Ghost Story Comes To Light After 37 Years
by David Goss
In the summer of 1971, my brother George had a ghostly experience he didn’t share despite all the conversations we’ve had in the ensuing 37 years.
In a way, that’s typical of many of the stories I hear, as the tellers are often afraid they’ll be laughed at by family or friends.
But that wasn’t brother George’s problem. He simply didn’t know I was interested in such tales until he read the first one of this ghost tale series that told of haunted cottages. He then realized he knew of another one I should know about and readily shared it.
It’s no longer standing, but the story is a good one anyway.
George was asked by two friends if he’d look after their cottage in Summerville on the Kingston Peninsula. He jumped at the chance for some solitude after a chaotic year of teaching in a downtown Saint John school.
Soon after he moved in he was cleaning dishes in the kitchen when he heard distinct footsteps in the attic.
He ignored it, thinking it was just the building moving as it cooled after a hot day.
But the sound persisted - night after night. He decided to investigate, taking the family’s dog for companionship. The dog would have nothing to do with going up the steps with brother George.
“The dog just stopped on the landing,” George recalled, “and his hair stood straight up.” However, George continued on and found the attic empty. The sounds, however, continued all summer.
“It didn’t bother me a bit, in fact,” George recalled. “I felt quite safe. I felt a presence in the house all summer whenever I came home, and I felt the presence was happy I was there.”
At summer’s end, his friends returned.
When George explained the sounds, they confessed that they too heard them. A neighbour present at the time said everyone who had lived in the cottage had heard the same sounds.
Their explanation? The former owner who had loved the property, had died young and was still there in spirit. George, they explained, with his bushy summer beard, looked a lot like the former owner, so it was natural he would be visited more than most.
As fall approached the cottage owners converted the noisy attic area to a bedroom. One night they held a teacher’s party, and one of the teachers got tired and was allowed to rest in the new bedroom. The rest was short - for she soon had a ghostly visitor.
Later, the owner’s mother came to stay. She was from Poland. No way could she have known the story of the ghost, yet as soon as she set foot in the attic room, she refused to stay there, saying, “There’s a ghost in this room.”
Where that ghost rattles around now is unknown, but in 1971, several people were very well-acquainted with its movements.
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