Scary Ghost Stories

New Orleans House

When my sister gotmarried she and her husband moved into a house in "oldAlgiers"- a portion of New Orleans located on the West Bankof the Mississippi River.

The house was very old and had originally been built 7 to 8 feettall from the ground and supported by huge brick pillars- muchlike some of the old Louisiana Plantation homes - before thelevees. The height was the protection when the river rose in thespring.

Over the years the house was converted into a "double"with mirror image sides. The lower potin was walled in after thelevees were built and this portion was converted into twoapartments and laundry rooms for the four apartments.

My sister was renting the upper left side. The rooms were largewith high ceilings. Upon entering there was the living room,"den" rather than what is usually called a bedroom,then the bedroom, the kitchen and a narrow hall with a bathroomand staircase down to the laundry room at the lsft and a bedroomat the end of the hall. This was a smaller room because it ispart of what had originally been the porch for the big house buthad been walled in when the house was made a double.

Since her husband worked offshore I would spend nights with herbecause she was afraid to be alone. Soon it became apparentsomething was wrong because you could here noises and walkingaccompanied by a cold, errie feeling that you were being watched.Tuesday nights were the worse- Almost unbearable. Everyone saidwe were "imagining" things.

One particular Tuesday night it was so bad that we sat in thekitchen and kept talking about anything and everthing because wewere afraid to go to bed. As time passed, things got quiet andabout 2:00 a.m. we decided to go to bed. My sister went to theback bedroom and I to the front.

I had not yet gotten into bed when I got that cold eerie feelingso I turned out the light and jumped into bed and covered my head.then I decided to turn the other way so I would face the window.Just as I turned I heard a voice say quite clearly, "Don'tturn your back on me." Thinking it was my sister I turnedback over and removed the covers from my head. I "saw"an image of an old lady in what appeared to be to be an old timenight gown, white, with long sleeved and a high neckline standingin the doorway to the kitchen. AT first I thought maybe my sisterhad gotten up and had come to ask me something so I said, "Whatdo you want?" Then he image was gone. I yelled to my sister,"Did you say something?" When she replied "No"I turned on the light and got out of bed. She got up when I toldher what had happened. We did not sleep the rest of the night.

That next day we began inquiring about the history of the houseand did find out that at one time it had been a funeral home. Butthat did not account for the woman. So we decided to try to"pick up a feeling" from the house itself over the nextfew nights. After a couple of weeks, from Tuesday activity, wecame to the conclusion - like someone told us, that the lady wasan old woman who had died in the house. She was not hapy then ornow, that she was considered "mean" by those who knewher and she had died alone and unhappy in the house, on a Tuedaynight, in the back bedroom. We kept that information to ourselvesbecause we wanted to find out if were right.

Finally, we pesterd my grandmother so much about the house thatshe contacted an 80 year old lady who had lived in the housse atone time. Grandma asked her if anyone ever died in that house.Guess what! An elderly lady, considered mean and "crotchety"had indeed died there,in the back bedroomon a Tuesday night.

Being Catholics, we arranged for masses for the womans soul andhad the house blesse. The activity stopped after that, and mysister moved a couple of years later.