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The Fisher Farm

 

When I was about four-years old we moved into a big old house on a retired farm near Elk Mound, WI (USA). We called it the Fisher Farm, since that was the name of the landlord. Likely because I was so small, the house seemed gigantic. It was a two-story home with a full attic and basement, a nice sun room, a wide, open, oak staircase, and large bay windows, but it only had one bathroom, which was upstairs.

With a house being that large and winters in Wisconsin being so brutally cold, it was a challenge for my parents to heat it. My father bought a space heater, and all six of us slept in the toy room off from the kitchen during cold snaps in the winters. During one of those cold snaps, I had to go to the bathroom in the dead of night. My mom told my oldest sister (We'll call her Sophie.) to take me. She was slow to wake up, but I really had to go. Without turning on any lights, I went in the kitchen and through the swinging door to the dining room but was stopped short when I saw a woman standing on the landing of the staircase. She was garbed in a long white dressing gown or robe with a matching nightcap, which resembled today's shower cap only it was made of cottony material. She had a long brunet braid resting over her left shoulder, while holding a candle, which illuminated her features. She was very pretty, probably in her early thirties. I think I could probably draw her if I tried. She didn't smile or talk. She just stood there looking at me.

I wasn't as frightened as I was intrigued. I knew she wasn't supposed to be there, but there she was. I presume I didn't know I was supposed to be scared. The most I knew about ghosts I learned from Saturday morning's Great Dane, Scooby Doo. Of course, those "meddling kids" always debunked those ghosts and monsters. They never had a woman standing on the staircase in their home in the middle of the night.

I don't know how long I stood and looked at her, but I really wanted Sophie to see her. I turned to go back and hurry her up, but she came through the swinging door, and the lady was gone. I wonder now if the lady showed herself to me because I was about to ascend the long stairway in the dark, and she was, after all, carrying a candle.

We only lived there a few years, but I had other experiences in that time. I would hear people talking, laughing and whispering in the night. I would hear footsteps on the main floor from my bed upstairs that sounded like boots on the hardwood floors. I tried rationalizing it and told myself John Wayne was down there. One morning I woke to see a small man with curly gray hair standing at the foot of my bed.

I was scared of the shadow on the wall in one of the bedrooms that looked like a man's side profile. Mom said it was where the paint had run. She ended up putting a dresser in front of the shadow/stain. She had also been spooked in the house on several occasions. One night while she was there alone, she heard a pile of pipes fall to the floor from the bedroom above her. My uncle stayed one night in the house and never stayed again.

Several years after we moved, I met a guy in school who was living in the house at that time. He was a class clown, always smiling and being funny. I asked him if weird stuff ever happened in his house. He looked at me without a smile and told me in all seriousness that a lot of weird stuff happened there. I don't remember everything he told me, but he did say they were unable to get the stain off the bedroom wall until they paneled it.

I never understood why I was the one who had so many paranormal experiences on the Fisher Farm. I didn't have any similar experiences after moving from there until I was a teenager. In my forties I met a lady who is something of a medium or psychic. I'm not sure what her title is, but she has certain "abilities." When she first met me, she told me straightforwardly I was "sensitive." The older I get, the more that seems to be true. I don't talk about it with my family so much as they would tell me I'm crazy.

Seeing the woman on the stairway happened about forty-eight years ago. The house is still standing, looking like a charming country home. I wish I knew who owns it today. I'd like to walk through it and talk to the people. I never learned the history of the house, but I'd like to research it. It's probably over a hundred-years old.

Before Halloween each year my friend and I take a personal ghost tour of reportedly haunted places in our area. It's about a sixty-mile drive. I have the Fisher Farm on it. When we went last week, I could see the very spot through the big bay window where I saw that lady. Of course, she wasn't there, but I wonder if anybody else in the last forty-eight years has seen her.

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Comments about this paranormal experience

The following comments are submitted by users of this site and are not official positions by yourghoststories.com. Please read our guidelines and the previous posts before posting. The author, MississippiPearl, has the following expectation about your feedback: I will read the comments and participate in the discussion.

Lealeigh (5 stories) (512 posts)
 
4 years ago (2019-11-28)
Hello MississippiPearl,

Do you remember if the candle that the woman was holding appeared to be lit and, if so, did it cast a natural looking light upon any of her surroundings?

I realize that this story was submitted over two years ago and the event happened a long time ago. I was curious as I have never seen a full body apparition that seemed to know what it was doing.

Thank you for sharing your experiences in The Fisher Farm.

- Maria ❤
MississippiPearl (1 stories) (5 posts)
+3
6 years ago (2017-11-12)
Sorry I spelled your name wrong, AugustaM. I don't hire my editor for things like this. This is all for fun.
MississippiPearl (1 stories) (5 posts)
+3
6 years ago (2017-11-12)
Thank you for your thoughts, AugustusM. I spent some time this afternoon trying to see if there was ever an epidemic of sickness in this county but could find nothing. I do know this area was the home of Santee Dakota and Ojibwe people whom surely suffered from the immigration of the White people.

Whenever I've had an "experience," it always came to me as a surprise. I never previously expected to see or hear anything, nor did I ever go looking for it. On the occasions I did go to a rumored haunted place, nothing ever happened. I do not visit cemeteries in the middle of the night, attend séances or play with Ouija boards. Things just happen when I least expect them. Also, they happen more and more the older I get.

I appreciate your insight. I actually enjoyed the site of the link you sent me. I surfed it for quite a while.
AugustaM (7 stories) (996 posts)
+3
6 years ago (2017-11-12)
Granted, in the past there were many events by which a person could be precipitously ushered off the mortal coil at a comparatively young age. But, since the voices you heard were not menacing, the woman on the stairs seemed peaceful and later had a child with her- perhaps the event we are looking for is something that might have carried off the entire family in residence there quite quickly. An epidemic sweeping the area could have done it - here is a link to a history of epidemics in the area:
Https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Article/CS564

Given the woman's attire and long braid paired with the settlement history of Wisconsin - my guess is we are looking at an apparition from the second half of the 19thC. As it happens, the area was rife with sickness at the time...

In terms of the dark spirit you mentioned - that may all be connected. Native Americans had been exposed over and over to illnesses since western explorers and colonizers first made inroads. The result was a 90% population loss in North America. Many times early homesteads were set up in areas that had been previously cleared by Native American habitations. Perhaps the farm was built on Native American territory and the suffering they endured watching their village suffer and die out created a darkness...

Can't wait to hear of your other experiences!
MississippiPearl (1 stories) (5 posts)
+4
6 years ago (2017-11-11)
Thank you for your comments and reading my story, Manafon1. I don't know about a telepathic connection, but she is still clear in my memories. Actually, I think I saw her a second time in the same place with a child standing next to her. The little girl looked much like her mother. However, I was pretty sick that time with the mumps and had a fever. That's why I didn't include that in my original story. I may have been hallucinating. If I did see her, I wasn't scared that time either. I just knew that she had lived there a long time ago. I believe there was also a negative force in that house as well, but it wasn't her.

I am going to continue to write on things that have gone bump in my life.

Again, thanks.
Manafon1 (6 stories) (712 posts)
+2
6 years ago (2017-11-11)
MississippiPearl - I thoroughly enjoyed your account. Many here on YGS have lived in haunted houses. You are one of them! Your encounter with an apparition in a dressing gown holding a candle on a staircase, with all the other minute detail you noted was fantastic. Ghosts do indeed seem to often gravitate to staircases for whatever reason. The way she just looked at you made me want to know if you felt any type of telepathic connection with the apparition?

I ask this because there are elements of your account that remind me of those experienced by YGS member ScottGrant. Please look up and read his account titled "The Great Samsara". He also encountered a female apparition in the middle of the night on a staircase. She too just looked at Scott but he felt as if he was being "scanned". This to me suggests a telepathic element at work. I would be greatly interested to discover if you sensed any mental connection with your night visitor.

Thanks for sharing your account and welcome to YGS.

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