Childhood Stories

What I am about to relate is a compilation of stories/events that happened to me/my family members back in the mid 80's to early 2000's.

I come from a very large family, ten children altogether but the eldest three are half-siblings from my father. We lived in a rural area of KY with an unpaved, one lane road and our nearest neighbors were several acres away. We were a rather strange group, very religious and my six full siblings and I were all home-schooled. We lived in a small trailer on a retired farm. The old farmhouse, my father's childhood home, was still standing but my father refused to live in it. He never explained why to any of us, it was simply used for storage or when we didn't have room in the trailer for an activity. I will give a short description of the house to make it easier to understand parts of the story.

The house is two-stories and a half-basement. The backdoor, that we used most often, opens into the kitchen area, straight ahead is a swinging door that opened into the dining room, to the right is a doorway leading to the hallway. This hallway leads to first the master bedroom on the right then the door to the basement; also on the right, and then into the living room at the very end. The living room leads back to the dining room on the left and at the far right is a staircase to the second floor. At the end of this staircase is a second door to the master bedroom. Upstairs there is a small room across from the head of stairs and two other bigger bedrooms, one left and one right. The left-hand bedroom was over the downstairs bedroom and the right-hand bedroom was over the living room. Far left, past the left-hand bedroom is the attic entrance which is an unfinished room that allows access to a crawlspace under the roof and storage space. The basement is just one big open space except for the old "coal room" underneath the front porch. It is also important to note that the entire house was full of clutter; my father would never throw anything away. Each room had a few paths between old furniture and boxes of books, magazines, knick-knacks, etc.

"Footsteps"

I can't remember if I was born at the time this event occurred but I have been told this story many times. Classes were held in the master bedroom downstairs; this room was not as cluttered as the others. While everyone was sitting at their desks and studying quietly there was suddenly the sounds of heavy footsteps walking up the stairs on the other side of the wall. The footsteps then sounded in the left-hand bedroom over their heads and a sound like boots being kicked off and onto the floor was heard and then silence. My oldest (full) brother looked to our mother and said, "I told you." He had been in the old house alone studying previously and had the same sounds, our parents hadn't believed him.

"Perfume & The Man"

My oldest sister would also go into the old house by herself to practice on the old piano that sat in the living room. Several times while she was playing she told us that she would wish to herself that our deceased paternal grandmother, who had lived in the house almost until the day she died, could have been there to hear her play. She told us that immediately after thinking this that she would smell Grandma's perfume, as if she had come into the room. None of our grandmother's perfume bottles were still in the house to cause this smell.

After this happened a few times, my sister became nervous about being alone in the old house. She started to take me with her when she went to practice. I don't remember it myself because I was only 3 or 4, but she says that one day I snuck away and tried to go upstairs. She had seen walk towards the stairs so she followed me and found me about half-way up. She asked me in a playful-stern voice, "Where do you think you are going?" to which I replied, "The man told to go there" and pointed to the top of the stairs. She then hastily snatched me up and left the old house.

"Mimic"

I'm not sure were these next events fit in chronologically but it seems like they were before the "Perfume & The Man" events happened. Our father would often go to the old house to get away from the noise and crowded conditions in our trailer. On two separate occasions two different older sisters would go to the old house to fetch something, we kept extra groceries and such there, and would have to knock on the backdoor so that our father would let them in. Each sister said that a male voice that sounded just like our father would answer the knock and then they would hear footsteps coming towards the door. Just when the steps were almost to the door another sibling would shout from across the yard, "Daddy's not over there." Neither sister waited to see who would have answered the door.

"Mr. Blue"

A few years later, the sister just older than me went into the house to fetch something for our father. He had some friends over that day and they were target practicing in the back yard of the old house. She was standing in the kitchen facing the door to the hallway when a young man with blond hair and wearing a blue t-shirt and khaki pants walked from the master bedroom and turned down the hall towards the living room. Stepping over the board placed at an angle between the basement door and the wall, my father was afraid thieves would break in through the basement. She didn't really think anything of it, assuming that it was one of our father's friends. However, when she asked him who that was that is inside, he told her that no one was in there. This sister is the only one of us that ever saw the ghost and we nicknamed it "Mr. Blue" because of the blue t-shirt.

"Scraping Chair"

When I was about 10, I was sent to the old house by our mother to fetch some flour for the dessert she was baking. I had been hearing these stories all my life so I didn't like to go in the old house by myself. It always felt like someone was watching you. On this errand I opened the backdoor and quickly ran to the pantry on the left side of the kitchen to get the bag of flour. I had just picked up the bag and was turning to leave when a scraping sound started right over my head. It was just like the sound of a chair scraping the floor as it is pushed back from a table except it lasted much longer. It would have been coming from the small room at the head of the stairs which was full of junk and no furniture. I did not investigate but I know there was no else in there because we only had two sets of keys for that house and I had one and the other was still on the peg at the trailer.

"Screaming Cat"

After hearing the "chair", I started to take one of our numerous cats with me when I had to go to the old house. The cats would sometimes be okay and wander around the room as I got whatever I needed and other times the cat would not go in at all. Once, I had taken in a cat that was a little more adventurous and he went all the way upstairs, I had heard his light weight bounce up the stairs from the kitchen. I wasn't really worried because I knew he would come back when I called. A few seconds later, I heard the crashing sound of boxes or clutter hitting the floor upstairs and the cat began to meow in a very frightened way. I was too scared to go check on him by myself so I ran to the trailer and got my father to go back with me. When we reentered the old house, the cat was sitting on the kitchen counter cleaning himself and did not look in the least bit scared. My father and I investigated the upstairs. We found nothing knocked over or out of place at all. My father never really believed that I had heard it.