The Fisher Farm

When I was about four-years old we moved into a big old house on a retired farm near Elk Mound, WI (USA). We called it the Fisher Farm, since that was the name of the landlord. Likely because I was so small, the house seemed gigantic. It was a two-story home with a full attic and basement, a nice sun room, a wide, open, oak staircase, and large bay windows, but it only had one bathroom, which was upstairs.

With a house being that large and winters in Wisconsin being so brutally cold, it was a challenge for my parents to heat it. My father bought a space heater, and all six of us slept in the toy room off from the kitchen during cold snaps in the winters. During one of those cold snaps, I had to go to the bathroom in the dead of night. My mom told my oldest sister (We'll call her Sophie.) to take me. She was slow to wake up, but I really had to go. Without turning on any lights, I went in the kitchen and through the swinging door to the dining room but was stopped short when I saw a woman standing on the landing of the staircase. She was garbed in a long white dressing gown or robe with a matching nightcap, which resembled today's shower cap only it was made of cottony material. She had a long brunet braid resting over her left shoulder, while holding a candle, which illuminated her features. She was very pretty, probably in her early thirties. I think I could probably draw her if I tried. She didn't smile or talk. She just stood there looking at me.

I wasn't as frightened as I was intrigued. I knew she wasn't supposed to be there, but there she was. I presume I didn't know I was supposed to be scared. The most I knew about ghosts I learned from Saturday morning's Great Dane, Scooby Doo. Of course, those "meddling kids" always debunked those ghosts and monsters. They never had a woman standing on the staircase in their home in the middle of the night.

I don't know how long I stood and looked at her, but I really wanted Sophie to see her. I turned to go back and hurry her up, but she came through the swinging door, and the lady was gone. I wonder now if the lady showed herself to me because I was about to ascend the long stairway in the dark, and she was, after all, carrying a candle.

We only lived there a few years, but I had other experiences in that time. I would hear people talking, laughing and whispering in the night. I would hear footsteps on the main floor from my bed upstairs that sounded like boots on the hardwood floors. I tried rationalizing it and told myself John Wayne was down there. One morning I woke to see a small man with curly gray hair standing at the foot of my bed.

I was scared of the shadow on the wall in one of the bedrooms that looked like a man's side profile. Mom said it was where the paint had run. She ended up putting a dresser in front of the shadow/stain. She had also been spooked in the house on several occasions. One night while she was there alone, she heard a pile of pipes fall to the floor from the bedroom above her. My uncle stayed one night in the house and never stayed again.

Several years after we moved, I met a guy in school who was living in the house at that time. He was a class clown, always smiling and being funny. I asked him if weird stuff ever happened in his house. He looked at me without a smile and told me in all seriousness that a lot of weird stuff happened there. I don't remember everything he told me, but he did say they were unable to get the stain off the bedroom wall until they paneled it.

I never understood why I was the one who had so many paranormal experiences on the Fisher Farm. I didn't have any similar experiences after moving from there until I was a teenager. In my forties I met a lady who is something of a medium or psychic. I'm not sure what her title is, but she has certain "abilities." When she first met me, she told me straightforwardly I was "sensitive." The older I get, the more that seems to be true. I don't talk about it with my family so much as they would tell me I'm crazy.

Seeing the woman on the stairway happened about forty-eight years ago. The house is still standing, looking like a charming country home. I wish I knew who owns it today. I'd like to walk through it and talk to the people. I never learned the history of the house, but I'd like to research it. It's probably over a hundred-years old.

Before Halloween each year my friend and I take a personal ghost tour of reportedly haunted places in our area. It's about a sixty-mile drive. I have the Fisher Farm on it. When we went last week, I could see the very spot through the big bay window where I saw that lady. Of course, she wasn't there, but I wonder if anybody else in the last forty-eight years has seen her.