If you ever met my Uncle Bill you would describe him as fearless. He grew up during the Depression and by every definition of the word was a ‘tough guy’. He was a construction worker by day and a farmer the rest of the time. Images of John Wayne come to mind when I remember my Uncle Bill.

So what could have possibly happened to make my Uncle Bill tell my Aunt Evelyn that he NEVER wanted to be alone in his house again!

Tonight I will tell you the story that was told to me by my Aunt Evelyn many years ago. After hearing about Uncle Bill’s otherworldly encounter I understood exactly why he refused to be alone in the house ever since.

I can remember going to my aunt and uncle’s house a few times during my childhood for family gatherings. That was a time when “children were seen but not heard”. So as soon as we got out of the station wagon we would be off and running around outside of my uncle’s farm. I have very few memories of being inside the house.

My Aunt Evelyn had my cousin Eric when she was in her late 30’s. Eric was a surprise baby with my other cousins being 12 to 15 years older than him. One evening my Aunt Evelyn had plans to go out for a few hours and left Eric with his father, my Uncle Bill.

According to my aunt, the baby was sleeping when she left so she thought it would be a quiet night for my uncle. Please keep in mind that this was also during the times when dad’s didn’t really ‘babysit’ often and my Uncle Bill, though he loved his children, was a bit of an amateur at tending to the needs of a toddler.

When my aunt returned home a few hours later she was surprised to see EVERY light in the house was turned on and my Uncle Bill was sitting at the kitchen table holding baby Eric in his lap. The farm dogs were curled up at his feet under the kitchen table. The look on his face made her alarmed that something had happened to the baby. She said that he was pale and was visibly shaken by something.

Uncle Bill handed the baby to my aunt and poured himself a stiff shot of whiskey. Then he told my Aunt Evelyn about the night that he had.

Everything was quiet, he was watching some television. The baby was upstairs sleeping and the older boys were at sleepovers or out with friends. He was dozing in his chair and he heard the baby crying. After a few minutes when it became obvious that the baby was not going to settle down he went upstairs to check on him.

Eric was fast asleep.

He went back downstairs and returned to his television show. The crying started again. So back upstairs he went and opened the door to check on Eric.

Eric was fast asleep.

But Uncle Bill could still hear a baby crying. He checked the other bedrooms thinking maybe one of the boys had come home early. Nobody was upstairs. The crying continued and it sounded now like it was coming from downstairs.

He went back downstairs and thought the crying was coming from the living room, where he had been just 10 minutes earlier. As he approached the living room the crying stopped. He laughed at himself thinking that the crying must have been on the television and since he had been dozing he must have gotten confused and thought it was Eric. So he settled himself back into his chair.

And the crying started again.

It wasn’t the television and he was not sleeping.

This time the crying was coming from outside in front of the house. It was a warm night and the windows were open and he was certain that there was an infant crying in the front yard.

He grabbed a flashlight and went out to investigate. The crying continued and he was able to determine that it was coming from the lilac bushes that were planted near the front of the house. As soon as he was within a few feet of the lilacs the crying suddenly stopped. Like a switch had been turned off. He shined his flashlight through every inch around the bushes and move the branches aside to see if there was a baby somehow on the ground in the lilac bush.

There was no crying baby.

My Uncle then went to the barn and brought his two dogs into the house with him. The dogs were happy this was a very rare treat for them to be in the house. He turned on every light in the house, went upstairs to get the baby and then sat at the kitchen table to wait for my aunt to return home.

Years later my cousins would tell me about their own experiences at the house.  They would frequently hear footsteps going up and down the stairs. One night my cousin Henry swears that he actually felt someone brush past him while he was going upstairs.

My Uncle refused to talk about the night that he babysat for Eric for the rest of his life.

Do you have a scary story to share?

If you have an unexplained experience, seen something strange or heard some bumps in the night I would love to hear them and share them! Please click on the Scary Saturday Page, copy and paste the Questionnaire, fill out the answers to any questions that apply and email it to me at tanglewoodtapestry@gmail.com!

 

Thanks for reading!

~ Tami