When I was 8 years old my family moved from California to a very small town in Michigan named Paw Paw. My dad was in management and this was just one of many moves we had to make in order for him to move up that corporate ladder. Paw Paw is located in Southwest Michigan between Kalamazoo and Lake Michigan. It's a nice town to visit if you are a connoisseur of wine since there are wineries in and around Paw Paw.
If you are familiar with this very small town you are probably already aware that it's known to be a strange place where a lot of what we call today, "Paranormal activity" happens; Years ago we just called it "hauntings" and I'm about 99.9% sure the word "disembodied" was not in the Webster's dictionary in those days. Not only did it have a lot of paranormal activity, but it also had an unusually high rate of suicides back at that time which is another reason why I consider Paw Paw a peculiar area.
My parents' bought a very nice ranch style home in a neighborhood that was somewhat spread out between houses, and across the road from our house was nothing but hay fields and a couple old barns. It was a subdivision just off a country road right in the middle of what was recently farmland so we felt like we were still somewhat in the country.
Strange things started happening very soon after we moved in the home. We all, (excluding my dad because he would rarely admit to anything paranormal happening) had a sense of someone staring at us. My brother's and my room were right next to each other, our parent's room was down at the end of the hall. I was never afraid to sleep by myself until we moved in that house. Besides the eerie feeling that someone was watching me in every room of the house, I heard many unexplainable noises.
One night I was laying in my bed trying to fall asleep when I heard whispering coming from my closet. Really, it sounded more like a chant than a whisper. I was hoping my brother was just trying to play a trick on me so I yelled at him and told him it wasn't funny and to stop. My mom heard me yelling and came to my room. I told her what I heard, she checked on my brother and he was already asleep then looked in my closet to appease me and found nothing wrong. My mom chalked it up to being in a new home and my imagination getting away with me, but I knew what I heard. She tucked me back in bed and went back to the living room to watch tv with my dad. I laid flat on my back with the covers up to my nose trying not to hear anything else when suddenly I heard the hardwood floor creak at the foot of my bed and then I felt the sheets tighten around my feet as if someone sat on the edge of my bed! I actually felt the weight of someone sitting on my bed! I started screaming and my mom came right in to check on me. There was still an indention on my bed as if someone was still sitting on it. She didn't say anything to me other than that I could sleep with them that night. Years later as my mom and I were reminiscing about all the different places we've lived, she admitted to seeing the indention of someone sitting on my bed and had several experiences herself.
One very cold winter evening, my mom had cooked supper and was keeping it warm on the stove while we waited for my dad to get home from work. (Back in those days families actually had supper together at the dining room table.) It was around 6 pm and already dark outside when my brother got the idea to scare my dad by shutting off all the lights in the house. My dad would surely wonder what was going on and maybe even wonder if we were home. The only light in the house was the flickering golden flames in the fireplace. We sat very quietly knowing my dad was due to walk through the front door any minute. To break the silence and be a little funny, I yelled out "Ok, so if there are any ghosts in the house, let us know you are here now!" As soon as I said that we heard a very loud crash that sounded just like a grand piano falling and hitting the floor in my parent's bedroom! We even heard the key sounds from a piano! It was so loud that it vibrated the floor in the living room where we were sitting and my mom jumped up and turned the lights on. We all walked together down the hall to my parent's bedroom and not one thing was out of place. My mom told me not to ever say anything like that again.
On the opposite end of the house was a very large room that we could use for an extra living room or whatever we needed it for. One day while my dad was at work and we were in school, my mom went into that room to take care of some laundry. She turned the radio up and started ironing. Suddenly the radio started switching channels on her and she wasn't even close to it. Within seconds of the radio going crazy, while ironing, she felt 2 very strong yanks on her shirt tail. She flung herself around to see what could have done this but there was nothing that she could have gotten it hung on. She said she shut off the iron and walked over to our neighbors.
While at our neighbors, my mom implied that something had startled her while ironing. Our neighbor told her that our house was haunted and said hers was too. She told my mom that something was very wrong with the whole town. She proceeded to tell my mom that a man had committed suicide in our house and the previous owner of her home, the woman of the house hung herself in the garage leaving behind a husband and 4 small children. She said there were several suicides in the town of Paw Paw. My mom told my dad that she wanted to move out of the house and out of that town and about a year later we were able to move but it took several years to for them to sell the house.
Thanks for reading.
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