Unsolved Mysteries.-One of the most critical, and exciting periods of my child years came when my household shifted into a enormous old Victorian home on Middle Road in Navarre, Ohio. It was built in 1850. The foundation was made from 4 feet thick slabs of limestone, and the structure itself was put up with huge oak timbers. In the basement was a narrow and frightening tunnel that was once part of the infamous Underground Railroad. Although an impressive, and certainly historic home, through out the town it was known simply as the Wademan House. For many years, a very old, and somewhat eccentric lady lived there by herself. She had always wanted to restore the home to it's former glory, but never had the money to do so. When my parents purchased the home, it was directly from Mrs. Wademan's daughter.
My Mother has always been an antique nut, and she just went haywire making plans. The large house had 14 rooms in it, and represented quite an undertaking, but by the time my family completed the painstaking restorations, the results garnered the opportunity to have our home included in Ohio's Tours of Historic Homes.
The trouble began, however, when we first started the restorations. The house had been quite pleasant and peaceful initially, but once we started tearing things apart, many strange, inexplicable, and unsettling happenings started to occur.
For example, there was a cold spot in the music room that was absolutely freezing and never seemed to go away, no matter what time of year it happened to be. There were many, many instances were things would turn up missing, or would be moved around to some other location in the house. Rocking chairs would frequently be observed rocking all by themselves. It was pretty much the usual freaky fare, that you'd read about in haunted house stories. Of course skeptics could argue that it was the result of a drafty old house or common forgetfulness.
But some things just couldn't be explained away at all, like a picture that we had tried to hang with a large nail, that kept immediately falling to the floor each time we turned away. With each attempt , we could say with conviction, that nail wasn't bent, it wasn't lose, it was in fact, securely in the wall and the hanger on the back picture wasn't damaged, bent, or ripped in any way. We finally decided not to hang the picture. We heard footsteps at all hours of the day or night walking through the downstairs hallway, and of course, no one was ever there. We once babysat my Grandmother's dog for a week, and she went crazy most of that week barking, hackles raised, and ready to lunge when ever she heard the phantom steps.
There were many, many beautiful antiques in the home that we had acquired to decorate the house, unfortunately there were quite a few that were knocked or thrown onto the floor and broken. Apparently, there was someone present who just didn't like those particular pieces? Hanging in the kitchen, we had a large old chandelier that probably weighed about 60 pounds, and came from a castle estate in England. On many mornings we would get up for breakfast, only to see all of the light bulbs removed from it, and laying scattered on the floor or on the counter top.
We sort of got used to all these occurrences, and learned not to be afraid. But none of our friends would dare spend the night there after they either heard the footsteps, or witnessed the other strange events. To us, most of the occurrences didn't seem so severe, just eerie. Like a cool breeze on your cheek when you'd be watching TV, or you'd find your clean clothes dumped on the floor after putting them away.
These strange occurrences continued in the house for 5 years, the total time of our restoration project. My Mother had developed a theory that it was the departed Mrs. Wademan, who, when she saw her dream starting to come true, just had to "check it out". When the restoration work was finally finished, so were the freaky events.
Things just suddenly ended with a snap the day we were finished with the house. I guess it seemed even weirder to me, not to have these little tidbits going on all the time. I mean, don't all folks want to live in a haunted house?
