. Rowlette, Mrs. Rowlette, look at the rocking chair!” And it was just rocking behind me. I walked over to stop it and I said, “It’s ok,” and I just finished up. And the priest looked at me and said, “Does this happen often?” And I said, “Well not this exactly, but we have some things happen”. And he just smiled at me and said, “Well, it really did happen.” Both interviewees at the Andrew Johnston House, recalled the ghost appearing and believed the ghost resembled the doctor who lived in the house and worked in the office during the time of the Civil War. Mrs. Rowlette told of the time when the doctor appeared to her in the gift shop. And I did have a vision of the doctor. . . . It was the end of January. . . . We [Mrs. Rowlette, Mrs. Tate, and Mrs. Tate’s husband who works as the groundskeeper for the museum] all work during January so we go downstairs to get a cup of coffee at the end of the day. I was the first one up the steps and I saw this man standing in front of one of the display cases with a long jacket on and he had his arms behind his back and he was just standing there looking. I turned around and looked and Rachel [Tate] and Ray [Tate] and I said, “How did he get in here without us hearing because of the security?” I stepped about four steps back and I said, “Can I help you?” and he just disappeared. Mrs. Tate stated that she saw the same ghost. A while back, I was down cleaning the windows on the research [building]. And somebody walked by me with a long tailcoat on. And I turned and looked and it was nobody. But he had a long black coat on so I had to run and tell Barbara. And I said, “Barbara look at this! Didn’t you see it?” “No,” she said, “I didn’t see it.” But I was just cleaning the windows and it was just like a phase, you know. Mrs. Tate also remembered an occasion, when she was asked to take pictures of the flowers on the front porch. An unexplained arm showed up in the photograph and she stated that she believed it was Dr. Johnston’s daughter, who died as a child. And I just snapped it and got them developed and then there was a little arm sticking around in the window. . . . His [the doctor] daughter died at the age of three years with pneumonia. So, we think that that was her. In a manner similar to some of the ghosts reported at the Andrew Johnston House, the ghosts at the Grove were cited as appearing to go about daily activities. Mrs. Greer, who lives at the Grove with her husband Keister, reported that many of the ghosts at the Grove are seen or felt in the music room. This is where, Mrs. Greer reported, the Hale family (the original owners) did most of their entertaining. She said, “This is also where a lot of activity takes place with the ghosts.” Mrs. Greer went on to describe two other rooms where she and others have seen ghosts. One of these spaces is a kitchen wall where, according to Mrs. Greer, the original exit door was located. This [gestures to specific spot on kitchen wall] is one of the places the ghost comes through the wall from the downstairs bedroom. It has been seen more than once and also on the back stairs. We have a whole family of ghosts here. Mrs. Greer also told a story of one of her guests at the Grove who saw a woman walk through the kitchen wall as if going outside. She also mentioned another occasion when a guest saw one of the ghosts. I have had a houseguest here who saw one of the women go through the wall in the guest room. I had someone here over Christmas who saw one coming down the back stairs dressed for shopping with a muff. . . . She [the ghost] saw her [the houseguest] and went back up. Mrs. Greer stated that Mr. Greer, his late wife, and late daughter also had encounters with the ghosts and she briefly described the ghosts. Keister [Mr. Greer] heard some of it when he bought the house and his late wife had sensed some of it. His late daughter, Celeste…had seen a number of them and some of her friends from Chatham Hall had seen them. . . . Keister himself saw two different women two different nights this winter, after never having seen any since 1959 when he bought it [the house]. So, all of a sudden, there is a lot more activity of whatever this is. . . . Some of them are in long dresses, most of them are. Most of them look like [they are dressed in] nineteenth century garb, nothing more recent than that.
Posted on: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 03:21:10 +0000
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