Sister Stories
The following arejust a few of the stories among many of true occurances whichtook place in our former home (the home I grew up in as a girl inthe heart of East Los Angeles). But first I'd like to give you alittle history of the house.
This house was built in the early 1900's when silent pictureswere just beginning to take hold in Hollywood. The area at thattime was not as populated, and it was the third home to be builton the block. Our neighbor who had come up with the idea as tohow to Part the Red Sea in Hollywood's first silent movie aboutthe Bible, with Moses parting and crossing the Red Sea (by theway, he used red Jello to part the Red Sea - just to give you anidea of his age)......he remembered the house as being used atdifferent times as both a home for elderly jewish women and also,a home for unwed mothers. I'm afraid I never found out in whichorder they were (which came first).
My first story happened when I was just a wee thing. My oldersister and my cousin were very young kids at that time and theywere playing and got around to fighting with each other. Aspunishment my mother made them sit in one of the rooms of thehouse (the room we now call the "pink room") By theway, people have often commented that this room gives themstrange vibes, if not the "willies." Anyway, as the twogirls sat there crying, upset because they were being punished,the closet door knob turned and the door opened a crack. An armreached out from behind the door. It was a large beefy arm withthick dark hair all over it. The hand was gnarled with longdiscolored nails. Both girls forgot about being miserable andstarted to scream at the top of their lungs. When they screamedthe arm retreated as my mother burst in through the bedroom doorterrified by their screams. When they told her what they hadseen, my mother tried to calm down the two very hysterical girlsby saying it had been her arm they had seen. But she had onlysaid that to try and calm down the girls. My sister is now aresponsible adult, married, level headed, with two children ofher own. But to this very day she'll swear as to what she sawthat day in the "pink room."
This house seems to be spiritually inhabited by more than oneindividual. We've been told that during the depression poorhomeless people would pay the caretakers a small amount of moneyto sleep under the house at night (it is an old fashioned stiltstyle foundation home so it has a very spacious crawl space. Somespots under the house you could almost stand up straight). Isometimes wonder if one or two of these people could be some ofour present day spirits. Which leads me to my second story.
Our house was always like Grand Central Station. There were nineof us living together, my grandparents, mom, dad, and five of uskids. My grandmother's sister and her common-law husband lived inthe small house behind us on the same lot. There were alwaysvisitors, relatives, peddlers and an endless stream of friendsand new faces passing through our house, which is probably whywhen my grandmother was preparing dinner in the kitchen one nightwhen a strange man walked through the kitchen, at first she onlyglanced at him and looked back down. The man was wearing a floppyold hat and an old "well worn" raggedy jacket. As mygrandmother looked back down it finally registered in her brainthat a stranger had just walked through her kitchen and she wascurious. She looked over her shoulder to get a better look athim, but in the instant it took to look over her shoulder, he wasgone....without a trace.
Here's my last story for today:
Although our house was a good size, it was still very tight for alarge family of nine people. Three of us kids shared a room,myself and two other of my siblings. We were a very close familyand every so often a cousin would spend the night with us. Thisis exactly what started our eerie evening. A younger cousindecided to spend the night. She was the same age as my youngersister. We three girls shared the "pink room" (by theway, we later put a lock on the closet to keep it closed). Theeldest of us was a teenager and because it would have been atight squeeze to fit one more body (my cousin) in our room andbecause she was a teenager and didn't want little kids in herroom (we all go through that stage don't we?), it was decided thetwo girls would sleep on the living room floor. They were aboutseven or eight years old and they were afraid to sleep alone inthe dark living room with the rest of the family behind closedbedroom doors. So, I being the second to the eldest I volunteeredto sleep with them. We stretched out blankets and pillows on theliving room carpet, and being kids, we quietly whispered andgiggled half the night away. Finally, we grew tired and we layquietly as the rest of the household slept. We heard something -soft sobbing. But it was the saddest mourning sobbing.....It wasa woman's voice and she sounded like her heart would break. Thecrying came from outside our grandparent's bedroom, then alongwith the sobbing we heard footsteps, traveling slowly from mygrandparent's room, moving across the dining room and towards us!But then we realized it was actually heading for my parent's room(which was right next to where we lay in the living room), Theroom was so dark, we could barely make out the dim outline of thedining room furniture and my grandparen't door....but we couldn'tsee anyone.
We unbelievingly whispered to each other "Do you hear that?"Then as the sounds approached us we lay paralized, as flat to thefloor as could could get - trying to hide under the blankets (wewere really scared!) When the sounds (crying and footsteps)reached my parent's bedroom door we heard the doorknob turn....thensilence, it was over.
Knowing how the house looked before we added a bedroom toaccommodate our "large" family (the wall where thecrying started out at one time was a large wall-to-wall window,from waist level up to the ceiling). In retrospect, it made methknk this woman was looking out of the windows that werephysically there when she was alive, then as she sobbed she madeher way slowly back to whatever type of room my parent's room wasin her days.....a bedroom perhaps? I wonder sometimes why she wasso sad and what was it she was looking at from behing thosewindows?
There weren't occurances every day, but there were manythroughout the years, such as identical nightmares among some ofthe children, sightings, the dissapearance and reappearance ofpersonal possesions, strange markings, etc. I could go on and on(if I haven't already), but that's all for now. Mayby if anyoneis interested, I'll tell some more at a later time. I've got tonsof them!