Once Upon A Turkey Sandwich: ghost

Hello my Spooky Loving Friends,

We are in the week of Halloween and we know what that means... It's the perfect time for a Slightly Spooky Story. Currently as I'm beginning the writing of this post the weather is so atmospheric because it's a dreary rainy late October day perfect setting for writing this story...

In the Appalachian Mountains you'll find burial spaces abound. From church graveyards to small family plots, heck I discover a cemetery on a hill overlooking my first elementary school playground. How in the five year I played on that playground my spooky loving butt didn't notice I'll never know. Even the single plot can be found hidden here in the backwoods.

Now within about a mile of my house are four burial areas. There's the church graveyard, where my corpse will be planted when I depart, then on the road to get to my holler there's a road you turn off where somewhere on that property is a forgotten family cemetery that my Dad discovered while hunting. Finally you come to my holler where nestled in the surrounding shelter of the mountains is two little family plots on my neighbor's property. The first is the newest, my neighbor the Patriarch of the family who purchased the property loved his land so much he decided he wanted to rest in it, so he made a section of his property into a family cemetery. His son has also expressed interest of being buried there. The Patriarch passed a few years ago, peoples it was like something out of old timey Appalachia. His wake was at his house, they set his body up in the living room, and then had a graveside funeral. Now as I mention there's two family plots on the property. Down the hill overlooking my bus stop was another little family cemetery that had family members of our friends who still live nearby. This plot is the focus of our story, of how greed led to desecration and possibly a haunting...

I Live Near A Desecrated Cemetery

As a child I loved a good ghost story, of course cause I was an imaginative child that usually came back to bite me in the butt. Now growing up my Dad told me about how our family friends had three family members buried in that spot at the lower part of my neighbor's property, which at this time was hardly used to my recollection. My mother has told me those three are just the ones they know of, so there possibly more could have been interned there. She also said there used to be a rose bush there to mark one of the graves. I always thought this was a cool thing in my holler.

It wasn't till I was an adult I learned the darker part of this tale. The family whose relatives were interned there had owned a good chunk of land in my community, but had sold of bits and pieces including the property where the graves were. I guess they figured whoever bought the place would respect the final resting place of the dead. How wrong they were. Before the current owners of the property the land fell into the hands of a realtor. Now this realtor was rumored to have shady practices when it came to selling properties. It was said they had a racket going on with their sibling in the Register of Deeds, if there was any records connected to a property that maybe would make it difficult to sale, the sibling was said to make those records go away, and after the sale they'd show back up mysteriously. My grandmother had spoken to many people who'd have weird file disappearances with this realtor. My family had an incident involving one of his properties and a right away. My Mom had obtain a copy of the survey from the registry of deeds showing our right of way, but when an issue arose about it and they had to go to court, they told my mom they couldn't accept her copy, so she had to get a newer one from the register of deeds, and they couldn't find anything in their records even though it clearly had been on record before. My Mother believes the realtor was trying to force my parents to not use the road my family had been using since my great great grandfather's day to get to our properties. Yeah now I don't know if any record vanishing happened in the case of this property, but it still gives you an idea that this person possibly didn't have a lot of ethics to speak of.

It was in the early 80's not long before I was born, this person, who apparently knew good and well there was a cemetery on the property decided they were going to bulldoze the place. Now we do know the family had kept a record of where their loved ones were buried, but as for official records no one's sure if any existed at all. Whether there were records or not the realtor proceeded with the bulldozing. It was during the bulldozing my Dad, Uncle, or both of them went up to the guy running the bulldozer and asked him if he knew he was bulldozing a cemetery? The man's face turned white. He said "No and if I had of I wouldn't have done it." So in one act of greed three or possibly more resting places were horribly desecrated.

Eventually people came seeking to buy the property, one woman wanted to buy that lower half of the property and my parents told her about the cemetery. Needless to say she backed out. Eventually, our current neighbors bought it, I don't know if they ever knew the creepy history of their property, but yeah they were now the proud owners. I do remember walking up from the bus stop with the Patriarch's grandchildren, and telling them about it, but I don't know if it made it to Granddad's ears.

Well, after hearing the darker version of this as I got older, I'm like "How do we not have a Poltergeist situation?!" These words would come back to haunt, as would my childhood wish to live near a haunted house.

So in my adult years our neighbors had a camper that sat on that section of the property that various I guess family members stayed in over the years. Eventually the camper was removed and the space returned to normal. I didn't think much until around 2021. My grandmother had been talking to the Matriarch of the family when she told my grandmother the reason they got rid of the RV was they couldn't keep people in it. When my Grandmother asked why the Matriarch replied, cause they kept hearing voices... When I found out I'm like called it!

To be honest I was so curious about the voices, and the ghost hunter in me wanted to hang out in the field and get EVPs. I mean it's kinda creepy and cool, except those nights you're up at 3 AM and you think about your what your friend said about why more activity happens at that time, and then the episode of Supernatural you watched that day pops in your head the one with the ghost of the psychic looking menacingly through the window, and you start picturing some old Appalachian's ghost peering through the back door window. Till you remind yourself if they've been haunted the place since their graves been bulldozed and they haven't bothered you once I think your fine. Yeah my imagination still comes to bite me in the butt.

Well that was the state of things for a minute, until one day we're going down the road and saw a house was sitting on that part of the property. Seems one of the Matriarch's grand kids, decided to move a house there, funny given we're sure they were one of the RV people...

So if you're keeping score at home I have a desecrated cemetery that now has a house on it... I affectionately call this house the "Potential Poltergeist House". I mean do you blame me?! This is got the makings of one. Every time I go down the road and see them in the yard it's like do we warn them? I mean if nothing's happening you wouldn't want to ruin that peace, but at the same time I feel like they should have a heads up given some activity has already happened.

So yes this is the situation in my holler. Disturbed graves, disembodied voices, and now maybe a haunted house...

For More Spooky Tales:

So I hope you enjoyed my slightly spooky tale. If you want more scary tales from the area that will probably chill you more than this one I recommend Mountain Ghost Stories and Curious Tales of Western North Carolina by Randy Russell and Janett Barnett. This one has a lot of good stories in it, the one about the Brown Mountain lights was a favorite. I've actually met Randy Russell and he was a pretty cool dude. I also recommend Appalachian Ghosts by Nancy Roberts, if you can find a copy. This was a favorite book among us kids at my old elementary school. Good spooky stories in there.