Haunted hospitals, haunted houses, a haunted church…you get the picture! A whole lotta hauntings on this edition of Campfire!
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Announcer 1 (00:00:15):
Welcome to our gathering tonight. Here we share stories of ordinary people who have experienced extraordinary things. Sit back, relax, and warm yourself by Jim Harold’s Campfire.
Jim (00:00:26):
Welcome to the Campfire. I am Jim Harold, and so glad to be with you once again and you are indeed in the right place. If you are a fan of the spooky, of the creepy, ghosts, shadow people, hat man, whatever it might be, UFOs and just plain strange stuff that can’t be explained, head scratchers. Those are my favorites. That’s what we do here and we’ve been doing since 2009. Regular folks come on and they just share their stories. Pretty simple proposition. Welcome to our electronic Campfire tonight. And one quick note, we have created special merch for the season. We are indeed in spooky season, and the easiest way to find that is to go over to jimharold.com/merch. That’s jimharold.com/merch. M E R C H. This is a design created specifically for Halloween season 2023. It will only be available throughout the Halloween season of 2023.
Jim (00:01:35):
It’s an orange graphic and it’s on various color tees, black, red, all different colors, and it’s basically a sinister looking pumpkin with our Stay Spooky moniker and especially branded for this Halloween season only. You can check that out at jimharold.com/merch. It is part of the Amazon Influencer program and Amazon Merch on Demand and your purchases help support the shows. Now, we have a lot of stories today, so I’m not going to go on and on except to say enjoy these great Campfire stories.
Adrian is on the line from the UK and he’s been on the show before. We’re so glad to have him back, and he has some great stories from his mom who worked as a nurse for many years and she’s always imparted these stories to him and he thought he would share the wealth and we are lucky for it. So Adrian, welcome. Can’t wait to hear these stories.
Adrian (00:02:33):
Hi Jim. Hi to everyone listening. Great to be back again. Yeah, so as you said, my mum was a nurse. She worked in what is the Churchill Hospital in Oxford from the eighties to the mid nineties. Basically, she worked on various wards there and has always, since I was young, told me these stories because I’ve always liked ghosts and stuff. She’s like, oh, you should have been there this time, this happened and this happened. So I’ve got three main stories that she’s taught me. They’re like the big ones. So I thought I’d share them on the podcast. So the first one I’ve got, I won’t give any names away because of the patients and stuff, so I’ll use alternative names if I have to. So the first one was she was explaining to me that there was a very religious gentleman that they were looking after who was passing away. He was basically fading away, so they were doing end of life care on him, and he was in the bed and she said that he was, I dunno how to put it, he was quite aggressive and blaming the nurses for not saving him and things like this. It wasn’t a very pleasant experience for my mum or her colleagues, but they did what they have to do. That’s what you do in that profession.
Adrian (00:04:00):
He’s laid in bed, he’s holding his wife’s hand, and my mum’s colleague is holding the wife’s hand comforting her. My mum does her last little few bits and she says, oh, I’ll leave you a minute. And she went outside the ward. Now, I dunno what it’s like in the US but in Britain, a lot of our wards, the open wards, you’ve got big windows so you can look inside and my mum was stood outside and eventually, like I say this guy, he was doing things like, when I die, this rail above me is going to be electric, and if you touch it, you’re going to get a lot shocks and things like that. As I said, it wasn’t very pleasant. Anyway, he eventually passed away and my mum was stood outside the ward and she said as she watched, there was this weird mist that rose up from his body and hovered above the body and then just disappeared right in front of her.
Adrian (00:05:00):
She explained, well, she said later on when she spoke to the nurse, they didn’t see anything, but my mum was there and she was watching this mist rise up from the body. So the nurse, my mum’s colleague said to the wife, I’ll leave you for a few minutes to have your peace and say goodbye. And as she left the ward and came around, my mum went, what’s that around your neck? And she was like, I dunno, what is it? And she unbuttoned the top of her blouse sort of thing and showed my mum her neck and there was two perfect hand prints around her neck as though something was trying to strangle her.
Jim (00:05:35):
Whoa.
Adrian (00:05:37):
Which is, yeah, my mom’s like, it was odd. It was very odd. They weren’t there before. And yeah, sure enough, there was two perfect hand prints as though she was trying to be strangled.
Adrian (00:05:47):
So the theory was is that maybe the spirit had gone through the wife and was trying to get her or we don’t know. But yeah, so that’s story one. Story two, lots of things were happening on the wards. My mum worked on an old children’s ward, sadly she did have a few children that passed away in her care and stuff, but they would be stood around the nurses and the bottom of there. So they wore the old style British nurses uniforms, I dunno whether you have it or you’ve seen it like “Call the Midwife” or things like that where they have the old style.
Jim (00:06:27):
Yes.
Adrian (00:06:28)
That’s her type of uniform. And the bottom of their uniforms would be getting tugged as though a child was trying to get their attention and stuff. No one there, but they would all watch the bottom of their dresses just getting tugged.
Adrian (00:06:40):
So my mom goes onto her shift and she goes up to the nurse’s station and as she approaches, she hears this patient that she was looking after going, “Georgina Georgina”, which is my mum’s name, “Georgina Georgina”. And my mum said, I’ll use a different name, but my mum said,”Oh, it’s okay, Harry, I’ll be with you in a minute. Don’t worry”. And my mum’s colleague who was sat behind the nurse’s station just booted my mum in her leg. And she looked back at her and she was just staring at my mum and she went, “did you hear that?” And my mum was like, “yeah, it’s Harry.” And she went, “well, he died this morning”, but they both heard this patient calling for my mum, this specific voice.
Jim (00:07:22):
Wow.
Adrian (00:07:23):
Calling for my mum. So yeah, that’s another one that confused her,
Jim (00:07:27):
I guess so.
Adrian (00:07:29):
Yeah, hearing voices of someone that’s passed away is a bit, not something that you get every day, is it?
Adrian (00:07:37):
So the last story that I’ve got is she worked on a specific ward for some time at the hospital and on this specific ward. I remember going when I was a child to pick her up from work with my dad and I can’t really describe it. It’s a very dark place. It’s not dark, as in evil, it’s just like it’s all very dark and dingy, which I’ll come to in a little while. It’s not like that now. But yeah, I just remember it being all really dark and gloomy sort of thing. And this specific ward, that ward that my mum worked on, she said that there was always things that would be moving around. They would get the smell of burning flesh, which wasn’t anything that that ward did. So there was no reason for there to be burning flesh smells, but they would smell burning flesh and all the nurses would talk about it, the doctors would talk about it. Another thing that happened is that they would hear old school jazz music or big band music from the forties. And on one instance a fire broke out on that ward. And when they actually found out what it was, it was the fire team came in, dealt with fire, and they actually found that the fire had began inside an abandoned medicine cabinet that was padlocked. And it was nothing inside it.
Jim (00:09:00):
Oh man!
Adrian (00:09:01):
But the fire began. Yeah, the fire had began inside the cabinet.
Jim (00:09:06):
What’s the accelerant when there’s nothing in there?
Adrian (00:09:07):
Yeah, there was nothing. And it was an old abandoned cabinet. Now, a little bit of history of the Churchill Hospital, it was built in 1940 for the British to use because they were expecting obviously big casualties from the bombing rates and stuff that was going on over Britain during the Second World War. And in 1942, it was taken on by the Americans and the Americans began as the second general hospital. And then in 1944, it changed its title to the 91st General Hospital, and that’s where they had a lot of the soldiers from D-Day were there. A lot of American air crews that were flying from Britain were taken there. If they had had a crash or something, they were kept there. In fact, my great uncle who was an American pilot was there for a month or so. I think he had jaundice or something from his time in Egypt, and he’d come back to the UK. So they looked after a lot of Americans, and even to this day, they still fly the Stars and Stripes outside the front of the hospital next to the Union flag. They’ve got a big plaque there to the services that they gave to the Americans.
Adrian (00:10:17):
As you can probably tell from that explanation, I’m a bit of a World War II geek. And so a couple of years ago I bought a book about Glen Miller.
Jim (00:10:28):
Oh yes.
Adrian (00:10:29):
The famous band leader.
Jim (00:10:30):
Yeah, he disappeared.
Adrian (00:10:32):
Yep. Yes, disappeared. That’s a whole other story and lots of theories about that. And if anyone’s got any of them, I’d love to hear ’em. But yeah, I bought a book about him and it was about his UK tour that he did in 1943 to 44 just before his disappearance. And it breaks down all the airfields that he visited and stuff like this. And it tells you about in September 1944, he, along with his Air Force band, went to the Churchill Hospital to play a concert. And what happened was he did the couple of hours playing the concerts, all the patients would come out and the nurse and staff and everything like this. And after the concert finished, he was approached by a young nurse and she said, would you mind coming to my ward and playing some songs because my patients are bedridden.
Adrian (00:11:26):
They couldn’t make it to the concert, so it would be nice to play some songs. And Glen Miller, sure enough, and he got six or seven band members together and they went along to this ward and they played a few songs, maybe a couple, but they played a few songs. Turns out, and it says in the book that that ward was Ward 13, which nothing to do with the number, it just happened to be Ward 13, which is the same ward that my mum worked on during that time. And of course they were hearing big band music playing and things like this. Now the reason why the patients were bedridden was because it was a burns unit. So I just find it very interesting how it all circles round. You’ve got the big band music being heard by the nursing staff and stuff, as well as you’ve got the smell of burning flesh. And the medicine cabinet that I said the fire broke out in, was actually from the wartime. It was an old wartime medicine cabinet, and that’s why it was disused. They didn’t use it anymore. It just happened to be up on the side. So yeah, there’s a bit of an interest in one that all links in with the whole Glen Miller World War II thing.
Jim (00:12:33):
It is very interesting, very interesting. I love those NHS and healthcare stories in general. I was telling you off air, we had one of our best stories ever, one of the very early ones that’s in the first Campfire book, a gentleman, he was from England and his partner’s, I think his girlfriend’s name was Pam or something like that. Her mom was always in the hospital in and out of the hospital. And there was this nurse who came to offer her tea, but the nurse was in a nurse’s outfit from the forties,
Adrian (00:13:12):
An older type,
Jim (00:13:14):
And took her forever to bring the tea. She brang the tea and the woman asked her, what’s with the old getup? And she just kind of smiles. So anyway, she’s back in the hospital for some occasion, another appointment or something a few weeks later and she’d say, I saw the weirdest thing. And they describe, she describes this nurse who brought the tea and was in the old time outfit and somebody said, “Oh, you’ve seen Lily. That’s the resident nurse ghost.”
Adrian (00:13:46):
It’s the fact that people are so blasé about it. Again, my mum’s the same. She said it used to happen so much that they were seeing things. She saw an old patient that they knew that had passed away, just walk past a window on one occasion. And they were just like, ”Oh yeah, that’s so and so” and it was just all normal to them. It was happening all the time. And like I say, the Churchill Hospital is still there now. They do fantastic work for any listeners that are in the UK. They actually looked after my nan who passed away a couple of years ago now from cancer. They do a lot of good work looking after people in end of life care you know. So I’ve had a big connection to this hospital all my life. But yeah, they’re just so blasé about the stuff that they see in these. My mum, she’s now a care worker, so she works in an old people’s care home. And even now, she’s just getting stuff happening and she’s like, “Well.” Like mum, this isn’t an everyday occurrence. “Well, it is for me.” So that’s how she is.
Jim (00:14:50):
Well, Adrian, great story and thank your mom and all the healthcare workers out retired or active for everything that they do and they have done. And thank you for telling your story today on the Campfire.
Adrian (00:15:04):
Stay Spooky, Jim.
Jim (00:15:05):
Well, you might remember a few weeks ago, Celeste was on the line from California. She’s an avowed skeptic, she says. But she had one of the best psychic stories I’ve ever heard where a psychic totally foretold how many kids she had, details about who she was going to marry, and the fact she was going to have a blended family. And that was pretty impressive. And this story is as well, Celeste is actually calling in this story does involve her son Carter, who is a very big fan of the show. So hi again, Carter. Stay Spooky and I can’t wait for this avowed skeptic who has the best spooky stories to tell this one Celeste, welcome back to the show. Tell us what happened.
Celeste (00:15:44):
Hi, Jim. Okay, so this story is about actually the day my son was born during a very complicated birth. We finally go to the hospital, I’m ready to have my son, my husband has gone back down to the car to grab my thing and I’m alone in my room and I start shivering. And only now do I realize that this was a part of the hormones that get released when you’re giving birth. But I just started shivering and shaking and I’m cold, and I finally pick up the phone and I press the call light and a man answers and I said, “Hi, I am so sorry to bother you, but I’m cold. Is there anything we can do about the temperature?” And he is like, “I can bring you a blanket.” And I was like, “Great.” And this young man comes in, he couldn’t be more than his late teens, early twenties.
Celeste (00:16:40):
And he comes in and he has this super open smiley face and he brings me a blanket and I’m like, “Thank you so much.” And he said, “No problem.” And he goes, “Do you know what you’re having? And “I said, oh, I’m having a boy.” And he said, “Do you know what you’re going to name him?” And “I said, actually, I’m going to name him Carter.” And the guy’s face, it brightens up even more. And he goes, “Oh my gosh, that’s my name.” And I was like, oh, there are not that many Carters. It’s not like I named him John or Chris. And I was like, “Oh, that’s cool.” And he was like, “All right.” And actually later on he came in again when I was by myself, I think my husband went to go move the car, and he was like, “Well, I’m done with my shift.
Celeste (00:17:24):
I just wanted to say goodbye and good luck with Carter.” And I remember thinking in my head, he had such this open face, I was like, I hope my son grows up to be that kind of Carter. And I give birth and I’m holding my baby. Fast forward to the labor and delivery nurse and my husband and me sitting on my bed and my l and d nurse is checking on me. And she’s like, “How are you feeling? How has your experience been?” And I was like, “It’s been so amazing. Everybody here at the hospital has been lovely. I mean even that other nurse Carter.” And she kind of paused and she looked at me and she goes, “We don’t have any nurse named Carter here.”
Jim (00:18:08):
Wow. You don’t have a nurse named Carter.
Celeste (00:18:12):
Yeah, I was so gathered up with so many other things like having made a human. But yeah, there’s no nurse named Carter there. And I remember I was like, “Well, I don’t know if somebody on the staff…” And she was like, “No, nobody named Carter here.” I was like, oh, okay.
Jim (00:18:37):
That is truly amazing. Truly amazing. What do you think it was? I know we talked a little bit offline, you have one potential theory. Could you share that one with us?
Celeste (00:18:50):
I like to think that my son traveled back in time to go see his mom on the day he was born, which is crazy, but I love looking at it that way.
Jim (00:19:02):
I think that’s a great way to look at it. Celeste, thank you for another great story. And Carter, thank you for listening and being a part of the Campfire. Stay Spooky.
Celeste (00:19:14):
Thanks so much, Jim. Stay Spooky.
Jim(00:19:16):
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Announcer 2 (00:21:56):
Want the entire Campfire archive going back to 2009 plus much more? Get in on Jim’s Plus Club at jimharoldplus.com. Now back to another great story.
Jim (00:22:06):
Derek is on the line from Akron, Ohio, a fellow Northeast Ohioan, and I was joking with Derek, I said, he’s just another kid from Akron. There’s another guy out there goes by that, but I can’t remember his name. But anyway, Derek listens, his sister Darla is a big fan. So Darla, Stay Spooky. And Derek is going to talk about a house his father built and the strangeness that ensued. So Derek, welcome to the show. Thank you for listening and tell us what happened.
Derek (00:22:41):
Oh, thanks for having me, Jim. Well, my father, we were speaking of earlier, my mother were from the Massillon area and in the late seventies he had purchased a business in another town, so they decided to move about 20, 30 miles up north and he had his own house built so he could be closer to his new business. So the house was built, a large farmland, very rural, across the street, was one of the original farmhouses on what used to be all the farmland around there. And so a beautiful ranch style house, a big long basement, three bedroom. And in the basement we primarily used it as our family room, as well. So he had it fully furnished. There was a TV and carpeting and he actually built his own bar down there and we celebrated holidays and that’s kind of where all the kids would hang out and watch spooky movies and TV shows during the summer. And so I remember it being about late eighties and I was doing a project for school. Now I know this because I was using a typewriter.
Jim (00:24:08):
Yes, I remember those.
Derek (00:24:11):
Yeah! So I had my typewriter and I had it on top of a coffee table that was pressed up against the wall, and I was writing a book report, or school report, typing it out, I should say, and all of a sudden on the right hand side of the end of the basement, I just kind of felt like this breeze, I don’t know, it’s kind of like an invisible breeze, if you will. And peripherally out of my right eye, I look over and I see this entity kind of just, something had opened up, some kind of weird portal and this figure is running past me. And you think to yourself, well no, no, I mean, what could that be? Then I looked over to my left hand side as quick as I could, and I saw the figure just run into the other side of the wall and vanish. Now the figure was definitely of a Native American style. You could tell it had the long hair and the pants and the kind of what a Native American warrior kind of would wear, but not a full headdress or anything. And he was carrying a spear in his right hand and whoosh right behind me and into that other wall, and I was just flabbergasted.
Jim (00:26:03):
Wow. Wow.
Derek (00:26:04):
Yeah, I remember just after that just dropping everything and running upstairs as fast as I could to tell my mother what I had just seen.
Jim (00:26:18):
Wow, wow, that’s amazing. That’s amazing. So this is something you saw in a basement rec room?
Derek (00:26:27):
In the basement rec room. Now, when I went upstairs to tell my mother, she had told me something I had never heard before, that when they had built the house, owned this farmland, it was actually built over a barn that burned down that had horses in it, and many of the horses unfortunately, had perished and had died in that fire. And I’m trying to put it together. I’m like, well, I don’t know Native American and the horses, but I don’t know if that has anything to do with the other, but either that warrior was chasing something or seeing something was chasing him.
Jim (00:27:10):
Wow. I got to tell you, that’s truly something else. And I do wonder if that could be the case, if you think about perhaps Native American spirits or those kinds of things, because we hear this a lot with people who say, well, it must’ve been an old house. It must’ve been something that’s been around two, 300 years, or if it’s outside the US obviously. But a lot of times people say it was a new house,
Derek (00:27:42):
Right, yeah.
Jim (00:27:43):
And maybe it’s not that house, but it’s what that house was built on.
Derek (00:27:49):
And I know the whole land was very indigenous to the Chippewa tribe. A lot of the schools and a lot of things around there were named after that particular tribe. So I don’t know if that certain Native American was from that tribe or what. And then that must’ve been in the spring because I remember definitely the next, that summer after the summer, my father and I were digging around and he was a big flower guy and plant guy. Always had to make sure his yard looked very pristine and we were planting and digging up some flower beds near the house and we were digging and digging, and then I clicked, and then I hit something and I pulled out and we found a perfectly formed arrowhead right in the dirt and we pulled out. So that kind of solidified to me that, yeah,
Jim (00:28:57):
Yeah,
Derek (00:28:58):
That piece
Jim (00:28:58):
That’s like affirmation. Yes. This isn’t just an old tale out there. This is something that was really inhabited by Native Americans. Interesting.
Derek (00:29:09):
Yeah.
Jim (00:29:10):
Very interesting. Well, I mean that is part of our history and we all know what happened and the unfortunate things that happened, but Native Americans were here way before us, Europeans, and maybe some of those spirits still do reside. Derek, thank you so much for joining us and thanks to Darla for listening and you both Stay Spooky and thanks for being a part of the Campfire.
Derek (00:29:37):
We do. Thanks a lot, Jim, you Stay Spooky as well.
Jim (00:29:40):
Theresa is on the line from Maryland. We’re so glad to have her and she’s going to talk to us about a few years ago, she purchased her first home and strangeness ensued. Theresa, welcome to the show. Tell us what happened.
Theresa (00:29:55):
Hello. Sure. So this story actually happened in 2008. I bought my first home. I was very excited and this made me believe that children have the ability to see things that we can’t. So I think it was a Friday evening and I had just settled on the house and I was about, the weekend is when we were going to actually move all of our stuff in. It was empty and my mom came over and was just helping me clean up the house, steam the carpets and all that sort of stuff to get it ready to move our furniture in. I’ll say that my first house was, I live on the east coast. It was a 1950s, 1940s neighborhood. There’s old fashioned Cape Cod colonial homes that are pretty close to each other with sidewalk. Very, very peaceful place. So just really happy about that. So again, my mom was over helping me clean, and at the time my niece was only, I think she had just turned three, and my mom would watch her a lot to help out my sister, she worked on evenings and stuff, so they were there pretty late. This was, I think it was was September, so it was starting to get dark earlier, so they stayed until the sun was starting to set, helping me clean the floors and everything. Everybody was happy and then they pack up and leave and then the next day is the big moving day and I’m just on the phone talking to my mom about things and she just talking about all the plans that were going to happen and she just mentions, “Hey, by the way, it was really weird yesterday getting your niece buckled in her car seat when we were packing up to leave.” I’m like, “Oh, why?” And she said that as she was parked on the street in between my house and the neighbor’s house, so she could see both pretty easily.
Theresa (00:31:51):
She said that my niece was getting really upset and scared and looking towards my neighbor’s house and saying things like, “Hurry up, hurry up, Grandma. There’s the man with no legs. He’s crawling. He’s going to get me.” And my mom said that told me this because that was nothing she’s ever said before and it was very unusual behavior. She’s usually like a happy little girl. And when she told me this, I freaked out because the one thing I didn’t mention is this house that I bought. As I was settling on it, I learned that my next door neighbor, it was somebody that I worked with and I knew her pretty well, did projects with her, and I knew at the time that her husband had recently passed away over the summer he had diabetes and I knew that he had to have his legs amputated.
Theresa (00:32:45):
And I told my mom this and I said, that is such an odd coincidence that my niece would say that it’s one thing to say, oh, there’s a man, but he has no legs and he is crawling towards me. Just really freaked me out. And then she was really freaked out too. Then all the times that was in 2008, nothing ever happened with my niece. She didn’t really come over there much in the evening or anything, so nothing ever happened, but as long as I lived there every time, especially at night looking out, I could see the porch. I’d always get really freaked out about it, wondering if I would ever see him. And I never did, but I had since moved out, but that’s just my niece and she’s all grown up now. We never talked about it. I think that she was able to see something that day or I don’t know if she saw stuff at other times, but that’s my story.
Jim (00:33:40):
Yeah, I really do believe the young people, the young people. I sound like I’m 90 when I say it, but young kids, I believe that, and this is not an original thought by far, but they’ve not learned that they’re not supposed to believe in this stuff. I think that’s part of it. I also think they’re closer, if you will, to the veil. They’re new to this world and I just think they see things. I also think animals see things. We see it all the time with our dogs, particularly the one dog, Rambo. He will kind of look up in the air and you’ll think it’s a fly or something, but it’ll be the dead of the winter when there aren’t any or whatever. And you’ll look around and you’ll realize he’s looking at thin air, at least what you perceive as thin air. I totally believe it’s a real thing. Yeah, fascinating. Fascinating indeed. Well, thanks so much for being a part of the show, Theresa, and telling this story. And were there any further intrusions of this spirit or was that the one and only time?
Theresa (00:34:45):
That was the only time I know that well, actually, while I lived there, somebody, my neighbor had a house guest watching our house over the weekend and he passed away in the house. So I don’t know. I moved away. I’m staying away from there.
Jim (00:35:03):
Well, thanks so much for listening and thanks for sharing your story on the Campfire. Stay Spooky.
Theresa (00:35:09):
Thank you. Bye.
Jim (00:35:11):
Jim Harold’s Campfire is brought to you by HelloFresh, America’s number one meal kit, and I love HelloFresh. Let me count the ways. We’re in the midst of fall, as I said earlier, and that doesn’t always leave you time to spare. And with HelloFresh, you don’t need to spend all evening in the kitchen to whip up a great meal with their quick and easy recipes and 15 minute meals, you can get a tasty dinner on the table in less time than it takes to get takeout or delivery and you save money to boot. Now you can spend less time planning, shopping and cooking for your family and more time with them from easy time saving breakfasts and family dinners to kid approved lunches and snacks, HelloFresh has what it takes to keep everyone, including you, happy and satisfied, and I love their variety. And a new season calls for new meals, and HelloFresh has a fresh fall lineup of delicious dinners and more to choose from.
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Announcer 2 (00:37:41):
If you love the Campfire, be sure to check out the Paranormal Podcast where every week Jim interviews experts and authors about strange mysteries. Find it for free wherever you listen to this podcast. Tune into the Paranormal Podcast today. Now we return to Jim Harold’s Campfire.
Jim (00:37:56):
We have a return caller. Emily is on the line from Florida, and we’re so glad to speak with her once again. And she has a couple of stories for us and one is from her young childhood and a strange spirit. Emily, welcome back to the show. Tell us what happened.
Emily (00:38:14):
Thank you for having me. So I grew up in a small southern Alabama town and it was just my younger sister and my mom and my dad. And we lived in this little house, little ranch style house on this little country road. And my sister and I, the whole time we lived there had little experiences happen to us. Now the one I’m going to tell you about, I was about maybe four or five years old, my sister’s two years younger than me and we shared a bedroom. Now, if you came in the house through the carport, you walk in the side door, it’s the kitchen, the dining room, a hallway, and then bedrooms and bathrooms off the hallway. It was very small home, and my parents’ room was the very last one at the end of the hallway. Our room was directly next to it.
Emily (00:39:00):
Everyone always slept with their doors open, including my parents. Now, one night I woke up and I was afraid, and I can’t tell you what I was afraid of, I don’t remember, but I woke up and I was scared. And as four and five-year-old kids do, you go and seek safety, right? You go and you get into bed with your parents. Now you have to do that. We hit my house very quietly. If they hear you, they’re going to send you back to bed. So quietly I snuck into their room and I got on my dad’s side of the bed, which is the side by the door. It was the easiest to access quietly. So I crawl in and I kind of snuggle up next to him and I pull the covers up. I remember it very vividly, and I started to feel safe again.
Emily (00:39:47):
I started to feel secure again and get comfortable and relax. And I opened my eyes and you can see from where I’m laying down the hallway all the way to the door, all the way to the side door. And I start to see this figure walking down the hallway, and it’s moving very, very slowly. Now as it’s walking down the hallway, it’s moving real slowly, and as it gets closer, I’m starting to pick up a few more features. I can see it’s a lady. I can see she’s older, her hair’s pulled back in a little bun and it’s gray. I can see she takes a couple more steps and I can see that she has on this big poofy dress, almost like a big black poofy dress. She takes a couple more steps and I can see her arms are stretched out in front of her.
Emily (00:40:33):
Now I’m a medium, and even to this day, I don’t see faces when I do readings. Back then I didn’t either. I didn’t see her face, I didn’t see any features, but I just had this feeling that she was an older woman, I guess maybe based on her hair. And she takes a couple more steps. Her arms are outstretched, and I can see she’s holding a pot, and this is like a pot you would make a pot roast in on top of the stove or something. It’s silver, it’s metal. I can see it has a lid on it, and the lid has a black handle. And she takes a couple more steps and I can see that the tips of her fingers are all burned off. Now, at that point, I was terrified. I didn’t want to look anymore. Now kind of an addition to that is now I’ve been a medium my whole life.
Emily (00:41:24):
Of course, when I’m four or five, I didn’t know what that was. I didn’t know that that’s what I was seeing and that’s what I was doing. But I heard the name Bertha. Now, that’s kind of an odd name, but it stuck in my head because I knew that was my great-grandmother’s name, my mother’s grandmother. And I’d never met her, but I had heard them tell stories. I had heard that name before. So automatically, I think it’s my great-grandmother. Today, I don’t think that’s who it was, but in my head, that’s what I’m thinking. But she has all her fingertips are burned off, and it’s real scary. And I do what any kid does. I turned and I buried my head in my dad’s arm, and I don’t really remember the rest of the night or how it went. I assume I fell back asleep and woke up the next morning.
Emily (00:42:10):
And I’ve remembered this story my whole life. I remember it like it was yesterday, but I don’t remember ever telling anybody about it because this stuff happened so regularly. So several years. We’re going to fast forward several years, and my sister and my grandmother and I are sitting around the table having dinner, just the three of us, and we’re telling ghost stories just for fun. And when my grandmother tells a story, and she said, okay, which was my turn to do it. So I tell this story and I get to the part where she’s walking down the hallway and she has the pot in her hands. And before I get to the rest of it, my sister interrupts me and she says, “Were her fingertips burned off?” And I said, “Yeah, how did you know that?” And she said, “Well, I saw it too.”
Jim (00:42:56):
Oh man.
Emily (00:42:56):
So that was my validation that that wasn’t a dream. That wasn’t me making it up. That was confirmation that that really did happen to me when I was younger.
Jim (00:43:07):
So who do you think it was?
Emily (00:43:08):
We have no idea. Even we go back home and visit every once in a while to that little town. And I drove by the house one time just to look at it because I was being nosy, and there was a lady outside watering her flowers and stopped and told her, I grew up in this house, and so on and so forth. I got the courage to ask her. I said, does anything odd ever happen here? And she said, no, it’s a pretty peaceful house. We’d never have anything strange happen. So I don’t know if it was a connection to us as children. I don’t know if it was a connection to the family or I, maybe it was a connection to the house and she just doesn’t see it. I don’t know. We have no idea to this day who it was or why they were doing that. But I can’t imagine a family member trying to scare a little child like that. Right?
Jim (00:43:57):
And the tips of the fingers burned off. But the fact your sister pointed that, because it’s one one’s thing to say, oh, I saw her too. But to again, convey that information that you had not disclosed and be able to say, oh, her fingers were burned out. It’s like, oh my God. Oh my God. Right. Wow. Wow.
Emily (00:44:18):
Exactly.
Jim (00:44:19):
Now you have another story, and this one a little more recent about a beloved pet. Please tell us that one if you would.
Emily (00:44:27):
Yeah, this is a sweet story. In 2013, we adopted a dog that was in a real bad situation. He was a boxer mix, about 95 pounds of, I think he had three brain cells total, bless his heart. But he was the best dog I’ve ever had. He was so sweet and clumsy and funny. And I have two sons that are older, one’s 20 and one’s 16. And they would tease and they’d say, mom, which one of us is your favorite? And I’d tell ’em, neither of you, Rup’s, my favorite Rup was the dog. And we would joke about that. And he was just such a good boy. And in December last year, he got cancer, and it really just happened so fast. It was within a month he was gone.
Jim (00:45:12):
Oh, I’m sorry.
Emily (00:45:14):
And I appreciate it. He lived a happy life here with us, but it’s still hard to lose him.
Emily (00:45:20):
And a couple, he did this thing, and I don’t know, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about, or either that or I’m going to sound crazy. We called it talking and he would bark, but he would also do that rah rah, that dogs do, right?
Jim (00:45:33):
Yep, yep, yep.
Emily (00:45:35):
So we called it his talking. And when he had to go to the bathroom, that’s what he would do. He would come and sit at my desk during the day if I was working, and he’d come up and do this little talk and I’d get up and let him out. Now, he also loved to sleep in the bed with us. Now he’s 95 pounds. So it didn’t happen often, but when we didn’t let him sleep in the bed, we’d shut our door and he would, you could hear him about an hour after we went to bed and shut the door, walk over to the door.
Emily (00:46:02):
He would lay against it where you’d hear the door move and he would just like sigh. He had been so inconvenienced and he was pouting because he couldn’t get in the bed. So I tell you that to tell you this. One, maybe two days, three days after he had passed away, I was sitting at my desk doing my work and typing, doing what I was doing and in the zone. And I hear, hear rah rah, that talking. And I pushed my chair back away from my desk and stand up to go let him out. And I went, oh, he’s not here. I just heard him, but he’s not here. And it was real enough for me just to react automatically to get up to let him outside. I thought that was interesting. And a few nights later, maybe a week later, the next morning, my husband gets up and he said, “Did you hear me get up last night?”
Emily (00:46:53):
And I said, “No, I didn’t.” And he said, “Well, I heard one of the dogs”, because we have two other little ones and one does sleep in the bed with us. And he goes, “I heard one of the dogs lean up against the door like Rup used to.” And I said, “You did?” He goes, “Yeah. And I went to open the door to let him in”, and he goes, “there wasn’t anybody there.” He said, “The little one was in the bed with you, and the other little one was on the couch asleep.” But something had leaned up against that door and had done that sigh like he did when he pouted, loud enough to wake my husband up to get up to open the door to see what was going on.
Jim (00:47:27):
Wow. That is cool.
Emily (00:47:30):
It was really cool. And then the third incident was, it was New Year’s Eve last year, and the boys were gone, and it was just my husband and I home, and I was laying on the couch and one dog was on my chest and one dog was at my feet, and we heard a sneeze in the kitchen.
Emily (00:47:43):
It sounded like a dog sneeze in the kitchen. And I looked at him and he looked at me. But the thing that got me was both of my dogs turned and looked, so they heard it too.
Emily (00:47:54):
Which I thought was pretty cool. I was like, my Rup is still here, but I have a couple of businesses. I have a podcast, but I also have a paranormal investigation business here in town. So I had a REM Pod, and if you don’t know what a REM Pod is, it’s just a device that has an antenna that emits an electromagnetic field around the antenna. And I was like, well, if it’s really him, I’m going to catch something. I’m going to see if I can catch it. And I would put it down at his bed. I put the REM Pod down near his bed, and every once in a while it would go off. And then we watched that for a little bit and I went and put it in his doghouse in the other room and it would go off there a little bit. So I thought that was really neat that we caught. We heard it, our other dogs heard it, and then we caught it with a piece of equipment.
Jim (00:48:37):
That is so cool. What’s your podcast about?
Emily (00:48:40):
Oh, so it’s just a quick little podcast that is, another friend and I, he’s a psychic. I’m a medium, and we teach other people. We teach listeners how to do what we do.
Jim (00:48:51):
And if you don’t mind, what’s the name of it and where can people find it?
Emily (00:48:55):
Oh, it’s called “Outside the Crystal Ball”. We talk about, like I said, we teach you how to do what we do because I think it’s really important. It’s really hard to get into this line of work if you don’t know how to do it. And it’s hard sometimes to find that starting point. So we kind of offer that for people. And we also go over our paranormal investigations that we do. We go over the evidence there on the podcast. You can listen to us on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, anywhere you listen to podcasts, we’re everywhere.
Jim (00:49:23):
Very good, very good. Check it out. Thanks for being a part of the Campfire and Stay Spooky.
Emily (00:49:29):
Thank you.
Jim (00:49:30):
Well, next up on the Campfire is Lisa from Virginia. She’s been listening for about a year, and pretty sure she heard about us from our friends over at Astonishing Legends, Scott and Forest. So thank you guys and check them out certainly as well. They are some of the best out there. Lisa used to live in a church and one night while closing up, well, she’s going to tell you what happened. Lisa, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us and tell us what happened in that church.
Lisa (00:49:58):
Thanks, Jim. I’ve lived in this area of Virginia for quite a while now, and back when I was in college, I lived above a church. I know that sounds a little strange, but they had a cool apartment and the rent was super cheap at the time because, as part of our job, we would close up at night. So this night I was closing up the church, and it’s a pretty typical route that I’d go through the church. I would go down into the sacristy and then through the actual sanctuary, make sure the front door was locked, come back, check the wire room, the whole thing. This church though, it’s a pretty old church, and there was a Sunday school that was upstairs. So I would always go up and walk down the hallway of the Sunday school, and I don’t know why, but there was one teacher who always left a window open.
Lisa (00:50:53):
So I would go in there and I’d close it. Then there was this short walk that you had to do between the Sunday school and where the door to my apartment was, which was also upstairs. This walk had a door at one end. It was up right against where my apartment was, and at the other end it was open. And in between there was a room, not a very big room, probably like 13 by 13 maybe. And the strange thing is this room was mostly a storage area, so I would walk through it nightly, but the annoying thing about it was there was only a light switch on one side of the room. The light switch was on the side of the room of the Sunday school. So usually I would walk through the room, open the door to the landing where my apartment was, the light from there would come in, I’d walk back, I’d turn off the light. Well, this night, I didn’t want to do that. I was like, whatever, I’m just going to hurry up and get myself back to the apartment. So I turned off the light and waited a second for my eyes to adjust. And then I started walking through the room. And right when I got to the middle of the room, this, I don’t even know what to call it, white cloud
Lisa (00:52:11):
Slowly moves in front of me. And I was like, what the heck? I walked right through it, it was freezing cold, and I freaked out of course, and I ran the rest of the way through that room, down the stairs outside and hopped in my now husband’s car and said, “You need me to take me back to your place. I just saw a ghost.” And he was like, “You don’t believe in ghosts?” And I said, “No, but I’ve seen one.”
Jim (00:52:37):
Wow. So do you think this was a positive energy being in a church? Do you think maybe it was a negative energy, just somebody visiting? Do you have any theories?
Lisa (00:52:48):
So I spent a lot of time thinking about that. And in fact, I still think about that. Even though this happened like 20 years ago, I didn’t really get any negative or positive feeling from it, just sort of neutral. It just really startled me. I think it was probably positive because it’s a church. But the next day, believe it or not, I actually went to the pastor of the church and I said, “Excuse me, but is anybody buried on property”, because there’s no graveyard or cemetery there? And she said, “Oh no, nobody’s buried here, but a lot of people’s ashes have been scattered in the front gardens.” So I was wondering about that, maybe.
Jim (00:53:31):
Maybe somebody visiting. Very interesting. Indeed. So did that hasten you getting out of that apartment or did you just stay there whatever time you had planned originally?
Lisa (00:53:42):
I stayed there for the whole time, but I will tell you that I was very hesitant to close up by myself.
Jim (00:53:51):
Yeah, I don’t blame you. I don’t blame you..
Lisa (00:53:53):
And I always made sure the lights were on.
Jim (00:53:55):
Well, there you go. There you go. I don’t blame you a bit. I mean, it’s one of those things like you’re like, Ooh. And even if it’s positive, it’s still freaky.
Lisa (00:54:06):
Yeah, it was a little freaky. And I am definitely a person that is a skeptic, but I’m one of those, I’m a skeptic, but… kind of people.
Jim (00:54:14):
There was this one time, I love that
Lisa (00:54:15):
There was this one time
Jim (00:54:17):
Those are some of my most favorite calls. I’m a skeptic. This kind of stuff doesn’t happen to me. But there was that one time. And then they tell us their stories like Lisa did. Lisa, thank you so much for being a part of the Campfire.
Lisa (00:54:32):
Thank you.
Jim (00:54:33):
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Announcer 2 (00:57:10):
You are listening to Jim Harold’s Campfire.
Jim (00:57:12):
Next on the Campfire, we have a return caller. Susan is with us from New Jersey, and she has a story about two very special people. Susan, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us and tell us what happened.
Susan (00:57:27):
Hey, Jim. Thank you. Okay. The first story is actually my daughter Emily’s story. I’ll tell it for her. So, unfortunately, my nephew Michael, passed away from leukemia at age five, 11 years ago. I know that’s really sad. So this was Emily’s cousin, and one of the very first times we went to the cemetery to visit him. Let’s say, we found something really special. Let me set it up a bit. While Michael was still in the hospital, Emily used to make him wooden cars. And the very last one that she gave him was painted blue and yellow. And we were at the cemetery and she looks down and there’s a shell on the ground right by where his grave is, and it has her name on it, Emily. And it’s painted blue and yellow. And we just thought that was such a strange coincidence, and we took it as a sign.
Jim (00:58:42):
Yeah, yeah, I definitely think so. I think that very well could be true. And I’ve said this, I say it so much that I feel sometimes that I’m repeating myself. It might become boring to people, but I do think that there is a situation where our loved ones, they find things very specific to us. To somebody else, it might not mean a thing in the world, but to us it means everything. Something very specific to our relationship or interaction when they were here.
Susan (00:59:12):
And yeah, we took that as a sign and then I had, it was another situation. It was more of a kind a sign, but also a bit of a head scratcher. So this is when, let’s say it was back in 1995, and a good friend of mine, her name is Cindy, she said it was okay to use their first names. Her husband Tommy had just passed away from Lymphoma Hodgkin’s disease. And she was at my house and we were talking about how lucky we were to be friends all these years. We’ve been friends since college. And just as we were having that conversation, a music box that I had in my living room started playing all by itself. And the song was, “You’ve Got a Friend”. So we both laughed and we knew that was Tommy coming to say hello to her.
Jim (01:00:18):
Oh, that is so neat.
Susan (01:00:20):
Yeah.
Jim (01:00:20):
That is so neat. Again, and I think they find ways to get their point across. I wonder, I’m curious, and I guess I won’t know until I’m over there and hopefully that’s a while from now, but I wonder how hard it is for them to communicate and why they choose the things that they choose. But I do believe they choose them, and I do believe it’s real.
Susan (01:00:43):
Exactly. I wonder the same thing. How much energy do they have to put into sending these signs?
Jim (01:00:50):
Yeah. I do wonder that, not that I’m in any hurry to find out personally.
Susan (01:00:54):
I guess we’re all going to find out at some point.
Jim (01:00:56):
Yeah, I just read something and someone said, we’re all in the waiting room. And it’s true. That’s why you got to treasure every day. Susan. Thank you. That’s true. Thank you so much for joining us today on the Campfire once again and sharing these very personal and poignant stories.
Susan (01:01:14):
Thank you, Jim, and Stay Spooky.
Jim (01:01:16):
Rebecca is on the line again from New England. You might remember a while back, she called us and talked about a spell that she placed to get back her beloved cat who showed up a couple of weeks later, almost magically so to speak. And today I think she’s going to talk about maybe a different kind of magic, about another experience that she had. Rebecca, welcome back to the show. Tell us what happened.
Rebecca (01:01:42):
Yeah, thanks, Jim. It’s nice to be back. This is another story that I have sort of within the magical vein. My husband and I are super into having spooky adventures, and every week we try to do something spooky. And this one week in particular, we had heard about a cemetery, and not to triangulate my position, but it’s a pretty famous cemetery in the state that we live in. And it’s 30 acres, it’s massive. And there is a statue there that’s a little bit disrespectfully called black Agnes. It is on the grave of the person who built the cemetery. I mean, that’s a whole other story. The way that it all happened was very disrespectful and he was not a nice person, but people will often go to the cemetery to sit on black Agnes’s lap and the person who sits on the lap is supposed to die in a week or something.
Rebecca (01:02:59):
It’s really weird why anyone would even try to tempt that. But after doing some research, I realized that the statue is actually that of Thanatos, who is the Greek God of death and dying. So my husband and I wanted to go to the cemetery and just to show that we were there for just for fun and to look around and we didn’t mean any harm. I wanted to bring an offering for Thanatos and leave it there just as a, we’re here to have fun and look around and we’re not trying to harm anything. So one of his offerings is a luna moth, I think willow branches. And I happened to have a dried up luna moth that my daughter and I had found, and I had some willow branches from a cemetery in Ireland where my dad’s family members were buried. So I put that in a little bag and I put that in my purse to bring with us.
Rebecca (01:04:10):
And my husband and I usually take turns driving. And this weekend in particular, it was his turn to drive. And as we were going to his car, I was like, I really think I would like to drive. And he asked me if I was sure and I said yes. So we get in the car and we’re on the road for about a half an hour. We’re about 15 minutes from the cemetery. And all of a sudden my husband says that he is not feeling well, and my husband has epilepsy, but he hadn’t had a seizure for quite some time. And I was like, all right, if you can hold off just for a little bit, I’ll pull over to the side of the road. And he just goes into one of the worst seizures that I have ever seen him have in the entirety of our relationship.
Jim (01:05:06):
Wow.
Rebecca (01:05:08):
His body goes completely stiff to make a macabre joke. He had the presence of mind to roll down the window to puke. So he didn’t get it in my car, but I pulled over and I get him onto the ground on his side, I call the ambulance. We ended up being in the hospital for three hours, just kind of weeding out his seizure. And again, I hadn’t really thought much of it. I was too invested in what was going on in the moment. But we get back home and we’re lying in bed. And I’m thinking to myself, if he had been driving and we were on the interstate, the speed limit is 65, and he tends to be a little bit of a faster driver then I would like. But if he had been driving and he just, from the time that he said that he didn’t feel well to the time that he started going into a seizure was like seconds. And I really think we would’ve gotten into a horrific accident. And there’s no saying if we would’ve survived it or not, and we were going to the cemetery to just sort of look around, but to leave an offering for the god of death and dying. And the logical part of me thinks that maybe subconsciously, because we’ve been together for so long, I could tell he wasn’t feeling well.
Jim (01:06:41):
Right. You were picking up on some signs, kind of pre seizure signs maybe.
Rebecca (01:06:47):
Yeah. And then there’s another part of me that was thinking, what if that was some kind of divine intervention? Yeah. So we did end up going back a couple of weeks later to leave the offering and just to say, hey, thanks for that.
Jim (01:07:07):
Absolutely. I mean, I’ll tell you, I do think divine intervention is a very real thing. I think it does happen, and it sounds like it certainly happened in that case, Rebecca. And I’m glad that you and your husband are okay. Thank goodness. Thank goodness.
Rebecca (01:07:23):
Yeah.
Jim (01:07:24):
Rebecca, I was glad to have you on the show once and so glad to have you come back and share your story again. Thank you for being a part of the Campfire.
Rebecca (01:07:33):
Thanks, Jim.
Jim (01:07:35):
Jim Harold’s Campfire is brought to you by Stamps.com. Now we’re already in fall, as I said earlier, and you know what that means? What comes after Fall, you know what comes, the holidays! And whether you have a small shop on one of the online retailers like Etsy or maybe a little bit bigger business with multiple employees, things are about to get wild. The holiday rush means more mailing and more shipping for your business, but it doesn’t have to mean more stress because Stamps.com has been helping businesses like ours save time and money for 25 years, and it can help you get ready for the holiday ramp up. Now, Stamps.com is great. We use it here at the Spooky Studio, and you get your own personal post office wherever you are with Stamps.com. All you need is a computer and printer. They’ll even send you a free scale, so you’ll have everything you need to get started.
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Announcer 2 (01:10:22):
Follow Jim on Twitter and Instagram at THE Jim Harold, and join our virtual Campfire Facebook group at virtualcampfiregroup.com. Now back to the Campfire.
Jim (01:10:31):
Silvia is on the line from Indianapolis, and we’re so glad to speak with her. She’s been listening for quite a while. She says she enjoys the show and felt it was time to tell her story. And this is about her son and a stuffed animal. Silvia, welcome to the program and please tell us what happened.
Silvia (01:10:50):
Thank you, Jim. Well, this happened quite a while ago. My son’s 21 now, but back when he was a baby, he was probably about 18 months old or something like that. So he was starting to walk around, but we had bought a camper, went down and saw my aunt. Well, my aunt had given him a stuffed animal, and he really liked this little blue dog. And so he would snuggle with and everything. And we got back home and we kept asking him, what ya going to name him? What ya going to name him? Well, my dad had died earlier. He died in October of 22, 2002. And so this happened probably in about June of 2003. And when we got home, finally, I asked him, he was standing in his crib, and I said, what are you going to name him? He said, Pepper. Well, Pepper was my dad’s dog when he was growing up.
Silvia (01:11:47):
He had this Wirehaired Terrier. And when I told my aunt that she could not believe it, because that dog, I have so many pictures of him as a young boy, and I just know that my dad was hanging around telling him that.
Jim (01:12:05):
Oh, that’s cool.
Silvia (01:12:07):
So that was really cool. But stuff like that seemed to happen to my family because my mom, I have another short story about my mom, that she could tell you things. When we went to a church service at my mother-in-law’s church, she had this newscaster come to speak, and this gal was pretty popular here in town, but she had been to a trip to see Mother Teresa. And so that’s a big deal. And my mom, she could always tell you what baby you were going to have. And this gal told us that she was pregnant. She hadn’t announced this on the news. Nobody knew that she was pregnant. And she told us, and my mom says, I’ve got to tell you, I think you’re going to have little girl. And that gal was so surprised. She says, that’s what Mother Theresa told me, that I was going to have a little girl. And she did. And she named it Theresa.
Jim (01:13:19):
Oh, how sweet. Wow. Wow. That’s something else when those communications come through, isn’t it?
Silvia (01:13:27):
Yes. It is.
Jim (01:13:30):
Well, the thing is, I believe these things are real. These connections are real. It’s not anything imagined. I just have heard too many people over too many years with too many stories about these things. These connections are real, whether it’s with our loved ones who are here, whether it’s with our loved ones who have passed, it’s a real thing. I’m absolutely convinced. I always believed it, but the Campfire really brought it home for me that this is real and it’s universal, and it’s something that should be shared,
Silvia (01:14:06):
Can’t communicate.
Jim (01:14:08):
And it’s something that should be celebrated and shared. And thank you, Silvia, for sharing your stories today.
Silvia (01:14:14):
Yes. Well, thank you, Jim. I appreciate it.
Jim (01:14:16):
Ross is a return caller from Central Illinois. He had a story about a phantom prisoner from a few years ago, and we’re so glad to speak with him once again. And this is about his grandparents’ old farmhouse and the strangeness that ensued there. Ross, welcome back to the show. Good to speak with you again. Tell us what happened.
Ross (01:14:40):
Yeah, first of all, great to be here. Love the show, Jim. It’s my favorite podcast. You’re my favorite podcaster.
Jim (01:14:46):
Thank you.
Ross (01:14:47):
I listened to a lot of podcasts, but you’re my fave and I’m not going to mention the other ones, but I do love yours.
Jim (01:14:52):
Well, thank you so much.
Ross (01:14:52):
And love what you do.
Jim (01:14:54):
Thank you.
Ross (01:14:54):
And I’m glad to be back. Yeah. So regarding the farmhouse, I guess I’m going to kind of entitle this “Lightning Strikes, Maybe Strikes Twice”, but I’ll give you a background of my grandparents’ house. First of all, I’m 44 years old, so I’m going to go back in time by my age. I’m so bad at math, I’m not going to attempt to do math. The house, it’s central Illinois or south of Springfield, but central Illinois, and grew up going to my grandma and grandpa’s farmhouse every summer. My favorite place to go, very warm. I mean, there was so much love from my grandma and grandpa and I have such fond memories of that house. But we would go there every summer and the house was a two story farmhouse. And in those areas they’ve got acres and there’s not really any, the houses are out by themselves, and this house is out by themselves, and the house is up on a hill, and it was a white farmhouse, and it had a concrete steps that lead up to the farmhouse. Reminded me of the Psycho house actually, where you look up and it’s kind of ominous, but except I didn’t feel that way because I loved going there so much. I never felt that way, but I could see how it’s kind of foreboding if you’re looking at it that way. And this house had been in the family for generations. My grandpa, he grew up in that house, and I’m going to guess it was built in 1890s.
Ross (01:16:51):
My great great grandpa, he was an alcoholic and he had been struck by a train and they had his funeral at the house. And so anyway, the house had tons of history. And so my story starts when I was about eight years old. My brother and I, and this is a pretty, it’s a long time ago from 44 years old. But my brother woke up one morning stating that he saw out the window. He saw a young boy probably 12 or, now again, I also contacted my brother and my mom and a few family members, just to kind of recollect my memory, because these are a long time ago. My brother and he verified, he said he still remembered this, but anyway, he’s about seven years old. But he looked out and it was an early morning, and he said that he saw a little boy who was not me, not my cousins.
Ross (01:17:47):
We have a bunch of boy cousins. He said it was someone that we didn’t know, and it was probably six in the morning. And he saw a boy sitting by a tree out the window and just, he said to his recollection, he had his knees to his chest. He was cradling with his arms. And I didn’t see that, but he’d said, I remember him saying he saw that. And the story, what we’ve been told was there was a boy that had drowned in a lake nearby. And we always thought, well, maybe it was that. Maybe it was that boy. I don’t know. There was no explanation for that boy being there.
Ross (01:18:25):
I’m fast forwarding to the story, 10 years old, and I was not at my grandma and grandpa’s house, but a car is coming down. I’m just kind of giving a background. There’s teenagers coming down this road and people fly down that road and there’s a culvert right by the house. And the teens, they were under the influence, and they struck, the culvert, flipped their car, and there was at least one fatality there. And there was, I think the driver, one of the passengers had a massive head wound, and they went up the steps to grandma and grandpa’s house, because nobody else out there. And back in those days, they don’t have cell phones. So they knocked at the door. And my grandma, she worked at an ER at the front desk, so she was very familiar with the traumatic injuries, but one person died there. And so there were some definite things on the property that had happened here and there. Now, fast forwarding to 14 years old, now, every summer I go to this house, paranormal is not something that, now, I always liked scary movies. I liked “Poltergeist” and this and that, but it’s not something I was well versed in. Very unsuspecting. And by the way, again, this house was very warm to me.
Ross (01:19:48):
I never was scared of it. So I dunno if that adds credence to the story, but me and myself and my cousin and my brother, were all sharing the same bed in my uncle’s old room, and I’m on the outside. My cousin’s in the middle, my brother’s in the wall. I remember it very well. My memory, I have a very strong memory reserve for these things. And we’re talking like, I’m 14 years old, they’re 13, and we’re just being kids. We’re probably shenanigans. We’d like to sneak out. We were like, oh, we’ll sneak out here and there doing whatever. And we’d planned on sneaking out that summer too, to go get out and take a lanterns and go out in the acreage, the good old days. So I’m hearing footsteps, okay. Oh, my cousin and my brother had fallen asleep. I’m always the last one to fall asleep.
Ross (01:20:44):
And I’m hearing footsteps, absolutely, no doubt, within the room pacing, and so much so that it’s like boots on hardwood. It was a wood floor. It’s an old, very old house, and it’s pacing very methodically. It’s consistent. And I’m like, okay, someone’s in the room here. I could not see a silhouette. There’s a window with a night, a little bit of light coming in from the outside, but there’s no shadow there. So I wake my cousin up out of a REMsleep. He hears it too. He wakes up and he hears it. We’re all hearing it. Then my brother wakes up, and to wake people up out of a REM sleep to them being full awake, I knew it was frightening, the footsteps. So we held it. So we did what any brave young strapping lads would do. We held hands in the bed, and I was on the outside, so I was the delegated one to have to go flip on the light.
Ross (01:21:50):
I flip it on and there’s nothing there. And the footsteps stopped, and we slept with the light on that night, and we heard, we didn’t hear anymore. I don’t know how we got to bed, but we’re frightened. And that was my first real, besides the little boy thing happening. That was my first time with that house. So then, okay, quickly, fast forwarding about a couple of days later, this is the same summer my cousin had gone home and he had, like I said, we’re up to shenanigans. He’s 13. He’s like, I’m going to drive over from my town over 30 minutes away. He’s like, I’m going to sneak out, take our truck, meet me outside at Grandma and Grandpa’s in their parking lot, and I’ll be there about 2:00 AM I think it was. And my brother and I snuck out the window, and we went down to my Grandma and Grandpa’s parking lot, which is, by the way, it’s at the bottom of the house. So you’re facing the house. Like I said, if you think about the Psycho house, that’s basically the house. It really is, except it’s more country, more rural, and we’re staring at the house. We’re waiting for my cousin. We’re in my Grandma’s Nissan Sentra. Like I said, I’ve got kind of a steel trap for details sometimes, which serves me in my job in law enforcement. And I think that’s important for stories like this. But we’re watching the house and a light on the upstairs flips on.
Ross (01:23:24):
Okay, so we’re waiting. And by the way, my cousin never showed, and again, we’re 14, you communicated through Pony Express. You didn’t have email, you didn’t have text. So we’re like, oh, he’s not, he’s probably not going to show. But anyway, the light flips on, and no one’s there except my Grandpa and Grandpa, Grandpa and Grandma. And they always slept in the downstairs area. The light upstairs flips on, and we think busted. We’re busted by Grandma for sneaking out. We’re paranoid. So we start to go back up, and I’m like, you know what? Let’s just kill Grandma. We couldn’t sleep. We went out to watch the stars. The stars are beautiful out there, and we’ll take our lashings. We walked in the front door, and Grandma and Grandpa were both asleep on the couch. And I woke Grandma up and I said, Hey, I gave her our story.
Ross (01:24:23):
Hey, this is what we did. And she’s like, oh, well, she wasn’t mad at all. She was like, why are you waking me up? And she goes, well, yeah, we weren’t. No, we weren’t up there. And I said, well, Grandma, the light flipped on. And she goes, well, wiring old houses, yada, yada. And I said, but Grandma, we heard footsteps two nights ago, this and that. And she’s like, oh, Grandma would always, it’s not whatever, but that light flipping on. Okay, so now I’m fast forwarding, and that was that. Now I’m fast forwarding to 18 years old, keeping my story going, and the flow, are about 17 years old. I was talking to my mom about this now, this is three years later, and I told her about the footsteps in the room, and she said that that room that we were in, now again, my mom’s, she doesn’t subscribe to paranormal, but she did say that that room, that house being in the family for generations, that room was a room that they would prepare bodies in for funerals back in the day, that the family would have funerals, and then nearby, they would use that as a funeral house.
Ross (01:25:37):
So that room that we were laying in, when we heard the footsteps, that room was used to prepare bodies. So my great-great grandpa who had died in the train crash was prepared there, and possibly the boy who drowned in the lake, I don’t know. I don’t want to sensationalize it, but knowing that, that was kind of spine tingling.
Ross (01:26:01):
Then about a year later, my grandma had died suddenly. She had cardiovascular disease, died a heart attack unexpectedly. And my grandpa at that point was in the nursing home, so he wasn’t there, but grandma had died. And now I thought it was a day later, but I talked to my mom and she said it was a month within her dying, the house, and this a generation’s old house.
Jim (01:26:32):
Sure.
Ross (01:26:34):
The month after she died, it got struck by lightning,
Jim (01:26:37):
Huh!
Ross (01:26:38):
Yeah. And it was verified as struck, and it had been struck that, I think the biggest thing to me was it was struck near that room that we had heard the footsteps. It was on that side of the house. And in law enforcement, it’s always the totality of the circumstances. If a light flips on, okay, that’s probably no big deal, but you add all the things up together, and that’s when you have kind of an interesting story. And then the house did it actually, for whatever reason, it burnt partially. And then a couple days later, it got burned down further. And I think they thought it had been struck again by lightning, but it was totaled, but it was verified and struck by lightning. I find that fascinating.
Jim (01:27:37):
So do you think the house may have been some way been cursed?
Ross (01:27:41):
I think? Oh, yeah. I feel like my family was such a good, strong Christian family, and I feel like someone was watching us boys. They knew we were up to no good. And I kind of feel like it was maybe family and about the lightning strike, no idea. But I do feel like the activity that we had with the footsteps and the light flipping on, I feel like whatever it was, whoever it was knew that we were up to no good. And they were, Hey, get back in. Stop doing this. That’s what I feel like. Yeah, there was so much love in that house. And again, I never was scared in that place, but I did talk to my cousin at 25 years old, one of my younger cousins. I told him about the footsteps. He had said himself that there were another time when I wasn’t there, that the light in the room that we were in flipped on by itself. He goes, we’re laying there and this light flips on. And we thought it was my aunt coming up. And he goes, and it turns out it wasn’t, there was nobody in there. Yeah.
Ross (01:29:01):
And lights weren’t flipping on and off all the time. I mean, that’s something else I keep into account. Yeah. Can lights slip on by themselves? Old wiring. Yeah. But this was not something that happened out there. Yes.
Jim (01:29:15):
Interesting. Very interesting. Indeed. Ross, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for your service as a law enforcement officer, and appreciate you being a part of the Campfire.
Ross (01:29:27):
Well, we love you, Jim. Take care. Stay Spooky.
Jim (01:29:29):
Well, this is a red letter day on the Campfire. We have Robert on the line from Los Angeles, and the thing about Robert is he’s been listening since 2009, the very beginning of the Campfire. He’s a longtime Plus member through our various systems, and we appreciate that. And he was a storyteller, I think, way back in 2011. So he’s been here for the duration. We’re so glad to have him, and he has another story for us. Robert, welcome back. Thanks for all of your longtime support and sticking with us and tell us what happened.
Robert (01:30:06):
Hi, Jim. Thank you for allowing me to be on your show. Yeah, so this story goes back to way back in the days and when I was in high school, so about 2001, it was Fall of 2001 in one of my classes, the AP English class, I was the last one to go inside the classroom, and there was one seat available, and it was behind this young lady. And I sat down and through the whole class, everyone was focused. And all of a sudden she turns around and she looks at me and says, “Hey, I love your jacket. My name’s Susie, by the way.” And just from that point forward, it was just, we just bonded so much. And we just became the closest of friends to the point where she started calling me brother. And I looked at her as my little sister because I grew up with all boys. I had an older brother and a younger brother, and we just hit it off so great. And it was just the greatest thing ever.
Robert (01:31:28):
Obviously, just like brothers and sisters, we had little arguments and little fights and things like that, but we always just managed to reconcile. That’s just how close we were to each other. And then one day in 2003, I told her, we were talking about our plans after graduation, and I told her I plan on enlisting in the Army. I’ve been wanting to join the military since I was a kid. And that just made us butt heads so badly that we just didn’t really speak to each other for a while after that, of course, around that time, obviously things were getting pretty heated around the world. So that was her biggest issue with it. And we graduated 2004, and I went ahead, I enlisted, I did my thing, and for a whole year, we actually didn’t communicate. That’s just how badly she hated the idea. And about a year later, 2005, we ended up reconciling, and it was just through friends, we ended up reconciling again, and it was the most seamless reconciliation that I can ever think of.
Robert (01:33:00):
It was almost like we had just pushed the pause button on everything, and we just started talking again. Like nothing had happened. So it was great. I got happy and everything, and it was around that time I found out she enlisted in the Navy as well, and I kind of called her out on that.
Jim (01:33:23)
Yeah, I was wondering.
Robert (01:33:24)
Yeah, didn’t really make a big deal out of it. So she ended up leaving. We kept in touch as best as we could, care, packages, emails, letters, just everything. Four years passed and she got out, but roughly about four years passed, and I got out of the service, and she was coming home as well, because she found out she was pregnant. So I was very happy for her because at that time, my wife, well, my then girlfriend, now wife, we were expecting our first child, so we were all happy and giddy and everything. 2011, we had a get together with old high school friends, and it was a welcome home party for her. So we talked about all her experiences and everything, and it was so great seeing her, becoming a mom and coming home and not having seen her for a good three, four years.
Robert (01:34:29):
So that’s the backstory. And on October 16th, 2011, she was involved in a hit and run accident, and I’m kind of, sorry, I’m getting a little choked up here. She was hit by a driver. Driver just took off, left her there. It made it to the news here in LA. And that was that. About two days later, I found out I didn’t know about this. I found out about two days later from a mutual friend of ours. I got the call while I was at work, and I just did not, nothing phased me. Just honestly, looking back, I felt like I was just dead inside nothing. I didn’t know how to explain it.
Robert (01:35:32):
I was just in a zombie mode almost, and I just buried myself into work as much as I could. And that was that. And that kind of worked out until about 2013. I ended up staying. My wife was pregnant with our second child, and we ended up staying at my in-law’s house because of the proximity of the hospital, and she was having complications and whatnot, and my baby was born, my wife was fine, baby was fine. So we ended up staying at my in-laws. And one night I was asleep. And I mean, looking back on it, it might not be, but I had a dream, that very vivid dream that I was outside my old high school, and it felt so real. I could smell things. I could see colors, I could hear kids laughing. I could hear the flow of traffic and everything. And all of a sudden, everything, all the sound just died down to almost a whisper. And I saw Susie walking out of dismissal gate, purple blouse, jeans, purple backpack. Purple was her favorite color. And she was holding some books to her chest. She crossed the street, and it almost seemed like she saw me, but she really didn’t, almost like I wasn’t there.
Robert (01:37:30):
I was just kind of playing the part in everyday life. And she walked directly past me. I started calling out her name six, seven or eight times, and she finally turned around. She looked at me and she had the, it was such a, I’m sorry.
Jim (01:39:58):
It’s okay.
Robert (01:38:00):
The greatest smile. She had the biggest smile ever when she saw me, and she ran towards me, and she hugged me, and I could smell her, I could feel her. It was so real, so vivid, so real. And she just said, “Brother, where have you been?” Excuse me. “I’ve been wanting to you to come visit me.” And I told her, “I’m sorry, I’ve been so busy.” And I just got the words out of my mouth. And she started walking away and she said, “I’m sorry, but I have to go. We will talk soon.” And she just kept walking away and I kept calling out to her. She just kept walking. I woke up and I looked around the room. My wife was feeding our newborn, and I just started crying. I could not stop crying for a good while, 30, 45 minutes at least. And my wife asked me what happened? And I told her everything.
Robert (01:39:19):
She said, it was a visitation. It’s meant to bring you peace and closure because you never really got to say goodbye to her. A couple of weeks later, I finally got up the courage to go visit her at her plot, at the cemetery. And for a whole year after that, I was grieving, I guess, because I never really did give myself a chance to grieve. And that led to around 2014, which was a year after, well, around 2014, I decided I wanted to get a memorial tattoo of her. It was a quote from a song from a band that I had just started listening to. And one of their songs stuck with me.
Robert (01:40:20):
The quote says, and “If you die before I die, I’ll carve your name out of the sky. I’ll fall asleep with your memory and dream of where you lie”. And I got that tattoo. I was so happy. And the day after I got the tattoo, I had a dream. I was at work, and again, so vivid. I normally don’t have vivid dreams. And this was very vivid. The heat, I could tell it was summer. I could hear people talking. I could see people walking around. And same thing happened as before, the sound just suddenly just died down. And I see Susie walking towards me. She doesn’t say anything to me. She walks up to me, grabs my arm. She looks at the tattoo and says, “I love it, thank you.” And she just walks away. And I woke up, and it wasn’t like before where I just started crying. I just felt so happy after that. It was almost like a closure to me that after all this time, I finally got a chance to vent everything out that I’ve been holding back. And that was that for a couple of years. And about three, four years later, 2018, 2019, I believe my wife was on her way home and she told me, “Hey, I’m too tired to cook. Is it alright if we get take out?” I told her, “Yeah, sure, it’s fine. Not a big deal.”
Robert (01:42:15):
She stopped by one of the bigger restaurants and she got a kid’s meal for my kids. She got some food for me. And she walked in, put the food down, and she went to go change. And I opened the bags. I was getting the food ready for the kids, and I just started laughing. As soon as I opened one of the bags, and I dunno if you remember the Power Puff Girls cartoon back in the days.
Jim (01:42:47):
Sure. Sure.
Robert (01:42:49):
There was a figure there. And my wife heard me laughing. I still kept laughing. She said, “Hey, what’s going on?” I showed her the toy that came with the kids’ meal. She said, “Okay, so it’s a Power Puff girl’s toy. Maybe they thought it was a kid’s meal for a girl or something.” I said, no, it’s not that.
Robert (01:43:12):
This is Buttercup. And if yourself or any of the listeners remember Buttercup is her color was green. And it just so happened that that was Susie’s favorite character while we were in high school. She used to love Power Puff Girls. And I just all of a sudden had all these memories flooding back of her and all just the great times we had. And over the years it’s gotten better. And obviously talking about it now, I still kind of get teary, but it wasn’t like how it was before. I felt like I’ve healed over the years and that these experiences have helped me heal.
Jim (01:44:04):
Wow. Wow. Powerful story. Powerful story, powerful connection. And I think you guys will be reunited one day, hopefully many, many years from now. But it’s interesting how she said she would talk soon, talk to you soon. And to them over there, time is probably not what it is to us. So it will be soon. Although many years into the future, I don’t know what to add. I mean, I think it kind of speaks for itself. We have these connections in our loved ones, whether they’re relatives or close, close friends, they come back and they make theirselves known. And you believe she’s done that for you, right?
Robert (01:44:50):
I do. And I first heard you mention it many years ago. Obviously you’re the very first person I heard say that, the phrase skeptical believer. Yes. And I believe I’m a skeptical believer because I just don’t see or hear a noise and think, oh, okay, that’s a ghost. For sure. The logical part of me says, okay, well that could be plumbing or that could be something else. Rational, a rational explanation. So part of me thinks the logical side of me thinks that this was just my brain processing the grief. And I mean, obviously they tell you, don’t bottle your emotions up inside because it’s not healthy for you.
Robert (01:45:52):
But honestly, the real me and in my heart of hearts, I know that that was her, and that was her trying to help me, excuse me, to help me process everything and to still help me process everything. Because even though it’s been, wow, 12 years, going on 12 years since she passed, it still hurts. It still hurts. I mean, there’s really not a day that I go that I don’t think about her, but it’s gotten better. It’s gotten so much better. And I think that was her way of trying to help me process everything, deal with everything.
Jim (01:46:49):
Well, Robert, thank you for sharing this very personal story on the Campfire today.
Robert (01:46:54):
Thank you so much, Jim.
Jim (01:46:55):
Well, I hope you enjoyed that as much as we did, and we thank all of our storytellers for sharing their great stories. We certainly appreciate it. And we thank you for tuning in of course. Please do support our sponsors. They help make possible what we do on these shows. And also check out that Mausoleum of Merch and that limited edition merch that I told you about, and that’s at jimharold.com/merch. We thank you so much for tuning in. Happy Halloween everybody, and we’ll talk to you next time. Have a great week, everybody. Stay safe, and of course, especially this time of the year. Stay Spooky. Bye-bye.
Announcer 1 (01:47:38):
You’ve been listening to Jim Harold’s Campfire. Tune in again next time. For more stories of ordinary people who have experienced extraordinary things.
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