This story appeared, although a little differently, in my first book Ghost Adventures. As a few more details have come out over the years, as well as being further removed from the situation, I’m now able to reveal that this story takes place in my old house. The people involved are my parent, but I had changed their names in an attempt to avoid that old idea that peole who look into ghost stories ALWAYS have stories that involve their experiences.
Linda and Leo lived in their Goffstown, New Hampshire, home for eighteen years. Located in a rural section outside of Manchester, it seems the ideal sight for something supernatural to happen, but it wasn’t until the death of a close family member that they were visited by a mysterious and comforting presence.
“It wasn’t her. Even when she was young, Millie had a chubby face. Always had that heavy look. She was dainty.”
Shortly after the death of Leo’s aunt, Linda was lying on the couch in the den when she felt someone in the room with her. After a few seconds she looked up to see a young woman dressed in white standing at the doorway, looking up with a blank expression. “She looked like she was lost and she didn’t realize what was going on.” After a few minutes, the woman moved a little backwards and disappeared.
Linda described the woman as all in white, wearing a nightgown of see-through linen. She was in her thirties, was of average height, with long curl red hair that came out the bottom of a scarf or something else on her head. Linda most remembers the expression on her face, “like she was just passing through,” and the fact she could see through her.
Over the next year and a half Linda saw the woman about ten more times, always at night, always at the doorway of her den. “I would stare at her. I would try to figure out what she was doing there and then she’d be gone.” Linda says there was nothing that would preface the woman arrival and it happened during any season. She would just appear. The woman never tried to talk to Linda. In fact, Linda says the woman never seemed to see her there and never tried to interact in any way. She does say that the appearance of the ghost was comforting and soothing.
Linda had had other experiences but she had explained them away. Once, when her husband was in trouble while taking a trip in West Africa, she had sensed something was wrong and, “sent my guardian angel to help him.” When he arrived home safe he said he had felt something at the moment she had sent it. Then there was the mysterious stain on their ceiling that remained although they painted over it several times, bleached it and investigated to find no pipes or trails of water leading to it.
Leo, who is in security, is much more of a cynic and still has trouble explaining away his experiences with the woman in white. He saw her several times, at the foot of his bed and in the same den and his description of the woman is the same. She never looked at time but stared straight ahead, with a blank expression, and then be gone in a few seconds. He doesn’t like to talk about it. Neither Leo nor Linda mentioned it to until they moved to Nashua, New Hampshire, two years after the appearances started.
Both feel if they had not moved, the woman in white would still visit them. This leads me to believe the spirit must have something to do with the sight. When Leo and Linda moved in the house was only two years old. The first owners have moved out shortly after moving in, but Linda claims it was not under any unusual circumstances. Before that, the land was undeveloped and owned by a local Catholic school. The school had a convent which housed several dozen nuns although over the years their numbers have reduced.
Could one of the nuns who enjoyed walking in the woods behind her convent still remain tied to the land? Linda feels this might be a good explanation, but is quick to dismiss the head piece as a habit, or the woman, while comforting, as particularly religious.
The current owner of the house says the only trouble with the house has been trying to plow the rock driveway in the winter during their early years there. They have added a garage to the property and have nothing but good things to say about the property.
Tripping on Legends... 