Agnes Wagner from your ghost story bus

Transcript

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I am Dr. G, and you are listening to your Ghost Storybus.com, your podcast home for stories of the paranormal. Everyone has a paranormal story. We'd love to hear yours. Send it to us, and you could end up here as a guest on the show. Or perhaps we would just read your story and share it with everyone. Please give us a like and a share. Download the episodes and tell your friends, and together we'll save storytelling. Today we're going to talk about Agnes Arbatus Wagner, my Aunt Aggie. I grew up in a small town in Northeast Ohio. My life was, well, shall we say, complicated at the least. I would live in three houses on the same street in my young life, each a little more haunted than the next. You will soon be able to order the first book about my life from this site. This story was not my first paranormal experience. We're going to cover that later, but this one was my first big paranormal experience. Agnes Orbitus Wagner was my aunt. She was not your normal woman of the time. She was born 8 November 1907. She was a cigar smoker, and both her and her sister, Bernice, my grandmother, played what they referred to as the fiddle. Both did some singing for the jamboree, backing up some famous singers of country music. It was a time when women were supposed to be quiet little housewives. My Aunt Agnes's answer to all that bunk was to start the first female taxi business in town. She quickly became the talk not only of the town, but of the entire valley. She got calls from newspapers and TV stations. She was the topic of discussion for years. Some loved her, some did not. But one thing you could count on, almost everyone knew who she was. And her service was in great demand and grew very quickly. Aunt Aggie and I were very close. We were so close, in fact, that my grandparents, which would be her sister and husband, would often try and keep me from seeing her. She was not afraid to stand up to them, and they didn't like it very much. She would always rescue me from bullies of all kinds, family or not. I can't remember what I did on that Tuesday, May the 28th, 1968. But it was some eight-year-old fuss that earned me a walk to the tree to bring back a switch and a trip to a huge walk-in closet in my bedroom for what seemed to be an overly long time. It was dinner and then back to my room to think about whatever it was that I did that I assure you I had already forgotten. I remember after my bath, I had a little bit of trouble sleeping. And somewhere in the middle of the night, Aunt Aggie woke me up. She held her finger up to her lips and whispered, shh. I whispered back, do they know you're in here? They're going to be really mad if they don't. She smiled and hugged me. She said, Baby boy, I need you to listen and promise me that you'll be quiet and that you won't cry. Can you do that for me? I shook my head, yes. She puts her hand on my leg and she says, I want you to know you have kind of a rough road ahead, but you'll be fine. You will grow into a most interesting man who will have lived adventures normal men can only dream of. And I will be right there watching over you. I'm going to be one of your guardian angels. There's another one that you're going to meet later. Please don't fear or hate these people. They can be misguided, but they are family. You will outlive them all, and sadly, I won't be there to see it. I'm also not going to be there next week to see your magic show. I was killed in an auto accident on my way back from Florida, but I had to come and see you one last time. Be strong. She kissed my forehead, and that was all I remember till I woke up. I woke up to loud voices in the kitchen, which wasn't an unusual occurrence. My grandmother was crying. So I ran to the kitchen to see what was wrong. Grandpap spoke up first. Boy, go back to your room for a few minutes. Your mom, which is what he always called my grandmother, and I are having a little discussion for a minute or two. She'll come and get you when we're all done. Now you might have to stay home from school today, but she'll go over that with you when she needs to. Do you got that? I said, Yes, sir. Did you know that Aunt Aggie is dead? She was killed last night in an automobile accident. Now I can tell you there were a few times when they didn't have a thing to say. But this time the room was still. And she wanted to know how I could have possibly dreamed about such an awful thing. I told her that this was no dream. Aunt Aggie was in my room. Now I should have just agreed that it was a dream. Have you ever tried to explain something to an overly religious non-believer? But you know exactly what you saw and heard. Welcome to my world. I never saw Aunt Aggie again, but the incident was talked about for decades. I was already a magician and I loved ghost stories, but this would begin what is now a six-decade study of the mind, of the paranormal and magic. And when times were the worst that they could be in that house, if I said the name Aggie or Aunt Aggie, they downed their head and the chaos immediately stopped. This was the start of my paranormal journey. I am Dr. G. This is your ghost story bus. Good night.