This is a story my great Grandmother often told.
When Grandma was young her family moved to a little town in Lincoln County, Missouri. The house they moved in to, unbeknownst to them was rumored to be haunted by the cries of an infant.
They moved in and the first night as they lay down to go to sleep they heard crying coming from outside the house. Grandma's mother, Granny J told the kids it was just the neighbor's child and to go back to sleep. The children, grandma included all fell back into their slumbers while listening to the crying baby.
The next morning Granny J went next door to meet the neighbors and mentioned to the lady of the house that she must have had her hands full last night with the baby. The lady told her she doesn't have a baby that all her children were of working age. She also added that the family should start looking for another home. She said no one lives there longer than 3 months before moving again. She finished the conversation by saying that place is haunted.
Later that night my grandmother remembers listening to her mother (Granny) talking to her father about her conversation with the neighbor lady. She stayed quiet, she didn't want the other kids to know and be scared.
The crying continued, not every night but often enough for the memory of it to not fade away. Where was this baby? Why was it crying so often? About a month later they had some friends spend the night that happened to be traveling through. The adults stayed up late into the night playing spoons and other card games. There was a nasty storm moving through. Grandma remembers hearing wind howling and the crash of thunder every once in a while. All of a sudden the family heard a loud crash in the back yard followed by the loudest thunder roll they had ever heard. The sound shook the entire house. Her father looked into the back yard and the large oak tree had fallen over.
The next morning her father had a few of the neighborhood men help cut the tree up, remember this was a time before chainsaws. As they started cutting up the tree one of the men spotted a box near the root system and called out for him to come check it out. He inspected the small box and decided to open it and investigate what it held. The lid was tough but no match for a man determined to get it open. Once open he found a small skeleton of an infant wrapped in an old cloth wearing an aged once white dress.
Granny after seeing what the men had found sent her oldest son down to the sheriff. He came down to the house and was puzzled the child had to of been there at least 50 years from the looks of it. He told everyone that the only thing to do was give the child a proper burial in the city cemetery. So the neighborhood gathered so this small child that no one knew could have a proper funeral. The mothers cooked and sent the children to collect flowers while a few of the men went to dig the hole.
Grandma said after that there was no more crying, no weird feelings in the home and everything was perfectly normal. It was a few years until the family moved and the only reason for the move was so grandpa could have a better job in the city of St. Louis.
Granny told everyone that, that poor baby just wanted them to know it was there. And boy did they ever.
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