I heard from some of the ladies at work that the lot behind my house was once a cemetery. I went online and started researching the Old German Cemetery. The cemetery was used until 1890 when a city ordinance prohibited burials within city limits. It eventually became an eyesore after being neglected. In the late 1930s the city told the two churches (Lutheran and Reformed) that they needed to clean the property up. The churches decided to sell the lot to the city so a playground could be built. By the late 1950s the remains of almost everyone had been moved to other cemeteries in the area. 1957 they started to clear the area so a shopping plaza could be built. One of the guys working on the project dug up some bones.
I moved into my apartment about 4 1/2 years ago. I knew my house was haunted as soon as we moved in. The first ghost I knew about was the younger boy who would always make his presence known when either my sister or I were in my bathroom. I only saw him once. He looked maybe 13 or 14 to me and he was in a white button up shirt with short, dark hair. The older guy I always see is taller and he's always dressed well and looks like he is in his 50s-60s. There's also a little girl, I thought she was maybe 4 years old. When I saw her she was in a white dress and had shoulder length hair.
I decided this week to start researching the cemetery and the people who were buried there. I found out the names of all 400+ people buried. The records I found online had a little girl named Loremia (also spelled Leremia) Lucretia Fleeger. She was 6 years, 9 months, 10 days old when she died. When I looked in the public records at the library there was no record of her being moved to another cemetery.
This is the part that gave me chills and still does when I think about it:
I was calling the older ghost in my house Henry, until about a month ago I started calling him Jonathan for no reason. As I was walking out of the research room in the library, something in the back of my head was telling me to go back to the shelf and do a quick check that I didn't miss anything. I pulled this book off the shelf that had pictures of the people and places in Greensburg in the 17-1800s. We sat back down and started going through everything. We came to a picture and I instantly got goosebumps so bad that my skin hurt. The picture I was looking at was of Henry Welty Sr. He was a merchant on W Otterman St. He was also Henry, the older ghost who lives in my house. I checked the burial records of the German Cemetery and he was listed on it. So at that point I had two of my ghosts figured out. Not feeling satisfied, I checked the census records and found out that Henry's son (Henry Jr.) had a son named Jonathan who died when he was 15 years old. I am sure you can guess where Jonathan was buried.
I am now ok with everything. I know who my ghosts are and I know some of their stories. I feel better knowing that I am not as crazy as I and some others thought I was. It's amazing to know that I pulled these names out of nowhere in particular and was able to validate them. I also think that I may start sharing all my ghost stories on here. I've written down a lot of them and now that I know how amazing this ghost gift of mine is, I am comfortable sharing the stories with everyone.
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