Ella

My Mom and my Mom's Mom (Nanny) and her Mom all have had the ability to feel energy of sprits. It is amazing to hear their stories about what they have experienced. I do not think that it is inherited to be able to feel spirits but I do think that families that do not discredit what they are feeling will have children that will not be discouraged to welcome the feeling. This is a story of my first time that I remember a spirit encounter.

When I was in third grade my mom, dad, brother, and myself moved to Plankinton, South Dakota. I am now 22 years old and can just start to tell people about this experience again. We moved into an old township schoolhouse. Before we could move in it needed to be cleaned. On one of our trips over to the house to clean it, my dad and I were touring the country around our house and came upon an old abandoned house. Even as a third grader I remember thinking how beautiful the house must have been back when people lived in it. The next time that my mom came to clean and I was with, I took her by the house that we had discovered. She looked at it and a sense of fright but also peace came over her face.

The next time we went back to Plankinton my mom's boss, Brenda, and her husband, Dan, came with us to help with the cleaning. When we finished, we took Brenda and Dan by the house. When she saw it, she said that she wanted to go inside. We did not figure it could be any harm to go into the house so she when in. This was the first time any of us had gone into the home. When she came out onto the balcony I remember thinking this was odd when she said, "This house will be mine." We did not know what she was really talking about at the time. On our way home to Mitchell she told us about when she was about half way up the stairs she heard footsteps coming up behind her. She thought it was her husband so she called out "Dan" but he was not there. Then for some reason she said "Ella?" This is when my mom revealed that when she first saw the house, she felt children playing ring around the Rosie in the front yard. Soon we found the owner of the land and the house and Brenda asked if she could take the lumber from the house for her store. The owner said that this would be fine because he had been planning on burning down the house to make room for farmland. Soon after that, we started to go to the house more frequently.

One time we took my Aunt Jan and Uncle Dan here. When my aunt came upstairs, she found me talking to someone. There was not anyone in the room. When I saw her, I took her to another room and I explained that there was a mother in the room holding a baby and they looked so sad.

One thing about the house was that every time that a male tried to enter the house, something would happen to them. Brenda's husband, Dan, tried to enter the first time and he was cut by a nail in the doorway. He was cut so deep that it was borderline if he needed stitches or not. My dad tried to enter and he was struck by anger and left the house because of this feeling. When the construction people came to start taking lumber from the house, they soon came back to Mitchell and told Brenda that they could not do it. We had never told them anything about what we had experienced with the house but they said they just felt unwelcome there.

One day while we were out there, we took some pictures of the house. When the newspaper heard of this story, they wanted to run a story on the house and our experience. When the writer asked if they could go out and take pictures Brenda said, "Yes, that should be fine." When my mom when to pick up the pictures we had already taken she go burned on her finger tips. She then told Brenda, "Ella does not want him there." They ended up using one of the pictures that we had already taken.

After the article was published, a man came to visit the store and had a story to tell us. He was a grandson of the owners of the house. He told us that his great aunt that was born there, her name was Ella. We had not told the writer about my encounter of the mom holding a baby so this was not published. When the man was telling us more about the house, he told us that also in the house a mother giving birth to a baby. The baby had died soon after the birth as well. He was in complete disbelief that we knew so much about the house without ever talking to anyone that was alive or without doing any research about the house. In addition, he told us about why men probably were not welcomed into the home. He told us that the women and children lived in the house that we had been in and the men lived in a separate house. This was so that then men were not disturbed by the children. These houses were lived in my more than one family. He thinks there were about three families that lived in these two houses. This was so that they could farm more land and have more food.

Soon after we took Brenda to the house, she had been consumed with jealousy about everything. My mom had worked for Brenda for 8 years. It was a strong relationship before this as they were the only two running the antique consignment shop. Brenda was always a wonderful boss until this time. One day my mom picked me up from school. This was different because I would usually ride the bus. I soon found out that Brenda had fired my mom after they got into a huge fight. Since then my parents said, that Ella was a bad spirit and they did not want me talking about her anymore. It was hard at first because the house was only 2 miles from our house. If it were not for the shelterbelt of trees, we would be able to see it from our house.

Since then, I have experienced other energy in places. I try to welcome them because sometimes they are trying to tell me something. Some of them are an uneasy feeling. The ones in our house sometime were uneasy feeling. I have also met spirits that are just here to comfort us. When a classmate died on our graduation day, I felt a sweet spirit there at the school during pictures and during the ceremony. This is just a few instances of when you feel them around. It is difficult to tell people about what I have experienced because most people in South Dakota are very traditional in what they think and do not think that this could really happen. I know however, what I felt and to have that man come in to the store to confirm what we had felt.