The Little White House

My first experience with the paranormal came in the early 1970’s when my parents, sisters and I were living in Calhoun County WV.

At first, we were living in town but due to circumstances beyond our control, we had to move. It was short notice but dad came through and found a house for us to rent. He said it was “out of town” he just neglected to say how far. It was five miles out of town and two miles up a holler. We were the only house on that branch of the holler.

It was not what you would expect a haunted house to look like, at least not to my seven-year-old mind. Ghosts lived in castles and old deserted houses not like the little white one story house with a sun porch that I saw before me. Oh how wrong I was.

So many unusual things happened there, where do I begin and it was not just in the house the whole place seemed to be “alive” with spirits. In broad daylight, you would hear the sounds of galloping horses and the sounds of men voices, but when you looked outside there was nothing to be seen. Every morning we would hear the sounds of a car pulling up outside the house then you would hear two car doors slam then the sound of someone walking across the sun porch but just as the footsteps reached the front door nothing. It was just gone.

My older sister and I shared a bedroom at the time, and the room we slept in apparently was already taken when we moved in. At night, someone or something walked up and down between our beds. The room was constantly cold and you always had the feeling that someone was looking at you.

Once my mom got up in the night to go to the bathroom and on her way back to bed, she saw a light out our bedroom window. She stopped to watch it and make sure it was not some hunter messing around the house, but as she watched, the light got bigger and brighter until she saw a ghostly face in the window. It frightened her and she gasp and when she did it disappeared.

However, I think the most frightening part of the whole experience was the shadow. It was the shadow of a man; he wore a fedora and a long coat. He was solid black and he gave you the feeling of something vile, evil, and cruel. My experience with the shadow came just a few days before we moved from there. My sister and I had stayed up late to watch a movie and I had to go to the bathroom before going to sleep. I opened the door to the bedroom and started across the living room then I saw him. He looked right at me! I saw his head turn towards me, and I swear he looked at me! I have never been so scared in all my life. I do not think I even breathed while we stood there looking at each other then I just ran. After my sister calmed me down she went out and looked but he was gone.

As I said a few days later, we moved and I was never so happy to move. Over the next few months, several families lived in the little white house at the end of the holler but they never stayed long. Finally, someone bought it and completely remodeled it. I hope that the dark entity has gone back wherever it was he came from.