My grandmother was born in 1900 on this date so I thought I would write something about her this morning. She was an interesting combination of common sense, wisdom and superstition. My father got his gift of story telling from her I am sure because she could keep us enthralled with her tales, particularly when they involved ghosts.
I was four years old when we immigrated to Canada but my adoration of Farmor was fueled by her bi-annual parcels. She sent one at Christmas time and another one in late May to coincide with Jeanette’s and my birthdays but of course the boys also got something in that parcel. As we got older and recognized the pattern we would start prowling around the house in search of the parcels since they inevitable had been shipped well in advance of “the date”. We were incorrigible snoopers and in the beginning all we would do was shake, feel and sniff the packages once we had unearthed them. But naturally we got more ingenious (not that there was much genius involved) in unwrapping the gifts and putting them together again. Since she never used scotch tape we simply had to be careful to put the ribbon back the way it was. Often we would chicken out about unwrapping it all the way because (1) my mother had ears like a fox which caused us endless heartattacks while we were being so bad and (2) we really didn’t want to ruin the surprise.
When the longed for visit came I was in grade 4, 9 years old and it was bliss to finally see this woman we had heard so much about. She had a beautiful face and lots of curly grey hair which was cut short. She always wore a pearl necklace and she had several different strings of them. No earrings (remember the story about me getting my pierced ears?). And she wore corsets. My brother Peter, who would have been about 4 when she visited was absolutely fascinated by these corsets. He would help her every morning clip them together. I am really not sure why she wore the corsets because she certainly did not have them on snug the way Scarlett O’Hara had hers tied up. I think it was simply the only way she had to keep her stockings up because I’m pretty sure she was much too round to wear a girdle!
Farmor slept in Jeanette’s bed in our bedroom and Jeanette and I then slept together in my bed (not a big problem as we were as thin as broom sticks). We would beg her to tell us a story and the favorite ones involved ghosts.
When Farmor was a young girl she went to work in an inn. She arrived during the evening and so she did not have an opportunity to speak with her colleagues and was simply shown to her bedroom at the top of the house. She unpacked her few things and then went to bed but it was some time before she fell asleep. Then she was awakened because she could feel her covers being pulled away. She opened her eyes to discover a woman sitting at the side of her bed and slowly pulling the covers away. Farmor pulled the sheets back up to her chin but continued starring at the woman who tried to pull the covers back but Farmor held tight and kept them up. Then the woman disappeared. There was no falling back to sleep after that. Farmor had her eyes wide open the rest of the night. As they became accustomed to the dark she could see pairs of eyes on the wall opposite to her. They were just eyes and they looked like they were a child’s eyes. They were on the walls, the closet, the door. Impossible to run out the door with the eyes right there. It was creepy beyond belief.
“What was it? What was it?” we cried.
“Shhh, let me finish.” She would say in a mysterious whisper.
“Finally morning came and I hurried to dress and go downstairs.”
She approached the boss right away and said she could not sleep in that room. The man looked at her and told her that he would put her in a room with another maid. Later that day she got the true story from the other maid who had been there for many years. There had been a maid working for the inn who lived in that room. One night she gave birth to a baby but being unwed she had strangled it at birth and then hanged herself. Now she haunted the room. Shivers run up our arms!
My grandmother swore to us that this was a true story that really happened to her. She was a very religious woman who would not swear something which wasn’t true. I have therefore always had a very open mind when I have heard other ghost stories!
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