A Ghost Story or Two

Those who know me know that I have an obsession with a keen interest in the paranormal.  And most know that I've had this interest since birth childhood.   So where did this interest spark from?  My crazy weird strange loving family.  My aunt could spin a scary tale in seconds flat.  Some were true stories, most were not and sometimes it was hard to know which was which. (I do realize that there are not small furry creatures called gretchens living in the rip rap with red eyes and fangs who eat girls with dark brown or blonde hair).  But there are a couple of stories told to me as a child by by step-great-great grandmother that I remember to this day and know that they were true accounts of things she experienced.  And they scared the poop crap pee jeepers out of me.

Grandma Sissy was 104 when she died and a wealth of interesting information. Can you imagine she actually used a real slate board for school?? But this post isn't about the amazing life of Sissy Jackson, it's about a couple of amazingly spooky stories she shared with me (I'm sure I'll blog about her amazing life in the future).

The first experience she told me about involved a Headless Man.  He didn't have a horse, sword or flaming pumpkin like the photo, but he was without a head.  Sissy said that one night, she had a friend over her house.  This friend lived just across the street so when it was time for her to leave, Sissy walked her friend back home.  It was dark back then (it's dark in Deltaville now, but we're talking early 1910's) and Sissy was walking along looking down at the ground so she wouldn't trip over anything.  All of a sudden, she sees the legs and shoes of a man and when she looks up to see who it is, she realizes the man has no head.  She screamed and ran the rest of the way to her house where she told her family what she had just witnessed.  A man dressed in a suit who was missing his head.  What is interesting to note is that about 10 minutes later, her brother ran into the house claiming he saw a man without a head too... did he witness the same person? Or was he the same person messing with his younger sister?  All I know is, I had to sleep with the light on for several nights and was afraid to go for a walk at night for fear I would see the headless man.  And I was sure that he had a horse somewhere that he could use to run me down with. 

The other story took place more recently.  By more recently, I mean when Sissy was older, so most likely in the later 1980's-1990's but that's a guess.  At the time of this experience, Grandma Sissy was living in her blue and white trailer at the entrance of our little "development" called Jackson Acres.  She was living alone, and one night when she went to bed, she closed all the thick heavy drapes, turned out the lights and climbed under the covers.  She said that the room was totally dark, not a stitch of light to be seen.  All of a sudden, she saw a bright orb of light on her drapes.  It was similar to a light from a flashlight, but there was no one else in the room and the drapes were pulled tight.  She watched it while it moved around the room before ending up on the covers next to her.  She jerked up and told it to get off of the bed.  It responded by moving to the floor.  "You stay down there," she told it sternly (and she could be stern).  It was gone by the morning.

There are many spooky tales from the Tidewater Area.  L.B. Taylor has produced a number of books chronicling the supernatural in the state of Virginia.  Deltaville has a few haunted locations and Mathews, VA is home to one of the creepiest places I've been to- Old House Woods.  Have a ghost story to share?  Want to check out paranormal investigations in the Deltaville area?  Check out my website Gettysburg Ghosts or the Ghost Blog