I would love to hear any ghost stories you might have heard from your family when you were a kid.

My mother and aunt took a caning class at the community center. Caning is where you "wicker" a chair.

Gramma and Grampa had both passed on and their house was empty. Mon and Aunt Jean would go around the house looking for old chairs to redo.

The upstairs and downstairs of the house were the same. You could jog all around the perimeter without stopping, as long as you didn't try to go through the stairwell in the middle.

One day, while looking, Aunt Jean remembered a chair that Gramma was supposed to have left her and she described it. They went all through the house top and bottom floors looking for it. Nowhere to be found....

They went to class that night and finished their projects. They went back to the grandparent's house to pick up more chairs that they had stacked up to finish repairing.

While they were there, they decided to go through the house one more time. There - in the middle of the doorway of what was Aunt Jean's bedroom as a child, was the chair she had been looking for.

I grew up with 4 brothers and 2 sisters in a neighborhood that was well established and the houses were quite old and large. There was one on top of the hill behind us that everyone called the "Beddoe House". There were many other kids in the neighborhood and not one of them would go up the hill to see if anyone actually lived in that old house. We never saw a sign of anyone. Over the years, stories grew and became scarier each Halloween. "Old man Beddoe will sic his goat on you if you go near that house." was the threat we so often heard from other kids and parents, too. One day, coming home from school, my brother and I decided to get brave and cut thru Old Man Beddoe's yard to get home quicker. Cautiously we climbed over the fence, looking all around for danger. We were halfway down the hill and almost to the other side of the yard when we heard this awful noise behind us! We looked back up the hill and saw this big billy goat charging us. We had never seen it before and had no idea where it came from. My brother was a faster runner than me, so he made it to the fence and hopped over. I climbed up the first tree I came to, got up as high as I could and sat there, frozen to a branch, afraid to move. The billy goat looked all around for me then went back up the hill and disappeared somewhere. I still could not move, I must have been there for at least two hours and a few times saw "Old Man Beddoe" come out on his porch and look down the hill at me. Finally my Dad and brother came looking for me. I heard my brother say, "The goat ate her, Dad! She's gone!" Dad saw me up the tree and helped me down. When I told him about the billy goat and seeing Old Man Beddoe, my Dad said: "Aw, you kids are nuts! Old Man Beddoe died years ago and no one has lived here since. Now get home to supper!"

Growing up I lived in a trailor house that was across the street from where my father was born and two blocks up and 3 blocks over from where he grow up. My grandma's house has been abanded since she died back in 78... anyways my aunt once told me that she would not step foot in the house because the house was haunted. there have never been homeless people break in to keep warm or anything. the doors are unlocked even today and the windows are in tacked. most houses that are empty for that long a time have had homeless people run out or fires started to keep them warm or at lest the windows broken by kids throwing rocks.

I just think this is interesting. My mother says that the house is very old and there is a basement under the house that the stairs had fall in so there is no way to the basement and the floor could cave in at anytime. but still there is noway that someone would now any of that just by looking at the house. there are still things inside the house old furniture and such... it should be tempting for someone looking for a place to sleep out of the cold. the only thing that would stop someone is the fact that the ceiling has fallen in and it is fiberglass.

It has alway made me wonder about the house. I have not been brave enough to go inside because of the fiberglass and the fact that no one remembers exactly what part of the house the basement is in and how far it goes.... I dont fancy the thought of landing in a basement that I cant get out of!!! the ghost wouldnt bother me so much but the falling through the floor...?!!
not my Idea of fun!!!!!!!!!!

The closest thing to a ghost story that I was ever told as a kid was that my paternal Grandmother always fed the wild birds because she believed they were the souls of the departed. I always liked that story.

My actual experience with ghosts was in our first house in Missouri. We had at least one and possibly two ghosts. Every member of the family had multiple experiences with "the ghost" of several different kinds. We sort of always knew that there was no negativity involved, it just wanted to be acknowledged. We were never afraid of it, and a few times it demonstrated a certain level of care for the family members. To tell you the truth, when we moved I hoped it would follow us, but it didn't and I miss it.

There were so many events that it would be a small book to tell them, but even our dog heard it at times.

Wow, Helen, what a great story! I bet you do miss your "friend". Maybe you could write an ebook on the stories. I would love to read it if you did.

In Mt. Vernon, WA where I lived for several years there was a huge, Victorian style house next to the High School. I mean this house was enormous! It had a stone wall all the way around the yard and cast iron gates. It was a little run down and no one lived there, but the family did their best to keep it up, and it was a very pretty house. The high school kids had stories about the cellar in that house that chilled us to the bone! One story was that at night they could hear strange noises coming from the cellar. There were windows at ground level all the way aroung the foundation, so the kids would sometimes sneak in thru these windows to investigate. Apparently there was a well in the middle of the cellar that once had a brick wall around it, but the wall was collasped. The kids would take one of these bricks and drop in down the well and they could never hear it hit bottom. The air coming up from the well was foul, they said. The guys would go in while the girls waited outside, shaking and listening to weird sounds.

I am loving your stories so much! Aunt Jean's chair, and Phyllis, that billy goat story is amazing! Freespirit, that is so odd about the abandoned house that no one has gone into or damaged. I would be reluctant to check it out also because of the fiberglass. Helen, I like the story about the birds also.

My sister's house in Oregon seems to be haunted, even tho they built it. Maybe someone owned that land before or something. It's the little kids in the family who see things.

My sister's granddaughter was about 3 when she came to my sister and said "Who is that man in the bathroom?" She said he wore a black hat and was standing in the bathroom. She wasn't scared at all.

Another time, her 3 year old grand son was playing by the stairs. They heard him set up a howl. He said "That lady won't let me go up the stairs."

My sister and brother-in-law have heard noises downstairs when they're upstairs and seen people walk by their windows out of the corner of their eye.

I had a friend whose house was haunted, in Palo Alto, Calif. Because of the age of the house and the descriptions of the "ghosts" we came to the conclusion that the house was built on land that was haunted. Apparently, the area was located some distance out from the first small town in that area and was used as "the hanging place", for the "ghosts" were usually near a tree and had a rope around their necks or some were holding the rope and reaching out with the noose, as if to put it around someone's neck. Very spooky! And there was one room which my friend had locked up and would not go in there because it was always very cold, damp and had strange noises and a sense of many spirits.

My family's land in South Carolina was used for Army training during both WWI and WWII. It was swampy in places and the house in which my Father grew up was somewhat in the middle of the area. Late one afternoon in the midst of a major thunderstorm, my Father was lying across his bed and looking out the window. A bright flash of lightning lit up the dark sky and there was a headless body walking across the front yard. My Father dove under his old metal bed and remained there until Granddaddy returned from the tobacco market. It was then he learned from his Father that blank ammunition had been replaced with live and an officer's head had been blown off during training many years before. My Granddaddy had seem the apparition several times.

I had a friend and her family, who moved out to her husbands family farm..His whole family had grown up there, and of course
he was very happy to be back..She said things didn't feel right..
Of course there were the stories of a "dead Indian" that walked the grounds..Everyone had seen it at least a couple of times
and her 5 yr old became terrified of it..It would walk around the upstairs rooms making noises..and one time it scattered her
kids Tinker-Toys all over the living-room..And nobody was ever brave enough to climb those stairs to the attic..
Well, one night her little boy, kept hearing his name being called..He thought it sounded like his daddy..It drew him to the stairway, closer & closer he went..it was pitch black and as he peered into the darkness suddenly a pair of red eyes floated down, right in front of his face..!! He let out a scream and fell backwards down the stairs..Of course it woke the rest of the family and they ran to him..He was totally hysterical..He was speechless but kept pointing to the top of the stairs..So they looked up to the top and,"SLAM"!!, the door closed..
After that they never turned the lights off..and the boys slept in "mom & dads" room..!!