Ghost Story Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday

I haven’t posted recently about the ongoing ghost stories unfolding at our humble abode, because I really don’t know how to pick up where I left off. It’s a good not-sure-where-to-pick-up, not I’m-so-freaked-out-I’m-afraid-to-write-about-it kind of thing. It’s all evolved into much more than just a good party story. LET’S JUST SAY.

After my house reading with Tree, my curiosity about Mr. Pipe and Mrs. Kitchen reached fever pitch. I packed up my little Nancy Drew notebook and headed for the local library, where I spent several afternoons hogging the microfilm machine and pestering the reference librarians to haul 1890s and early 1900s maps of our town out of the refrigerated vault.

Fortunately, the reference librarians were not skeptics. When I told them what I was up to, they in turn told me spun some excellent yarns about the library’s ghostly activity, including furniture that would move itself and barricade one staff member’s office so she couldn’t get in in the morning, a toilet that frequently flushed itself, and a dark-haired woman who liked to appear in the bathroom mirror from time to time. Needless to say, I waited to tinkle until I got home. Where I could be observed by our friendly ghosts. Much better.

So as I was saying, the librarians were absolutely super about helping me on my quest to figure out 1) who lived in the house before us and 2) what the hell the library had on hand that might help with that. It felt a bit like I was looking for a proverbial needle in a haystack, except I didn’t actually know that I was looking for a needle, and would probably have been happy to find a thimble or a Pomeranian in all that hay instead.

I hit the maps first, to see if our house appeared anywhere before 1903, which is when we were told the house was built. Surprise! Our house was on a 1900 map, with beautiful old penmanship on top: Beer & Dowlin.

To make a long story shorter, I found out with a little more Nancy Drew Nerdwork that Beer & Dowlin were attorneys and real estate developers at the time, and most likely neither lived in the house.

So I dove into the town directories. Without anything else to go on, the only thing I could figure out to do was scan the endless columns of names (and their occupations) and hope I saw our address somewhere before my eyes hemorrhaged and I died of that and paper cuts from the microfilm rolls.

I got lucky. My eyes held out, and then they nearly fell out when I found our address in the 1901 town directory. Our address, and a name: William E. Richmond. Occupation: engineer at the gas light company four blocks away from our home. His home.

If anyone had tried to take a turn on the microfilm machine at that point, there would have been another ghost walking around.

Crazy-excited, I then proceeded to scan through as many directories as I could. I am saying I WENT THROUGH A LOT OF TOWN DIRECTORIES. I scoured every directory I could find from 1894 to 1957, to see if there was anyone else besides Mr. Richmond (and presumably, his family). But there he was, every single year until 1944…when his widow began to be listed: Emma.

I followed Emma at our address until 1954, and then the directories skipped to 1957. I knew the name of the family who sold us our house, and it was their name listed from 1957 on. Which makes us, most likely, only the third family to live here.

In 1957, the Richmonds disappeared from the directory. They may appear in later ones, but I haven’t gotten past 1957 yet.

And that’s just the beginning.

Now, if you’re a person who likes spoilers, or you read the last page of a novel first, you should go read what dear, magic Tree wrote about meeting our house in person. Mind you, I had never before set foot in our attic, not once in the five years we’ve lived here. But with Tree, it was time, and it was more than okay.

Oh, heck, you should read it even if you don’t like spoilers, because I don’t know when I’ll get around to saying more. What gets me the most? By your thirties, you start feeling like you can’t be surprised by much anymore. And I have been surprised so grandly, well, I forgot how lovely it can be to really be surprised. And moved. Deeply. How about that.

33 comments May 10th, 2006