52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks topic this week is Frightening.  “Any ghost stories in the family? Ever been scared while researching? Been frightened in a cemetery? Or how about sharing a Halloween story or photo? “

We had a relative who passed away a few years ago.  I am leaving out her name to protect the innocent.  She was a wonderful lady and had a heart of gold.  There isn’t anything she wouldn’t do for you.  That said, she told some fantastic tales.  She wasn’t just making them up to entertain us, she truly believed in what she told us.  At one time she was going to write a book about all her experiences. I wish she had written them down because now I can’t remember all the details.  When we visited, our husbands would be in another room watching TV and talking.  I would be in the kitchen with her, and my kids would be playing in the next room.  Unfortunately, they could hear her and on the way home I had to explain that she was just making it up to try to ease their minds.  Some of the tales were frightening and others just unbelievable.  I will try to tell some of them the best I can, but they won’t be the same because Iike I said I don’t remember the all the details.

She claimed that she heard voices coming from upstairs, but no one was home.  She decided to go up there and see where the voices were coming from.  When she started up the stairs the end table next to the stairs said. “Do not to go up there.”  So she stopped, waited a few seconds and tried again.  Once again the end table said to her, “Do not to go up there.”  She became frightened, stopped, and didn’t go up there.  She became convinced that end table was possessed.  A couple of days later she decided to get rid of the end table and asked her son to take it to some antique store.  On his way, he was in an accident and she believed that the table caused the accident.  The fact that her son was in always getting in accidents was beside the point. 

She claimed that she grew a third breast, right between the other two.  She diagnosed herself with Breast Cancer, and sent her son to Mexico to buy some Laetrile for her.  She took the Laetrile until she ran out, and she had to send her son back to Mexico several more times for more Laetrile. After about a year of taking Laetrile, the third breast finally disappeared.  It never returned, and she claimed the Laetrile cured her of Breast Cancer.  She just couldn’t understand why the United States didn’t make it available to cure all Cancers. 

One night she woke up to a bright light that lit up the bedroom.  She tried to wake up her husband, but he told her that she was crazy and went back to sleep.  She got up and went into another room to look out the window.  Her daughter was already there looking out the window, when they both saw a UFO land in their yard.  All of sudden it took off and disappeared.  The next day she told her husband that both she and her daughter saw it, but he would not believe her. 

She said that when she was a child her father had been very sick for a long time and was lying on the sofa, when all of sudden he started to levitate off the sofa.  He hovered there for a few minutes before finally settling back down on sofa.  They tried to talk to him while he was levitating, but he seemed to be in a trance.  Afterwards he was cured of whatever ailed him.

Another time when she was a child, she said, she was walking down the street in the dark, and saw a man coming toward her when he turned into a werewolf.  It was a country road in a wooded area and after turning into a werewolf, he turned and headed into the woods.

There were many more stories, but these are the only ones that I can remember.   She sure made an impression on all of us.  My kids, all grown-up now for many years, still talk about her stories. 

Copyright © 2018 Gail Grunst