Didn't You Grow Up With Ghosts?

When I was a mere 5 yrs. old, my parents bought a big old (1925-1945ish) 3 story frame house for $8000. This house sits in Louisville, Ohio, and I have photos of the house taken in 1990.

The reason this house had/has a ghost is because the previous owner died inside the house at age 36. When he passed, his children, Jimmy (age 5), and twin daughters (age 2 1/2) witnessed his passing. Coincidentally, my brother ad I were close in age to his children.

From the time we moved in, we had 'incidents'. My brother's bedroom closet door would be open if it had been shut, and closed in it had been open. (Without fail for the entire 7 years we lived there. He used to get so scared of his room, that he would only sleep there if I slept in the same room, and after a couple of years, the only place either of us would sleep was in my room-- the ghost's oldest child's room.

As it were, I would frequently wake up at night to see a gray figure at the doorway of my room (we always left the bathroom light on), catty corner across from my room. This would always scare me into covering my head with my blankets, no matter how hot it happened to be.

We also had frequent 'knocking' on the wall between my room and my parents. They would call out to me to stop, to which I would reply in a terrified voice from under my blankets "I'm not doing it!" Additionally, metal objects, such as keys and knitting needles, etc., would 'disappear'; only to reappear in another location in another room.

When I was in the 5th grade, I had every girl in my class over for a birthday/sleep over party. We, being silly little girls, decided to have a seance. During our 'seance', our ghost came thundering down the stairs, and passed through the living room to the dining room (where we all were), and proceeded to stand behind me. I passed my hand through the ghost to turn on the light. It (he) was so cold!!! It took me hours to warm my hand and arm back up. At all the screams, my mom came down the stairs, informed us we were 'silly girls', and to knock off the seances.

Years later, she, my brother and I compared 'stories' about that ghost. She finally admitted to us that the 'disturbances" were real! She and my father used to tell us (while we lived there) that any/all 'weird things' were the result of our imaginations due to watching such programs as "Dark Shadows"!

But the weirdest thing I remember about that house was a night when my brother & I were lying terrified in my bed (over which I don't remember), and as we both lie there, my window directly opposite the bed had this weird orange "flickering". I remember lying there wondering whether the porch roof was on fire, or what the 'flame' I was seeing was!

Not only was my parents' house haunted, but my grandparents owned an old Victorian 22-room house, that now, three generations will tell you about the 'goings on' there! As a result, I grew up thinking that everyone had ghosts. I have since encountered ghosts here in California, but ghosts no longer scare me as they used to.