Ghost stories from where I grew up, Part VIII

Ladies and gentlemen, it was just a few minutes before church on a warm, sunny morning this past Sunday when I was posed with a seemingly simple question.

“Steve, do you ever worry about those ghosts you’re writing about?”

Now, had I been asked that simple question earlier in the week, it most likely would have evoked a short, simple response. Like, “Nah, not really,” or something along those lines. But it wasn’t earlier in the week as I stood outside Dunn’s Chapel and the Dunn’s Chapel Cemetery.

Several times during this series, I’ve referenced an old picture of the Brown family posing for a portrait in front of the two-story farmhouse where I grew up.

For many, many years during my four decades on this earth, that old portrait hung in a room in the home that Joshua and Jeannette Brown built in 1848. When I was just a child, the room was our family room. Later, after my Dad constructed an addition on the home, it became “the piano room.” Today, for all intents and purposes, it’s an office.

Not too terribly long, ago, my Mom decided to take down the old Brown family portrait from the place where it hung for the majority of my lifetime and replaced it with a clock. She moved the old portrait into the parlor where it sat near the fireplace. Late last week, my lovely wife, Helen, and I were quietly doing some work in the office when a very loud crash broke the sound of silence.

The clock, which had been hanging on a very sturdy mount on the wall, had come crashing down, taking out an antique lamp that shattered into pieces all over the floor just feet away from where Helen and I were working.

My folks heard the racket in the next room. It was a calm sunny afternoon, and none of us could explain why the clock had come tumbling down.

As the congregation at Dunn’s Chapel was about to sing the first old hymn of the morning at church on Sunday, I opened up the bulletin and looked at the date.

All of a sudden, a cold chill ran down my spine as I realized that the crashing clock incident had occurred on Aug. 21. John Brown died on Aug. 21, 1888 – 17 days after he was mortally wounded after being shot at the Parker House in uptown Hillsboro by his brother-in-law, Marion Britton.

Could it have been the ghost of John Brown, on the 126th anniversary of his death, that pushed that clock off its sturdy mount?

Could it have been the ghost of Jeannette Brown, the matriarch whose life also ended tragically? Recall her obit: The “tragic fate of her youngest son, John, in August 1888, precipitated the feeble condition that made her the easy prey of one of death’s most painful emissaries. Despite the tender care and constant watchfulness of her daughters, on Monday evening, November 11th, (1889) her clothing ignited, and although help was immediate, she survived the accident but 22 hours.”

Could it have been the ghost of one of the daughters who had taken care of their mother during the final year of her life?

In the same newspaper edition that contained the obituary of Jeannette Brown, a letter to the editor read: “We would … sincerely thank the many friends and neighbors who so kindly and constantly assisted us during the severe affliction and the death of our mother.”

It was signed Sarah B. Roush and Mary M. Brown. Mary Brown had been engaged to Marion Britton, took care of Britton’s youngest daughter after Britton’s wife and Mary’s sister passed away in 1886, and grieved the death of her brother John so much that she had bought the “weeping woman” gravestone years later that stands in the Hillsboro Cemetery.

For Sarah Brown Roush, my great-great grandmother and the wife of Wesley T. Roush, the way her mother died must have been extremely painful. Wesley T. and Sarah Roush (coincidentally, my grandparents’ names were also Wesley T. and Sarah Roush) had four children – all boys.

Guy Roush was born in 1880. Ted Roush, my great granddad, was born in 1882. On Sept. 21, 1886, twin boys were born. One died Oct. 6, 1886. The other son, Wesley Kenneth Roush (which, coincidentally, is my Dad’s name), died tragically on his first birthday – Sept. 21, 1887.

From a Sept. 29, 1887 newspaper article most likely written by little Wesley Kenneth’s uncle, who owned and operated the publication: “One of the saddest and most distressing events that it has been our duty to chronicle is the death of the baby boy of Mr. and Mrs. Wesley Roush, living near Russells.

On Friday afternoon last near the hour of two, Mrs. Roush was called from the house for a few minutes and she left the baby on the floor of a room in which there was a fire.

During her short absence, the child crawled to the fire, and upon her return she beheld her darling a charred corpse. The infant was one year old on the day of its death. The remains were interred in the Dunn’s Chapel cemetery on Saturday afternoon at one o’clock. The parents have the sympathy of all in their terrible affliction.”

As I walk through the Dunn’s Chapel Cemetery and gaze upon the old gravestone with the two small lambs resting atop the monument, my mind wanders back to the old family portrait and the clock that had come crashing down.

Did one of the ghosts that I’ve been writing about pay a visit to the place where they lived and the place where I grew up – or was it simply an interesting and eerie coincidence? As I pause to place the old Brown family portrait back on the wall, let us also pause for now and we’ll delve into more ghost stories from the place where I grew up next week.

Steve Roush is a vice president of an international media company and a columnist and contributing writer for The Highland County Press.