What does a haunted house look like? Is it run down with boards across the windows and twig and twine figures hanging from the trees? Does it have figures walking past empty windows, leading to blurry photos of silent screams in the night? Or could it have a warm yellow kitchen, vaulted ceilings and walls filled with photos of people you know?
In 2001 after my husband Mike and I were both laid off in the tech industry downturn, we had agreed to move to his grandmother’s house on the other side of the state. She had been living with his parents for the past two years and our little family, me, my husband, our daughter and one small dog, moved into her house to care for it. No rent but upkeep and light painting and landscaping on a 100-year-old historical home in Lufkin, Texas. Deep in the piney woods, the town was small and industrial with three large plants: lumber, paper and chicken. A large culture shock for two IT professionals from the capital city.
We lived on the intersection of two busy streets down the road from the small tractor trailer factory. The two-story white clapboard house had green shingles, a wraparound porch and a porte-cochère for coaches/horse drawn buggies that would fit my Subaru station wagon just fine. There was a large fenced in yard where Mike and his brothers had spent summers playing tag and climbing trees.
The Bradshaw family had once been almost royalty in that small town. When the house was built in 1912, the patriarch of the family had been mayor. They’d had the house built to almost 2000 square feet of the best pine lumber from the local mill the family was partnered in. Since that time the family had slowly moved down through the layers of genteel poverty before seeing us settle in there. The home was a piece of history, you could feel it, and the historical marker by the front door was proof.
Inside consisted of a formal dining room and parlor for company, plus the kitchen, and family sitting room rounded out downstairs. A full bath and bedroom had been added on to the back of the house and a half bath off the landing upstairs. The solid wood stairs ran up the middle of the home, with two turns to reach the bedrooms, one on the left and the master on the right side. As with most older homes in the area, there was no central heat. Gas fireplaces had been installed downstairs and the bedrooms upstairs had wall mounted gas stoves.
We’d been in the house about two months when we got the morning call. Mike’s grandmother had passed on in the night. After services the next week, we were told the house would probably need to be sold, but until then we could stay and help get it ready. Mostly that involved continuing to paint rooms, cleaning up landscaping, and sorting through old dusty boxes long left behind.
Our daughter Reagan’s room was to the left at the landing at the top of the stairs. She loved that room. Windows let in sunshine from both sides, and we read books and played games stretched out on the rug. There was a blue bunk bed in it, and I had painted the room a pale pink with hot air balloons piloted by fairy tale creatures sailing for adventure across the walls. Her grandmother had grown up in that room.
Four months after we moved in, I started noticing an issue with the bedroom doors upstairs. If our daughter was napping in her room, after about an hour the door to our bedroom would open and then her door would open right afterward. I could hear it on the baby monitor and would head up to get her, thinking she was awake. We had a baby gate at the top of the stairs, but I didn’t want to take any chances. The stairs were steep. Every time I’d get to the top of the stairs and find the doors cracked open, but my daughter sound asleep.
You couldn’t push the doors open, and I’d tested the knobs to see if they were loose. The knobs worked fine. The doors just wouldn’t stay shut. This only happened if our daughter was upstairs alone sleeping. When we were all downstairs, the doors stayed closed.
Finally, one day when I’d gone to shut the door for the 3rd time, I stood on the stairs and just said “please stop.” Out loud. “You’re waking her up and she needs to sleep. I know you’re just checking on her, but please stop opening the door.” I felt so foolish. It wasn’t like there was anything there.
After that it happened less often but still at least once a week. Sometimes you would hear footsteps upstairs when you were downstairs or what sounded like someone walking up the stairs. But nothing else. Nothing you couldn’t push off as a settling old house and an active imagination.
We had been in the house for almost a year when the matriarch of his family decided it was time to sell. I was looking forward to moving back to Austin and had been accepted to nursing school. Mike had found a new job in IT, and we started packing.
Everything had to go. The house was being sold and the buyer wanted to turn it into a shop of some kind. All the items left behind by Grandmother Bradshaw had to be sorted and packed or donated. Plus, packing all our things. It was a task doing that and watching a toddler, but moms get things done. Finally, we were down to our last few items. The rented moving truck was full of our furniture and the boxes labeled ‘open me first’ were ready to be packed in the station wagon. The beds had already been taken apart in both bedrooms, so I had set up a blow-up mattress in the master bedroom for our daughter. The husband and I were going to rough it on the old fold out couch that was waiting to be donated.
Bath, stories and bedtime for the kiddo were completed by 9 and she was snuggled in upstairs. I was thinking about going to sleep but I stayed up reading my kindle while the house settled around us. The fireplace was casting a dancing orange glow around the room. I had loved living in that house and all the firsts we experienced there; first steps, first words, first birthday. I would miss it. That house had been our first real home.
A few minutes later the doorknob slowly turned, and a small hand reached around the side to push the door open. It was my Reagan gripping her red teddy bear around the neck and rubbing her eyes.
“What are you doing awake sleepyhead?” I said as I got up off the bed and walked toward her. I was surprised to see her. Reagan walked with no problems, but the stairs were a little tricky for her. The risers on the stairs almost reached to her knees.
She reached out her arms, and I lifted her up. “Let’s get you back to bed, ok?” She nodded and leaned her head on my shoulder. As we walked through the chilly kitchen and headed for the stairs I asked her, “did something wake you up?”
“A lady,” she replied.
“A lady? What lady?” She shook her head, as in I don’t know.
“Did she say anything?” I asked her.
Reagan said, “go see mom.”
“The lady woke you up and said come find me?” I replied.
Reagan nodded her head yes.
“Okay, well let’s get you back in bed, ok?” I said, hugging her close. More sleepy nodding and yawning.
The door at the bottom of the stairs was wide open which I expected. But I found it odd that the door to our bedroom upstairs was shut. Toddlers open everything but don’t really close much. As I pushed open the door, I was met with the smell of gas. Enough to make my eyes water.
I set her down on the landing and told her to wait there. I quickly shut off the wall stove and hit the switch to turn on the fan as I headed for the windows. Within a couple minutes the room was cold but aired out. Once it was clear I brought her inside and tucked her back into bed.
I re-lit the pilot light, shut the windows and turned off the fan. Then lay down on the bed with her and read another chapter in The Secret Garden aloud while she drifted back to sleep. I stayed awake next to her on the bed, keeping an eye out on the stove and thinking about what a near miss we had. How things would be much different if she hadn’t woken up and come downstairs. She’d never gone down the stairs by herself before. I wasn’t even sure she could do it without falling. I had always carried her. Yet she had done it: moved the gate, opened the door at the bottom of the stairs, walked across the house and opened the parlor door to find me. I wanted to grab her up and hold her, but I let her sleep. I lay there thankful that the house we were moving to had central heat and air. I drifted off to sleep listening to her breath.
The next day I was boxing up the last of the family pictures. These were going to ride in the car with us so we wouldn’t worry about them breaking. Reagan was sitting next to me on the floor drawing when she pointed to a picture I was getting ready to wrap up.
“Lady! Lady!” She pointed at the woman in the photograph. A black and white picture of an older woman with white hair sitting on the front porch of the house. It was Evelyn Bradshaw, my husband’s grandmother.
“This is the lady from last night?” I asked her.
Nod.
“The one who woke you up and said go downstairs?” I pressed.
Nod. “Yes,” Reagan said.
“That’s your Great Grandmother. She used to live here.” I told her.
“Ok,” was her reply.
But she was already off, going after the dog and bringing back a toy. I closed my eyes tight and tried not to cry. I whispered thank you and hoped that Evelyn could hear me. After we moved, there were no more problems with our doors latching and staying closed. No more footsteps and no more sightings of the lady by my daughter.
Do I really think a ghost saved her life? Woke her up from sleep and helped her downstairs? I know that if she hadn’t woken up it probably would have been another hour or so before I checked on her. By then she could have been sick and had low oxygen levels at the least and worst-case scenario suffocated. Maybe it was just a hallucination on her part, she woke herself up and her brain conjured the story out of thin air. Maybe it sounds more romantic to think she was saved by a family member. We’ll probably never know the truth. But I still keep that picture hanging with our favorite family photos.
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