Edith

Ireally can't explain logically the things that have happened since buying my home on Main Street. I only know that from the first moment I stepped into it "something" has been there.

When walking through the house I began to have ideas about decorating and visions of what I wanted it to look like. I even remember commenting to my now ex-husband that I could "see" the Library in stripes. Of course he brushed it off as pregnant hormones and my weirdness. Soon afterward I developed this "need" to have that house. I fought tooth and nail with other bidders to get it and eventually did so.

Soon after moving in I had to have my car worked on. I was pregnant and very ill so asked the mechanic to come get it. Upon giving him the address, he told me that he knew of a family who had lived here for a very long time and then gave me their phone number. Reluctantly I phoned them, I wasn't sure if they would really like to hear from someone living in their old house. But to my surprise they had been looking for me! I was speaking to the granddaughter of the early owners of the house who told me many interesting things. Her mother and father had purchased the home in 1905. Her father had died just before World War I. He had just finished eating dinner and had gone for a walk in the back yard among the roses he loved. They found him there, dead of a heart attack. His wife, Edith, lived on alone in the house for many years until her death in 1965.

It's also important to note that she loved this house dearly. So much in fact that she lay in state in the diningroom just after her death. She also requested that the funeral services be held here.

Within days of talking to her granddaughter I came home to see a very old scrapbook wedged in the front door. Edith's daughter had left it so I could see how the house had changed. It was after receipt of this book that really strange things began to happen both to me and this house.

It really hasn't changed much since the photos were taken. I was amazed to see the old radiators and woodwork that I touched on a daily basis there. It was while looking at a photo of what is now part of my Livingroom that I began to sob hysterically. I can't explain why, I only know that I paced the room touching everything that I could see from the photos and repeating "I want it back." I then went into the Library where I was stopped dead in my tracts; the room in the photo dated 1910 was striped (just as I had pictured it upon my first visit). I was so distraught that I phoned a friend who came to sit with me. Upon arriving she found me inconsolable.

My reaction has never been explained and has not happened since. However, many other things did.

Within the days after the books arrival I began to hear things. Cabinet doors would be heard opening and closing in the kitchen. While doing dishes it was not uncommon to hear the clatter of plates or glasses in the cabinet; as if someone was there helping me. Only I never saw my assistant. The scent of lilacs would appear out of nowhere, even though it was the middle of December. (I was to find a very large lilac bush in the back the next spring).

One night in particular stands out above all others. It was very late, my husband was away so I thought I would go upstairs to read a while. I left the bedroom door open so I could hear if one of my two boys awoke. I had been reading for an hour or so when I heard one of the floorboards in the hall creak, as if someone had stepped on it. My bed was situated so that I could see down the hallway to just in front of my older son's room. It was there that I saw the shadow of a human and when I called out to my son asking why he was up, it moved. I turned to grab my robe and upon looking back...it was gone! I rushed to my son's room to find him fast asleep. My other son was also sleeping soundly in his bed. There is no way either one of them could have been in or near that hall and gotten back to their beds without me hearing the floors as they are very noisy. Needless to say I was very shaken and spent the rest of the night with the lights on. I told my husband when he arrived home only to be told that I was "losing it."

The night after this him and I were going to bed. I had just laid down when he threw a pamphlet upon the bed and said he was going to read. When I saw what was on the front of the pamphlet I let out a shout and jumped from my bed. It was an emergency type pamphlet, the kind that gives information on what to do in different emergencies...flood, fire, tornado, etc. At the top were a combination of initials that stood for the name of the organization who provided it. What shook me was what they spelled...E.D.I.T.H. Again my husband told me I was loony when I threw it from the bed and wouldn't let him read it.

The next morning, in the daylight and my curiosity getting the better of me, I searched for the pamphlet. It was nowhere to be found. I asked my husband if he had taken it, and to my surprise, he denied all knowledge of it's existence. He did not remember ever having it and it's not been seen since.

One night on my way home from work, I saw a figure in the doorway looking out at the street. I asked my husband if he had been watching for me. He had no idea what I was talking about as he had been watching a football game and was nowhere near the front hall. I brushed the incident off as tired eyes and being sleepy. But I've seen the same figure many times since, and not just after dark. Once I had just left the house with my son and had gone around the block. I had to look back toward the house to get across the street when I was stunned to see a figure in the doorway, looking out! I sped home thinking someone had gotten into the house, only to find it empty and the doors locked.

Whatever is here has never made any attempt to scare or harm my family and nothing nasty has every happened. In fact she has never made herself known to my new husband at all, he had a long talk with her one night while I was at work. He asked her never to show herself while he was around as even though he knew she meant no harm, it scared him. She's abided by his wishes, however there are times when I'm alone that I can hear her working in the kitchen and feel her presence watching over us.