53. The Real Ghosts Of... The Kate Shepard House: Part 3

We've explored the house. We've uncovered the evidence. Now, it's time to talk to the one person who knows this haunted beauty better than anyone: former owner Wendy James. In this final chapter of our Kate Shepard House series, we sit down with Wendy herself to hear the wild, weird, and honestly way too validating stories from her time living in this house full-time. 

Wendy doesn't just dish out ghost stories, she drops receipts. We're talking uncovered heirlooms, hidden photographs, and personal experiences that

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to the Real Ghosts of Podcast, where we explore haunted locations in and around Austin, Texas. We're your hosts, Nicole Ricardo and Damien Shelacey.

SPEAKER_02 0:17

Listen along as we couple in-depth historical research and paranormal investigative techniques with a sixth sense of the unknown.

SPEAKER_03 0:30

Okay, history time.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Welcome back.

SPEAKER_03 0:34

Welcome back.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Third episode in our Cape Shepard saga. And we are finally getting to sit down with the former owner, Wendy.

SPEAKER_03 0:46

Yeah. Which is worth noting, the reason that we sat down with the former owner is when she had moved in, uh, they discovered a bunch of historical stuff in the attic of the house, a lot of which was um related directly to the house, other stuff as well. And she did a real deep dive into the history of the house.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Yes, and I did speak to the current owner as well, who's super kind. Um, and she's actually the one that sent me Wendy's info. Yes. Um, because I had asked her if she would like to be featured, you know. Um, but she was like, Well, really, you should talk to Wendy. She's the one who really dug into all of this, she's the one that found all of it, the one that did all of the research on here.

SPEAKER_03 1:29

Um and that really knows the history.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Yeah, so shout out because yeah, the current owner is also uh incredibly kind, and she actually was the one that was able to put us in contact with Wendy. So that was really awesome.

SPEAKER_03 1:42

Yeah. So we're just gonna have Wendy tell us the history.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

Tell us the tale, I'm Wendy James, and I was the proud owner of the Kate Shepherd House for almost 20 years. And obviously, you know, a lot of history prior to me moving in, and then of course, there's some history to us uh for those 20 years. But um if you've seen a picture of the house, it's uh it's uh it's a Queen Anne Victorian, and obviously the exterior is just darling, and I think it's um there's something about it that just is interesting and it sort of beckons you in. It makes you say, Oh, I want to see inside that house, which is what exactly what happened to us when we were looking for a house to buy in the area. So um, of course, once we saw it, we were smitten and um and we bought the house. And and we intentionally bought the house to turn it into a bed and breakfast. So that was um something I had wanted to do for a long time. So I had come from the corporate world and you know, did a lot of traveling and was away from home for a long time. And so I, you know, that proverbial, I wanted to be my own boss. And so uh thus the the bed and breakfast. So we moved into the house in 02, and it was a good nine months to a year probably before I actually went up into the attic and and and started to rifle through a lot of old boxes, which we knew we had. The sellers had said there's a lot of old boxes in the attic. Uh, what would you like us to do with them? And of course, we said, leave them, we'll we'll take care of it, because we wanted anything and everything to do with the history of the house, obviously. So once we started going through these boxes, I'll never forget the day that you know wasn't there more than just a couple of minutes. And I pulled out this beautiful old document. It was made out to the Confederate States of America, dated 1860 something, and naturally our interest was piqued, and thus began the journey of discovering you know all of these documents and what they were and why they were in our attic. So, and and in a nutshell, what those documents were was a family as early as 1820 something, all the way through to the late 1800s, kept paper. And so, of course, back then, no phones, no CNN. So, you know, a letter was precious and you kept it and you you cut open the envelope meticulously and you folded it back properly and you put it back in the envelope. Newspaper clippings were were cut out and stored. So paper was important. And to this family of 11 children, by the way, they wrote letters to each other through the years. Uh, when they were young, when they were old, it was the mother to the children, the children to the mother. Um, regardless of the season of their life, they they were um of naturally exchanging letters. And so again, paper was important and they didn't throw anything away. So somebody in this family said, Don't throw anything away, I'll keep it. And eventually it got handed down to this family, the Shepherd family, and it was thrown in the attic along with a bunch of other shepherd stuff. And um, and and there it was, and you know, several families just kept shoving it around the attic. So the family of 11 children that I'm talking about was a McCray family, uh, very wealthy from uh Pascagoula, Mississippi. I think they had come from Jackson and then North Carolina, and of course prior to that, Scotland. So it was a big wealthy uh shipping family. And so all through their lives, it, you know, these letters um were were were very detailed, uh, you know, describing the weather. And, you know, you could just imagine, because of the detail and the time and the care that it took to write this letter, um, you could imagine that that beautiful blue day with in spring with all the flowers blooming, or the that beautiful new blue fabric that they just uh purchased to make a dress, or it because it they were very explicit. Um and so the these letters took us a while to read. Many many people think about. So one of the boys, um, actually two of the boys, the older two boys who became the patriarchs of this McRae family, when the father died, because there was 11 children, these two boys became the patriarchs. One uh eventually became governor of Mississippi. Colin McRae, who was summoned by Jefferson Davis to um go to England. It was about a year into the Civil War, and uh they they needed some help. There was some shenanigans going on in England uh with somebody that he had already sent to buy and ship war supplies for the war. So, I mean, obviously the South is at war. They they don't they can't make all this gray cloth and all these bullets and guns and boots and rifles and all the accoutrements for war. So they um they uh send Colin to England to get the situation because because the supplies were drawing up and and they they said we're gonna lose this war if we don't have all these supplies. So Colin gets to England um about a year after the war, and uh into the war, and he gets everything back on track. And I hate to say it like this, but um that war continued on for another several years because of the success of Colin McCrae, which is sad. But anyway, that's another podcast for another day. But um, so anyway, Colin is there and he's in England, he's uh the patriarch of the family. Lots of letters are going back and forth between him and his family and his mother. And uh, those were so rich in detail, and those were so uh truly. In fact, somebody has called the just the Confederate papers of the of the McRae family papers, the King Tut's tomb of the Civil War. So it it really opened up and exposed um that simply, again, another podcast for another day, that England was indeed supporting the Confederacy during uh the Civil War. And these papers proved that over and over and over again. They were uh collaborating with uh Colin McRae to buy and ship war supplies. So all of these papers, these family letters and these papers, of course, um were quite the journey. And and it was um it felt very special. We we felt like we knew this family after reading all these wonderful letters. So we eventually found a great um museum for them to live in. Part of the deal is that they have to keep all of these papers together. We didn't want them split up. The McRae family papers are now in the Confederate Relic Room in Columbia, South Carolina. So uh there's a book called The English Connection, and that's one example of uh how much history is in this this cachet of paper. So it it proves that the author um uh wrote was writing the book and was for whatever reason it was on the back burner. Um, and and so he meets us and reads our papers, and of course, uh that was the impetus for him to finally finish his book. But it's the it's the book about the fact that the English it it documents the connection between the English and the Civil uh uh Confederacy and how they were supporting the Civil War and why they were supporting the Civil War. So the English Connection by Huey, Corky Huey is um is just one of the many things that we know have come out of these papers. So fast forward and changing lanes, um, I have this wonderful B B and I love I lost you there for a minute, you're back. So I was always sharing this story around, and people loved it, and they loved the history, and you know, I'm I mean, I'm of it today. Uh so obviously I would speak with them for like over an hour. So a lot of great conversations. And what always came up was there are ghosts here in this house. So that always led to the next conversation, and that is um I definitely had experiences that I could not explain. Now, uh born and raised, I'm religious, I'm uh born and raised Catholic, and you know, you die, you go to heaven or hell. I I still struggle with uh spirits and and people that are left behind. And so I I struggle with that. I think a lot of people do. So um my answer always was, I don't know if I believe in ghosts, but I do have a lot of things that I can't explain. And then of course I would start, you know, telling people the the things that I um had personally experienced as well as a couple of other guests. And by the way, did you stay there? Have you been there? Or did you just find them online? You did stay there.

SPEAKER_03 11:39

We did. We stayed there, and I I have some specific questions when when you're open to it of specific phenomena that may or may not have been reported by you uh there. So uh whenever you're done with the story, there I got go for it.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Yeah, you really ask now.

SPEAKER_03 11:56

Yeah, so I first I believe I found you you had done a television interview regarding the water apportation, is that right?

SPEAKER_00 12:06

Uh yeah. That's one of the things that happened that I can't explain.

SPEAKER_03 12:11

Yeah, how can you help me understand when that happened? Um, did you have like an expert come in and people looked at this and said there's there's there's not coming from anywhere in the house, and it just it seemingly was out of nowhere? A plumber.

SPEAKER_00 12:28

I mean, you know, we obviously called our plumber and said, What the heck's going on? And he said, I have no idea where that came from.

SPEAKER_03 12:35

Yeah, that's well, that is very compelling to me. The other thing is, uh, while we stayed there, we slept upstairs, and I had left a recording uh device downstairs all night long. And two questions. One, if you are upstairs and you're talking in your room, could you essentially hear that downstairs through vibration or whatever? Because it's an old house. That's question one. But question two, have you ever heard yourself or had anyone report uh that while there's no one downstairs? Because we were the only ones in the whole in the house that while there's no one down there, there's big like knocks like that, or like what sounds like footsteps. Is that anything that you've because we have a ton of that? We recorded a ton of that overnight.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

Really? Okay, well, that's interesting. Yeah, no, that's a first, actually. Um I you know, I think I would hear things you know through the years, but I always chalked it up as it's an old house, you know, the wind's blowing and the windows are creaking or whatever. So no, but but specifically hearing um any thumps. Um, I'm trying to remember. I I I think somebody had heard some knocking and and we deduced that it was, you know, the the old windows sort of moving back and forth. Um, but no, I I never heard any of the knocking.

SPEAKER_03 14:06

I'll have to send you an audio file.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

Um I would love that.

SPEAKER_03 14:10

I had a microphone sitting on that wonderful table in the dining room. And we went upstairs, we went to bed, and all throughout the night. Now you can hear when a car passes or something normal, but there will be times right next to the microphone, you'll hear what sounds like walking around, you'll hear like very loud bangs like on the wall, like that.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

And there was, and there was nothing uh, so we stayed in what the isab Isabel room or Isabella room. Isabel so we stayed in that room, and so yeah, we went upstairs, the door was closed. So there was never any times where, say, being in the dining room, you would hear like a guest talking upstairs.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

No, no, the house is pretty solid.

SPEAKER_02 14:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

So let me ask you this about Isabel's room, and and let me just interject this. That room is probably uh where the most of the things happened.

SPEAKER_03 15:04

Well, Nicole, okay. Immediately we got there, I was outside getting stuff out of the car. She was in the room, Isabel's room, um, and you heard what was it, shuffling right outside the door?

SPEAKER_01 15:16

Yeah, you had gone downstairs to get more things out of the car, and I was laying in the room because as soon as I went in, I was like, oh, the energy in here is pretty overwhelming. I need to, I need a minute. And so I laid down and I had the door was closed, and I heard it sounded like really soft footsteps and almost like somebody like shuffling papers around. And I thought that he had come back upstairs, you know, to maybe put something up there and went back down, but he was like, Nope, I didn't come back in. I was like, Oh, well, I just heard somebody in the hallway.

SPEAKER_03 15:45

And I know that there's a little girl apparently that's seen up in that hallway, correct?

SPEAKER_00 15:49

Yeah, yep.

SPEAKER_03 15:50

Now okay, so we don't know if that is one of the two sisters, I guess. Did they both die in the house?

SPEAKER_00 15:58

You know, I don't know if they actually died in the house. We have no way of knowing.

SPEAKER_03 16:02

No way of knowing.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

I looked it up and it's it's not listed anywhere. But you know, after 120 years, surely somebody's died in that house and in that room. So, you know, who knows? Yeah, and but yeah, you've probably seen the interview then when I talk about the little girl that the guests seen in that room.

SPEAKER_03 16:20

Well, the water thing, when I saw that on the interview, really piqued my interest because that's something else. But the last question I have on this is electronics.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:29

So have you yourself or had anyone uh experienced having their electronic devices just go haywire to the point really, really? Okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

It it it never it never ceased to not happen. So it was um it was little things like uh walking into Isabel's room. I'll never forget it. Several times it happened with my mother, with my housekeeper, with my sister. You'd walk into Isabel's room and the CD player would turn on. Um, I'd be downstairs and I'm like, what is that racket? And somebody somehow the dryer had turned on. So it's it's going, you know, and I'm thinking, I didn't put anything in the dryer. Or I'm upstairs and I hear something like it was very, very odd. Of course, I run downstairs and I start looking. The microwave had turned on, and of course it's sparking because there's nothing in it. So, so yeah, though those were were definitely some of the things. And uh, we as you can imagine, we had a lot of film crews through the years.

SPEAKER_03 17:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

Um, movies and you know, documentaries, and you know, all this kind of stuff. And often the um equipment, you know, those big bulbs on on those big cameras uh would would blow or the plugs wouldn't all of a sudden it would just stop working. Um one camera crew, we were supposed to start shooting at two, and it ended up till midnight. They just couldn't figure out you know why this this brand new camera wasn't working. It was a lot of a lot of that that um happened consistently, especially with camera crews.

SPEAKER_03 18:11

We experienced that in spades, just so you know. Um, whatever was doing it was turning off my iPad. It was turning off apps I was using and then uh opening up apps and then starting apps that I was using before. Um, and the cameras would uh turn off, uh, like you mentioned there. Never of a battery issue. I would always turn it back on and full battery, and but it would just turn them off. And that's that is interesting. And I will say that we've done this kind of thing for so long. I have to say that that house, specifically, some of those things, there's something very special there, something very interesting. And there doesn't seem to be any kind of negative history, dark history, which I like as well, because it seems, I don't know, like something else.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

And I'm I'm curious before so before we get into talking about more of the like spooky things, can um, Wendy, would you mind sharing a bit um some of the history on you know, Kate Shepherd is about like that family and what it was used for in that time? I would love to have some information on that too.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

Absolutely. Well, don't you agree that that's just the cutest house ever? I mean, it when you pull up, you're like, I gotta go in there. It's just it's just an adorable house. And it was built in 1897 by uh the family by Kate Shepherd's father, and it was actually chosen out of a catalog. So imagine that there was a lot of homes, hundreds of them, uh, if not thousands, being built across the country that they'd chosen their plans out of a catalog. And the catalog would be mailed to you and you'd choose your plans. And then if you wanted the package of that house, they would also send you. So it was like a kid house. And so rumor has it that it took 13 railroad cars to get all the parts and pieces to mobile, and then of course it was assembled on site. So I think that's that's really, I mean, I don't know, it still amazes me that that was a kid house. A goes into B, B goes into C. I mean, how did they put that together over 120 years ago? So, anyway, so it's built there uh by Kate's parents, and um, all of that land, by the way, uh, they owned all of that land around them. That was all McCrae land that they inherited. So Kate, uh Kate Shepherd's mother was also Kate Shepherd, and she had inherited that land. That would have been her grandmother's um grandmother and grandfather's uh land that she inherited. So, anyway, so she they they eventually built this house in 1897, they eventually give the house to their two spinster daughters, they had five children, and two of them never married, and they gave that house to them, and they moved to another piece of McRae family property in Goshen, Mississippi. So Kate was an educator, they were both school teachers, and so back then, if you wanted a specialized education, uh not regular education, um, whether you were wealthy or you had a child with some issues, um, you sent them to somebody like Kate Shepherd. And so she had a school there in the house. You might have seen that picture of her on the lawn with all of the children uh on the front on the front lawn. So uh she ran that house uh we know on and off through the years, like as early as 1920, all the way through to her death. I think she died in the 50s now. Um, or was it the 60s? Anyway, uh I can't remember. She she must have been about 50 or 60 when she died. Um Isabel died the following year, and then their um widowed brother finally moves into the house. He lives the rest of Of his life there in the house. And so in about 73, the house sold to the first family outside of the Shepherd family. We are the fifth family to have that house since the Shepherds. So when we move in, we of course were wanted to honor the house and the original family. And Kate Shepherd had a really good reputation when it came to education. She took in special needs children. She um would go and uh, for instance, she started, she became um principal and started uh the little public elementary school in Gauche, Mississippi, a real small uh little community in Mississippi. She would go off and teach in Virginia, or um, she she was very, very good with children. And uh her school became quite famous and and quite beloved by by the community. And so when she died and the school closed, um, they eventually, probably just a couple of years later, uh, they opened a little public elementary school and named it after Kate Shepherd. And so um it's an award-winning school, it's excellent still to this day. So I know she'd be very, very proud of that. So we wanted to honor that. And of course, Kate Shepherd never threw anything away. We had all those wonderful old school books. There's even more boxes in the attic of those old school books. Um, a lot of her personal things, she was a writer. Uh, she would write books by hand on probably, I don't know, what's that size, that small size paper, like four by six or something? She would write a book on on this paper. And of course it would be this thick, and she would she would bind it when she was done with it, she would bind it with a ribbon. And we had stacks of of her books handwritten uh in the attic, as well as I don't know if you saw a lot of those postcards. We had stacks and stacks of postcards that came from all over the world, assuming it was her students who knew that she loved to hear from them. So they would send her a postcard. They were simply addressed Kate Shepherd, Mobile, Alabama. So she was well loved, and she was um, I I think she was quite revered in the community. And then, of course, Isabel, her sister, was very outgoing in the garden clubs, and she started the Azalea Festival a couple with a couple of her other friends. So the shepherds were well known, and we we wanted to pay homage to that and and make sure we named it after after the shepherd family.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

One of the other things that I felt pretty strongly, so when we walked into the butler's pantry, which I guess is where the water happened, um, those cabinets in front of it with the the glass, so I was feeling that those were original. The sink next to it, like I feel like those cabinets were original. I didn't feel like the sink was original, but I kept feeling like those that that is right. Okay. Um and then the the the glass cabinets, I kept feeling like, and I don't know if this was something that ever happened while you were there, that maybe you would walk in and one of them would be open, or I just kept feeling like they open on their own.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

Well, uh funny you should say that because yes, um, we were giving a Bill and I were giving a tour, and it was another couple, and they had some kind of relationship with the house. I can't remember, but they knew somebody, one of the shepherds. And as we came through the butler's pantry, and I'm bragging about the butler's pantry and all the original hardware. And by the way, that little sink was not there. That was added sometime, I think, in the 80s or the 90s. So that butler's pantry um would have actually gone all the way down the hall into did did you go into the Mobile Bay room downstairs?

SPEAKER_01 25:52

No, the door was closed. We weren't able to go see it.

SPEAKER_03 25:54

Is that the room that's by the butler's butler's room? Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

Yeah. So that that door, of course, was added because eventually that butler's pantry went all the way into that room because that was this the men's smoking parlor, the mobile bedroom. So the butler obviously would have needed access to all the parlors downstairs. So that butler's pantry went all the way down. Um and so anyway, so we're we're walking through the butler's pantry with this other couple, and as we're standing there talking, one of those cabinet doors, I'll never forget it, just opened and flew open. Just just flew open. It it didn't just come unlatched, it flew open.

SPEAKER_03 26:41

I'm wondering if that's the noise we were hearing because the microphone was right next to the that room. Yeah. Is that also where the water happened up on the ceiling there? Yeah, that's what I thought. Because you can't really tell now. You can tell there's a little bit of damage there, but not very bad. Um, so I was yeah, that's so that is exactly where that happened.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

Yeah, and you know, that that's kind of why I left those tiles up there that are water stained.

SPEAKER_03 27:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

I just I I I couldn't I couldn't paint over them, I couldn't change them out.

SPEAKER_03 27:11

Well, and I'm so sorry, but you were the one that witnessed that, correct?

SPEAKER_00 27:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 27:16

Okay, can you just just for me and my own sort of uh whatever uh describe that? Because I was trying to describe to Nicole what you said, and you said it was like a stream or almost like a wall. It was a wall.

SPEAKER_00 27:29

Oh, of water. And I'll never forget it because the the teachers that were there at the breakfast waiting for their breakfast, I had just gone in to get it. Uh I had become really good friends with them. They stayed with me year after year after year, and they were just lovely. I'm still in touch with them to this day. They're just lovely. And if you ask them, they'll remember it. Um, so I had just gone back into the kitchen, you know, and I'm walking out with my my plates of food, and all of a sudden, I'm it's like I couldn't get by because of the food. I mean, it was just a wall of water. And of course, they're they're jumping up and scrambling, and they went and grabbed their towels, and you know, it it was quite the the scene. Um but then it stopped. And of course, I was able to salvage the moment and get them their breakfast so they could get off to their convention. But of course I called my plumber and said, You're not gonna believe what just happened. So that that that was uh that was that morning. Yeah. Sylvia and Jackie, I'll never forget it.

SPEAKER_03 28:33

The the the layout of the house above that pantry, I believe, is your bathroom in Isabel. Yeah, and so you would have seen, yeah. So you would have seen something. You would have like a plumber would have known that that that water came from there. You probably would have seen it elsewhere. So none of that, they looked at it and they're like, no, this is and we were assuming that's what it was.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

Something happened up in there, you know. Um, and and but no, he said, I I don't know where that came from. Are you sure you didn't spill water on the that's wild. Uh-huh. And then, you know, I don't know if I if you saw this in the interview and if if you did stop me. Um but very soon after that, I had a dear friend who uh was house sitting for me because I had guests. Uh Campbell was staying in the upstairs room, the top of the stair. No, I lied. No, I lied. She was downstairs in the mobile bay room, and there was a couple upstairs in the barber room, which is directly above the mobile bay room. And she is woken about four or five o'clock in the morning, very early, uh, by water coming down that main wall in the mobile bayoman. And of course, she's calling me. I'm on vacation, my phone's ringing at four in the morning. She says, Oh my God, Wendy, you're not gonna believe this. So water was rushing down that wall, and she's moving artwork and and you know, trying, trying to make to get the the things to care to move over to the other side of the room. And I said, You know what? It's gotta be the couple upstairs. They've left the bathtub running because that's directly above that room. So, of course, she's dashing upstairs and she's waking them up, banging on the door, saying, Have you left the water on? There's water leaking downstairs. She had to wake them up, woke them up out of a dead sleep. She goes up into their bathroom, nothing is on, no water is running, nothing not in nowhere. Eventually, of course, she leaves them, goes back downstairs, and eventually the water stops. I send my plumber back over, and he said, I don't know where this came from.

SPEAKER_03 30:47

Did you ever have someone come and see if there's a um radio frequency interference or uh EMF uh interference in the house that would maybe cause things to mess up? Like did guests ever say, My darn cell phone's not working. It's turned on.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

Oh, yeah, all the time.

SPEAKER_03 31:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 31:03

All the time. Yeah. And particularly it was mostly with, you know, some have the heavier equipment, like like your cameras and and lights and you know, cords across the room, and you know, um, it was always something uh pretty special, I guess is the word. It was, I mean, even though, you know, oftentimes I'm like, let me help you get on the internet, you know, because people would say, I don't know what I'm doing wrong, or is there a room better to to use our cell phone than the other one? And of course there wasn't. It was all just happenstance.

SPEAKER_03 31:38

Also, last question. So didn't you say at one point somebody would ask you, who's the the little girl? And but they would see a uh a full-on little girl, like not a blink of an eye, they'd see her in the hallway.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

Yes. So when we first moved in, our first appliance repair guy shows up to fix our dryer upstairs. Uh, and um he said, you know, I almost didn't take this call. I I don't like this house. This house scares me. And he proceeds to tell me that the last time he was here for uh to to fix something uh with the other owners, that he there was clearly a little girl who walked in and just stood there and he turned around and of course saw this little girl and said, Oh, well, hello, how who are you? She turned around and she walked away. So when he did go to the owners and say, Oh, who's the little girl? They said, What little girl? And it really freaked him out. He he was really upset because the owners, of course, were insisting there was no little girl. So he tells me this story. And then we are renovating, and we have a contractor, and this is a contractor, doesn't know this guy. He came to me one day, and he knew I had a granddaughter, and you know, bit big, big with my family uh and all my grandkids, um, even though he'd never met them. But he came to me one day and said, Oh, you didn't tell me your granddaughter's here. And I said, She's not. He said, No, no, there's a little girl here. Um, and so that was the second one that I that I heard from. And then another time, um a guest in Isabel's room. She was sleeping uh with her granddaughter in that bed, and she came down for breakfast and said, So who's the little girl that that has a key to her room? So apparently she woke up in the night with uh seeing this little girl standing at the foot of the bed and the door was open. She could clearly see that the door was open. So she said, Well, hi, how how did you get in here? She said, I wasn't scared or anything. I just I just thought this this was one of your children or grandchildren or somebody. Um, so so the little girl turned around and and walked out and politely closed the door behind her. So we had we had several of those. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:55

Wild.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:58

Well, I appreciate you telling me those things. And uh, I mean, it's uh again, it's a beautiful house, an interesting house. And like you said, the fact that it was done from a kit by that guy who was very popular, I can't remember his name, but he would sell these kit houses all across the the country, I think. But uh it's beautiful architecture. I'm so glad it's still standing. I'm so glad that people like you once owned it and and kept that that piece of that house. Uh, I can only hope that the you know current owners and future owners all do the same. So it's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

Yes, yeah, we hope so too. You know, the name of that architect is George Franklin Barber. Yes, from Knoxville, Tennessee, and he still has hundreds, if not over a thousand homes still standing across the U.S. today. And they all look alike. They're all, you know, what once you see a George Franklin Barber, you're you're gonna see another one and go, that's gotta be a George Franklin Barber. They're all just very sweet and Victorian and and uh just just a load of charm. And so you're you're gonna be able to pick them out now. George Franklin Barber.

SPEAKER_03 35:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:20

The full history straight from the horse's mouth.

SPEAKER_03 35:23

I wouldn't call her a horse.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

I guess straight from the horse's mouth would be from the family, but you know, she's the one that found everything. So I don't know. I just think that that that's something for me personally as a history nerd and you know, somebody who has appreciation for places like this. I just always think it's really special when we're able to have, you know, the person who did this research and you know, she owned the home, be able to to share that history. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:53

And I think for me as well, talking to her and learning about this house, this was one of those rare times where we don't have to learn about or think about some sort of tragedy. Mm-hmm. We just learned about this great story about these people who had these um these just great lives. Uh, you know, the of the owning the school.

SPEAKER_01 36:21

Yeah, and putting a lot of love out there, helping, you know, helping these kids and and taking them in and educating them. And it seems like she was just, you know, as Wendy said, a really uh she was regarded really highly in the community.

SPEAKER_03 36:37

And that, you know, learning about this for me, you know, the the the the best part was learning about the guy who was the architect that built the house and that they were these um uh homes that you could buy out of catalogs. And I am so infatuated with this idea because back then, even something like a catalog home, okay, so their version of IKEA was still very artistic and amazing and beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 37:12

It was not made the same.

SPEAKER_03 37:14

It wasn't just it wasn't functional, it was art, right? Everything now is functional. Back then, even a catalog home was art. And like she said in the conversation, this uh the guy that that would do this, he was very well known, and you can look at his type of house and know that he built it, that it that it was one of his builds.

SPEAKER_01 37:35

Yeah, so we'll be on the lookout for that now on our travels for sure.

SPEAKER_03 37:39

Oh, yeah. I love that piece of history, just the fact that those were catalog homes. I love that. Like, imagine I don't even know that we do that. Well, I guess we kind of can these days, but uh imagine looking at that in a catalog home, being like, oh yep, that's what I want. And that's kind of like a common home for the time.

SPEAKER_01 37:56

I mean, that would be great, honestly, if that's what it used to be like. Bring that back, please. I would like to have a home that looks like that.

SPEAKER_03 38:02

Yes, it's a beautiful home. Um big thing though, I think for me was her experience with the water apportation, which you picked up on in your walk. And I wish that you could really dive into how that made you because I kept asking, didn't I? Like, what do you mean?

SPEAKER_01 38:23

Like, what you kept asking me. You I cut that out of the walk because you asked me like at least like three or four times.

SPEAKER_03 38:30

Because I want to understand and uh what it feels like for you specifically and and and if it's how it looks, feels, sounds, you know, but you go in and you're like, oh, something about water. Like, what do you mean? What do you mean, you know?

SPEAKER_01 38:42

Yeah, and I mean the problem is it like like I've described the before, you know, most of the time shit doesn't make any sense to me, you know? Like I'm just I don't know, like I just feel get the feeling of water. And you even hear, you know, I'm like looking, you know, in the butler's pantry, there's a little sink there. And I was like, you know, yeah, there's a sink here. So I I don't know. Like, I don't think that's original. And so in in my brain, I'm kind of like, well, I don't know, maybe they're just wanting to point out that this sink is not original and they don't like the sink. I don't know, you know, but of course I I've learned and sometimes I still do it, you know, as soon as I start trying to interpret things and say them as what I'm interpreting. Like if I had said, you know, well, I mean, I did kind of say this, but if I had just said, oh, I feel like that sink isn't original, you know, and just left it at that versus just saying, I'm feeling water. Now I'm looking at this sink. I may I feel like the sink wasn't original, you know. Like it I'm kind of giving train of thought, but it doesn't make sense to me. Like just feeling water. I'm like, I don't know what the fuck that means.

SPEAKER_03 39:51

I think you just did that, making it to open. It had to have been you. Because now the cabinet's open. The cabinet door is open.

SPEAKER_01 39:57

Um, no, so I mean, maybe it's my chair. No, my chair isn't even touching it.

SPEAKER_03 40:02

Okay, alright, whatever. Then here we go. Shit.

SPEAKER_01 40:04

I will here.

SPEAKER_03 40:05

I I personally though think uh that the sink must have been a uh a mism calculation on your part when you were getting this symbolism because there was two things it hit. So you had the water thing, and she, you know, she talked about the water apportation, which we're gonna touch on that big time in the down the rabbit hole episode. Okay, big time. Um but the butler's pantry, you heard her also talk about how the that's where the the cabinet doors would open. Just that's what a synchronicity.

SPEAKER_00 40:35

Did it just right?

SPEAKER_03 40:36

No, I'm just saying that like it has been, you know, and so the cabinet doors would open it. In the butler's pantry, specifically that one um there's a big in the butler's pantry, there's a big um what was that that was in there?

SPEAKER_01 40:48

Uh cabinet of like a cabinet that that's not I but that is what would open, apparently. Well, no, I I asked her about the the ones with the glass doors.

SPEAKER_03 40:59

And they would open too. But if you if you there is, if you listen to her original video, that thing opened, and it's funny on your walk, you kept going to that thing. I remember it, you kept going to that thing because I was waiting, I was like all excited. I was like, I gotta parabon her. I was like, all right, she's gonna do something, you know. Yeah, you kept going to it for some reason.

SPEAKER_01 41:17

Well, I mean I said that the doors open.

SPEAKER_03 41:19

So there you go. And those are the things that happened.

SPEAKER_01 41:21

My random, medium, useless talent tell you shit that has happened.

SPEAKER_03 41:26

For me though, and of course, you also picked up on your walk so you know things about children and things like that. And of course, she told the history of it was a school, um, the little girl apparition that people see, you I think you picked up on, but heard it because the door was not open in the room and you heard it in the hallway, because that hallway is where it would happen.

SPEAKER_01 41:47

Yeah, which that definitely made sense, you know, after you filling me in, because even, you know, if you go back and listen to how I'm describing it, it sounded very soft, very faint, you know. Um, which would make sense. That would be kind of how a kid would sound. You know, it's gonna be much softer, much fainter noises, footsteps, whatever. So that did make a lot of sense as to what I heard when I was up there. It was kind of one of those, like, oh yeah, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 42:16

Absolutely. And you know, you picking up on the water again, she she mentioned that. And uh, if you listen to her talk about those experiences and how there was two different contractors that had come to the house and said that they had had experiences, but the the one um going when when the water came and and looking at it, these are professional people. That's important to note. It's not like she's saying, Oh, well, there was water that came from the ceiling and it was a ghost. No, she had these people come look at it, and they're like, Well, I don't know what this is. I I don't know what's happening here.

SPEAKER_01 42:50

Yeah, and that's the thing to me that I'm just like, I don't know. I I think for anybody, you're gonna have a hard time wrapping your head around it, right? Because it's like to see something like that happen, I cannot even imagine.

SPEAKER_03 43:04

Well, I've had a water apportation, and water apportations are uh they're common when it comes to apportations. You have things like water glass and metals. We talk we were talking about this last night with Steven from the Night Owl.

SPEAKER_01 43:16

Well, sure, but seeing like a little puddle of water or whatever, that's a very different bulk. I've literally never even heard of something like this. Well, I've heard of a wall of water comes spewing down, and then they have plumbers come out, and there's literally no sign of anything that could have that's wild.

SPEAKER_03 43:35

When it happened to me, I had a puddle, we had someone come out and there was nothing to come out, but seeing the that amount of water come down is interesting uh because of the fact that then when you take into account the things that happened during our investigation or our time at the house, okay? You had all of these weird things recorded when we went to bed. And we don't eat we didn't for this episode, we're not. Even putting 90% of them because we're just taking things and saying this is what it was mainly sounding like.

SPEAKER_01 44:07

Pretty much all night. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:08

Yeah. We'll we'll post the whole raw audio actually to our Patreon. So if you not the one of us sleeping because nobody needs to be able to do that. No, the one from downstairs though, because it has got some wild stuff in it. Everything from voices to footsteps to knocks to things you can't even it's describe. So we're gonna put that on our Patreon. And and by the way, I want to give a shout out because we do love our Patreon people. We put those these kinds of things in there and they like solve shit for us.

SPEAKER_01 44:31

So if Yeah, dude, I mean you've heard us talk about the Anna BS, you know, that came through, ended up coming through when we did our Bell Witch investigation on that episode. We were getting some Anna stuff, dude. Yeah, shout out to Rory. She freaking like went and found this goddamn person based on the information. So anyway, that's insane.

SPEAKER_03 44:51

So that's our, you know, before you're new uh tagline for uh join our uh our for our Patreon, which is join the investigation.

SPEAKER_01 44:58

Yeah, yeah. Come come be a p paranormal PI.

SPEAKER_03 45:02

Solve the mystery. No, we've only there's only one parapI, and that is Chelsea.

SPEAKER_01 45:06

Shout out Chelsea.

SPEAKER_03 45:07

Shout out Chelsea. Um anyway, so you heard her talk about it. And one other thing I want to say regarding her and these experiences in the house, she is not um like a paraperson, right? She's she's not looking for this or anything, and she's a normal, just average person. Um, I would be willing to bet very religious almost nice lady.

SPEAKER_01 45:29

She did, she said that, and she said that experiencing these things, it's something that's difficult for her.

SPEAKER_03 45:35

Yeah. Which, you know, that house though, with those re the phenomenon, the amount of stuff we recorded, the apps turning on and off, the electronics turning on and off, you hearing the footsteps, people seeing the the apparition of the girl, i there's something interesting there. I don't know how to put it. We're gonna talk about this on the down the rabbit hole. But for this history portion, one thing I just want to acknowledge that has made me so happy about this uh episode or this adventure going there. We got to hear this great history, and there's a lot of it, none of it negative.

SPEAKER_01 46:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:15

There was no wild murder, there was nothing, but this has been one of the most active places we've ever been to.

SPEAKER_01 46:24

Yeah. And I think that's something that, you know, we've kind of touched on this in passing in previous episodes. Like the time that comes to mind for me is, you know, when we were at Waverly and doing uh going into the OR and the people that had been in there prior were very obviously being disrespectful um to, you know, the space, the spirits, whatever you want to say. And then we went in and we were just trying to be kind and, you know, approach things with love and compassion, and we had an absolutely insane experience. You know what I'm saying? And so I think this kind of is just more validation for that of like a haunting doesn't always necessarily need to be, you know, scary and tragic and traumatic and demons and whatever, you know, and even based on at least our experiences so far, you know, maybe this will change in the future, who knows? But again, based on our experiences so far, I think when you go in and you're approaching things and even, you know, places like this where the the past and the history is positive and loving, and this family and these people that were, you know, putting good into the world, teaching putting love into the world. I mean, perhaps that leaves a bigger imprint and leaves a bigger mark.

SPEAKER_03 47:48

And and well, perhaps it should, and perhaps we Well, I think it definitely should, if my opinion means anything. But well, and and and maybe people that do what we do, you know, we we spend a lot of time, don't we, looking for a a dark history.

SPEAKER_01 48:04

Looking for a story.

SPEAKER_03 48:05

We're looking for but but there's always a story, but we're always looking for a dark story. This time we set out somewhere, the universe took us somewhere that gave us a story that was very much just your average human story of people that lived in this home that loved each other, and it turned the home into a school that uh for by all accounts um was very good and and and made a good impact on the students. And I think it's still a school today.

SPEAKER_01 48:39

Really beloved in the community. Correct.

SPEAKER_03 48:41

And you know, when you read the obituary of the the ladies that live there, and everyone loved them in the community. So there is this joy, this happiness, and uh no tragedy, no one was murdered there, no one died there. Yet this is where we're getting water apportations, and this is where we're putting our recorders down and getting so much stuff recorded that it's it's it's wild to me, okay? It it is wild to me. The the way that it responded to our devices is wild to me. The way you felt when we walked in immediately is wild to me.

SPEAKER_01 49:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:23

I think the lesson here for us, and we learned this very quickly, we talked about it, didn't we, on the ride home, which is in this kind of research, maybe we are doing it wrong, and then we need to reframe and we need to try to find the good. Find the good ghost.

SPEAKER_01 49:42

Find the good ghost. Right?

SPEAKER_03 49:43

You know what I mean? Like, look for the good, find the good ghost. Maybe that's something. You don't know what I'm saying, you can't, I see your face.

SPEAKER_01 49:53

Well, because you're saying ghost, and you know, we've had we just had a whole conversation about using and changing that language. So I I don't know about that, but I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_03 50:04

I'm simplifying it by saying maybe we go in and even in a place where there was a horrific murder, let's say. Well, why can't all the other positive interactions that happened in that place also be something we can tap into and see and feel?

SPEAKER_01 50:16

Well, sure. And I mean I think you definitely can, you know. I've done walks at places that have had horrific murders and you still see, you know, other things that have happened there. Um Yeah, I I just think it's an interesting experiment and an interesting, interesting to show that we can go to a place that does not have some horrific, tragic, traumatic story and unsolved mystery and whatever, you know, and instead, complete opposite, complete opposite end of the spectrum, was full of love and happiness and good memories. And we had more activity there than the vast majority of places that we have been. And so I think, you know, maybe that's just the message in all of this is it's just a complete script flip and saying, you know, hey, you don't always have to be like looking for these awful, traumatic, horrific things, and you know, uh putting more of that into the world. Because the reality is, even by sitting here and doing a podcast episode and disseminating this information and sharing these horrific, tragic, traumatic stories, whatever, like, yeah, you are you're You're putting it out. Yeah, you're you're putting those vibrations out into the world, and that's vibrating and you know, ripple effect, right?

SPEAKER_03 51:36

You're keeping alive. You know, we know what we should do for for investigations moving forward. We should go to places where there is this sort of negative history, and you know what would be interesting to do for your walks is we all know we go in knowing the negative history, but we're not there for that. We go in and have you tap in to see if you can pick up on things that are just the happy times, the things that and bring that energy out, and maybe that somehow defeats the the negative.

SPEAKER_01 52:05

Well, sure. I think something like that, I I mean, I don't know about defeat the negative. I think something like that would be done over time and would take, you know, uh like energy work, basically, you know, going in there and putting that actively into the space, but it's also gonna depend on the space. Sure.

SPEAKER_03 52:22

Imagine though you go into a place and it's had these this horrific history, and we go in and there's the shadow figure demon, right? He's like, Yes, I'm here to to engage with you, but we're like, hey bro, we're not here to talk to you. We're actually here to talk about whatever was happening Christmas morning where everyone was happy. So you need to fuck off, and we're gonna connect with this. Can you imagine? Is there a shift there? I don't know. That's for the down the rabbit hole, whatever. All I want to say is I'm just so appreciative that we had this great positive experience with positive history at a very positive and loving house. In an extremely beautiful city. I love that house. Yeah, I want that house.

SPEAKER_01 52:58

It's amazing. I would love to live in that house.

SPEAKER_03 53:01

We have actually talked, we almost when we were driving through that city, that we're we're moving here, we're moving here. Like that was what we kept saying.

SPEAKER_01 53:08

Definitely, if we can find a house in the historic district, I would absolutely move to Mobile. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:13

Mobile? If we have any mobile listeners, I think we do actually, maybe we must. But if you're in Mobile, let us know how you like it.

SPEAKER_01 53:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:22

We may come visit you.

SPEAKER_01 53:24

It's beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 53:25

Because right now it's that of North Carolina for us.

SPEAKER_01 53:27

Well, I mean, I do want to go back anyway and just, you know, stay and that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_02 53:32

What was that? Did you hear that?

SPEAKER_01 53:33

It sounded like a voice. Okay, well that happened at the end of the last episode, too. So maybe that's that's the uh the spirits of the museum, that's their way of saying, yeah, you're fucking done. You're just rambling at this point. Shut up. Cut it off.

unknown 53:47

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:47

Listener, if you heard that. No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 53:49

The ghost said we're done, so I guess we're gonna listen. I'm not trying to be haunted all night. Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_03 53:54

All right, that was a history. Goodbye.

unknown 53:56

Okay, bye.

SPEAKER_02 54:01

If you enjoy following along our investigations, consider joining our Patreon. You can find that at patreon.com backslash para peculiar.

SPEAKER_01 54:12

And a huge shout out to Dr. Angela Glestro, who composed all of our original music for The Real Ghost of. If you are interested in getting any music for your own show, film, whatever, you can find her on Instagram and check her out there at Angela Glestro.