Horror Stories

The Haunted House

When my mother was a young woman. Her parents moved to an old wood frame house that was by a creek on the outskirts of San Antonio. It was a rude and rough looking shack. There was an old screened in porch out in the back where they could sleep if the weather was too hot.

My mother and her two other sisters were sleeping at the house. The other two oldest sisters were married and the younger two boys joined the armed forces. Lila, Minerva, Teresa. Minerva was my mother.

These three sisters were still at home working two were waitresses and the other one worked as a sales clerk. It was a two bedroom house. Lila and Minnie would work at a restaurant sometimes they would work late at night.

Then they would have to catch the bus to ride home. This is just to give a peek into their lives. It was very stressful and this was during the WW2.

One night the girls came home after work to find their parents terrified. They wanted to know what was going on. Their father told them that they heard something heavy dragging across the wooden floors. It sounded like someone was dragging a piece of heavy meat over it. My mother and aunts blew them off. Making wisecracks about rationing and having meat to put on table for once. Their Mom and Dad were getting meat or beef obsessed because of the war, I guess.

They were sleeping on the floor of the kitchen, why you asked? Because the wood burning stove was there and it kept them warm in the winter, when all of a sudden they heard the noise that their parents were talking about.

Then they got a whiff of some awful smell, they explained that it smell of rotten fish, carnations, and rotten eggs. They have never smelled anything like that in their lives. This was getting to be the norm instead of the exception at the house.

Every night at around 4 in the morning this would occur. They would all get up and look for the smell in the morning. The three sisters were doing some investigation about the sound of dragging sound. Unfortunately they had to stop because they had to go to work.

The sisters decided to pitch in and buy some flashlights or torches for all the members of the family. Back then it was expensive and the war was raging. This was a big purchase for them. This was back when the customers that tip a dime, was a good customer. Mom and her love affair with dimes.

Well anyway back to the story, that night they were prepared. My grandmother had a pot of coffee boiling, and they were all waiting for the show to begin, sitting by the kerosene lamps.

They were sitting at the kitchen table quietly talking among themselves, when they heard the disturbing and strange noise.

Minnie said that her father was the first one grab the flashlight, and he ran only to stop short at their front room, he froze. Minnie said that he was crying because he was so frightened. Grandfather Peter was shaking so bad.

While Minnie was comforting him and bringing him back to the warm and semi bright kitchen to his wife, my other aunts rushed in a saw a shadow crossing the floor.

I remember years later they said that this shadow look like it had substance. This shadow went into the floor board and disappeared. They stood there trying comprehend what happened, that is when the stench came wafting in again.

The three sisters decided they had enough of this and went back to the kitchen, where it was lighted and warm. Nobody slept that night as you can imagine. You had five people sleeping on pallets on that kitchen floor. I can’t imagine that.

In the morning the women got up and went to see where that shadow disappeared to. They noticed something that they never noticed before, there was a tuft of fine white hair sticking out of floor board. They pulled it out and it was a photo of an old German couple with hair, herbs, roots wrapped with red floss.

The German couple or someone did some pow wow and that was haunting the place. Maybe they were punishing the couple by binding them there so that they couldn’t move on or maybe the couple had such a happy life there they didn’t want to move on, and they didn’t want anyone else there. Who knew?

My great aunts took over, (my grandmother’s sisters) and they dispose of the couple in the photo and all manner of the spell work.

The haunting stopped.

That was a very welcome relief. The sisters went back to their jobs well rested and happy. Peter and Amelia were happy to be with each other company.

I wish I could say they lived happily ever after but three months later my grandfather died.

My grandfather Peter told my grandmother Amelia that night he saw himself in a coffin all laid out with people that he knew at his wake. That was what scared him. He died in April of that year.