Twin Oaks

Our family’s involvement with drum corps lasted from the early 60’s up until 1972. Over the course of this time we had made many friends through the activity and most of them were familiar with the stories of our ghosts. One person in particular was “Stan.” Even after we were no longer involved with drum corps, Stan remained a good friend of the family and continued to be a frequent guest in our home. He was intrigued by the stories of our other “friends,” although he took the stories with a grain of salt and a healthy dash of disbelief. You have to remember that ghosts became somewhat acceptable to us, but for others who didn’t share similar experiences, the stories were fun to listen to but the measure of belief remained on the low end. Stan fell into the category of “these are fun stories, but I’m really, really, skeptical;” until one evening when he spent the night at our house while we were living in Twin Oaks.

On this particular night the topic of the ghosts came up, as it sometimes did back then. Stan wanted our mother to tell the ghosts to appear so he could see them or at the very least, hear them. Of course, she had to explain to him that they don’t just appear on command and that if they wanted their presence to be known they would come around. Eventually the subject of ghosts was dropped and everyone went to bed, with Stan sleeping on the sofa in the den. The den was on the ground floor and had a door that opened into the dining room. Right off the dining room was the foyer and the stairs that led to the upper level of the house. Also off the foyer was another door, which led into the living room. Sitting on the sofa in the den you could see into the dining room, and through the foyer into the living room. The kitchen was also off the dining room and in order to reach it from the upper level of the house you had to come down the stairs, into the foyer, through the dining room and then into the kitchen.

From his vantage point on the sofa in the den, Stan could see and hear if anyone came downstairs and went into any the rooms on the lower level. At some point during the night Stan awoke to the sound of someone coming down the steps. He looked up and saw what appeared to be someone in a shiny, bluish colored robe come off the steps, go though the foyer and dining room, and into the kitchen. At the time he didn’t think much of it – probably a good thing for Stan because if had known then what he was seeing he never would have made it though the rest of the night. The next morning when our mother came downstairs he asked her if she had a shiny bluish colored robe and if she had come down during the night. She said no, she didn’t have a robe like that nor had she left her room during the night. No one else in the house had left their rooms, and none of us heard anyone walking about. At that point Stan’s jaw dropped and he was at a complete loss for words. He clearly remembered waking up and seeing someone after he heard them come down the stairs and had assumed it was just our mother or one of us girls. When he found out it wasn’t any of us he soon realized exactly what it was he saw. I think that from that point on Stan never doubted our stories! And I don’t believe he ever spent the night again either.

Our mother also had many experiences in the Twin Oaks house. Many times she would get up late at night to go down to the dining room and write. When she would get up to go downstairs, she could sense that someone was there with her. She would tell them they were welcome to come downstairs with her and keep her company and sure enough, she would hear them right behind her on the steps. At this point our mother had become quite courageous where the ghosts were concerned. Early on, when these events first began to occur, she was sometimes frightened, as with the ball of light that came into her room. However, as time went on and more and more things began to happen, it seems that she lost any sense of fear.