Spoooky Tales

When I was younger, I was madly, obsessively in love with a boy named Tyrel who lived in a large two-story old Civil War mansion. This place was just mind-blowing. It was right next to a Civil War graveyard, and if you go to Newtonia, Missouri, you can still find many physical relics of one of the larger battles that was fought there. To this day, there is still a reenactment group that gets together all Civil War style (my kind of freaking people!) and occasionally you can get tours inside the house. Okay....ah, thanks, the internet. HERE is the house!

And Tyrel...well....he actually looked extraordinarily like Milo Ventimiglia. Holy Goodness. I know. I KNOW!! Just make his hair curlier. Man, I need someone to back me up here...... I wish any of the kids that I went to high school with read blog. 

Anyhow, back to the mansion.  Ty was not one to tell wild stories. He had serious dark eyes and a stoicism about him. However, he solemnly told me about many various ghost stories that occurred while his family lived there.  Here's what I found on the internet:

"This home is rumored to be full of paranormal activities by several ghosts. It has been said that there is a piano that plays on it own along with door that open and close, lights that flicker and turn on and off. There have been various sightings of ghosts over the years in the houses as well as in the small ran down cemetery located on the property. It is a two-story, antebellum mansion, constructed by slaves over a period of years in the late 1840’s and believed to be the oldest structure in Newton County. There are two cemeteries west of the house. One features the ornate headstones of the Ritchey family. The other has plain, uncut stones that mark the spot slaves have been buried. The mansion house served as a hospital for both sides during the Civil War. The mansion has what is called “the black room.” It is said they painted the floor black because of the blood stains on the floor."

-https://hauntsofmissouri.wordpress.com/2015/02/08/private-residence-newtonia/


And I'm telling you, it seems to match his stories. He said he had heard soft, old music playing faintly in other rooms where there were no speakers, figurines being moved to certain spots on shelves, no matter how many times they were moved back, and definite, odd things that happened in the "Black Room". His mom kept thinking that her kids were causing problems and playing tricks, running up and down the stairs lightly during the night, and then she still heard the pattering on the stairs the night she locked them in their room. Huh.

I have loved Halloween my whole life. I think that when I first watched "The Nightmare Before Christmas" where there was a whole entire HalloweenTown, I thought I had died and gone to.....well....that town. ;) I don't necessarily enjoy slasher movies, or terrifying and disturbing things. I guess I enjoy a little bit of mysticism. I love the unexplained. I don't want it explained. I don't want a scientist to come in and tell me how it all worked. I want to wonder...it feels akin to dreaming and hoping. My dreams and hopes are..um..definitely not reality. I can't even begin to tell you how I entertained lofty teenage fantasies of marrying the Tyrel from this story, and both of us becoming music stars and making buttloads of money all grown from our love (yup, he played guitar, and he was actually good....also a deep, lovely singing voice!). That reality didn't occur, and my life went in a different direction, but the "what if" was still tantalizing.

What if??.....

And, to add to the mystery, the beautiful Red Riding Hood pieces here will be on our website today. http://www.damselcorsets.com  We will not be having an Hourglass Event, because I'm sort of just being sure to tantalize your brains with images and imagined stories for your life every day for our 13 Days of Halloween. Thanks to all of you stunning people, and please, keep the imagination alive!