Ghost Stories & Paranormal Encounters

It was the summer of 1974, and I was five years old. It had become a family affair to join my cousin Paul and his close friends Rick and Rob on the weekends to film their amateur movies. They had dreams of becoming rich and famous film makers. They would write the scripts, plan out the locations and then with the help of all our cousins in starring roles, would shoot a movie with borrowed cameras over the course of a weekend. These independent films were the bottom rung on the ladder of their success. Eventually Rick and Rob packed up their reel to reel films and moved to Hollywood seeking fame and fortune. They were never to be heard from again.

I was of course too young to really be involved in much of their movie making endeavors. My mother however would usually be in charge of staging and packing up the equipment, and being a divorced mom would take me along. I didn’t mind, I would take along my coloring books and toys in a ready packed tote bag to keep busy. It was never long though before I would be wandering off to explore the grounds of the location.

Rick and Rob arranged to film a screenplay at a local home operated by the Historical Society in my hometown and birthplace in Akron, Ohio. The caretaker of the home remained on the premises during the filming, to be certain the antiques and the hardwood floors were not damaged in any way. He was so caught up in hovering over the production, he never noticed me wandering out and around to the back yard. That’s where I met Ellie.

Ellie was a beautiful little girl with chubby cheeks and light brown hair. She was a little older than I, however this didn’t stop us from giggling and playing together like any other little girls. We talked freely of our lives and families and friends, and kicked at rocks and chewed on blades of grass. She seemed distant though, even bored and would eventually wander back into the house. I followed.

Ellie told me her father was away, that he had business to take care of and that she was eagerly awaiting his return. “Does he travel?” I asked her. Yes, he travels extensively she would reply as she explained to me that her mother handled the affairs of the home much of the time. I continued to follow Ellie through the house as she told me tales of her father and his adventures.

As we went up the main staircase which bent squarely at the landing, we walked around past a portrait of a stoic looking man. I asked “Is that him, is that your dad?” Ellie nodded and put her finger to her mouth shushing me to be quiet. She turned and continued up the staircase tiptoeing, motioning me to do the same. As I walked past the portrait I felt a chill up my spine as the eyes in the picture hanging on the wall seemed to follow me as I walked by.

Once we reached the second floor, Ellie told me that her father would usually give her and her sisters gifts when he would return from his ventures. She kept them all and cherished them dearly. More often that not the gifts were dolls, or swatches of fabric for their clothes. “They’re china dolls!” She exclaimed with the sparkle and delight that only a little girl has. I then asked Ellie if I could see her dolls. “Yes, but we can’t get there from here.”

I looked at her puzzled and asked, “What do you mean?” Ellie explained that the house had another staircase at the rear of the kitchen. The only way to get there was up the back stairs, behind what appeared to be a pantry door. “I could show you but the tall man won’t let us go in the kitchen.”

It’s true. The kitchen was the one place the film party was specifically told was off limits. We had all been given very express instructions upon our arrival that we were not to enter, as there was currently a major renovation underway. If we crossed the line of the construction area we would immediately be asked to leave. I was sadly disappointed.

“Kathy, We‘re getting ready to go!” My mother called from the first floor below. “I have to go now.” I said to Ellie as I turned and ran downstairs. My feet moved quickly for I feared what the caretaker, or tall man as Ellie had  called him might say if he had caught me coming from upstairs. I wasn’t supposed to be wandering the house. I had been with Ellie though, and after all she lived here.

“Mom, mom!” I called out as I leaped from the bottom step. My mother was busying herself with packing equipment and organizing the wardrobe to be packed up and hauled to the cars. “Guess what?” I asked her in an excited tone. “What’s that, kid?” (Kid has been my family nickname for as long as I can remember.) I told my mother of my day with Ellie and how much fun I had there. I also relayed to her how sad I was that Ellie hadn’t been able to show me her beautiful dolls. “We will ask the caretaker once we are all finished here, maybe he will take us. It never hurts to ask.”

Mom took my hand in hers as we spoke to the tall man. The color drained from his face as she told him the story of my day playing with Ellie, and how she had told me about the dolls and of the stairway hidden away off the kitchen. He nodded, and reluctantly agreed to accompany us to view the dolls.

I looked around as we walked through the kitchen, cabinetry and debris lay everywhere from the remodel and I remember wondering where the refrigerator was. The tall man spoke in whispers to my mother as my attentions wandered around the room looking at the strewn debris.

My focus was on the room we had been told we were not to enter, instead of whatever it was he’d been talking to my mother about. It was thrilling to me to see the ‘off limits’ areas of the house, as Ellie had already shown me everything else. I gripped mother’s hand as he approached the pantry door in the rear of the kitchen. Easily the tall man opened the door, exposing a secret staircase.

He ushered us in front of him and told us to go on as he followed. Up, up, up we went turning the tight turns on the narrow stairwell until we reached the hidden room. As I got to the top I gasped. The room had short walls with the ceiling angling upward with the pitch of the roof. All along every wall, were the dolls Ellie had told me about. They were beautiful porcelain dolls displayed in various dresses, most in drab white and yellowed fabrics. Their clothes looked old and brittle as if they would crumble if you touched them. Satisfied will seeing the dolls, I thanked the tall man and we left.

It wasn’t until many years later that my mother had let me know the truth of the situation. Ellie, my beautiful playmate that day was in actuality the spirit of a child long dead. The caretaker had escorted us to view the dolls, knowing that I had experienced a communication with her far beyond what other staff had ever reported. They had seen her ghost playing in the house and on the grounds before. No one doubted she still lingered here waiting for her father to come home. She chose me however to talk to, and gave me information I could never have known.

The last time I spoke to my mother about this experience, she told me how uncomfortable she had been in that room. To this day, she cannot explain just exactly why. Could it have been the magnitude of my personal experience of unknowingly interacting with the dead or was it something more?

This story is about my first experience in communicating with a ghost. I was only five years old, and could never have known just how much I would learn from her…

Written by Kathy Houck, Copyright 2009