Hope everyone enjoyed this series. This is the last installment. Be sure to check out the end of this installment to see what I think is a picture of the actual house from a Kansas atlas I found as well as a Google map street view image. I think it's a match. What do you think?
The Things We Pick Up
It wasn’t long after the trip down to the cemetery that I had a bit of a personal revelation.
Ever since I first started to write the story, I have had an interest in movies that I would rarely
sit and watch before, horror movies. While living in the home, we rarely watched horror movies, and
the ones I did manage to see just never scared me. After moving away from the home, I just never
wanted to watch movies that dealt with ghosts, the occult or paranormal activity, I would
always try to stick with comedies or other light hearted genres.
The reason I started watching the movies recently was because a person I speak to has an interest
in them, so I decided to watch some of the shows he had been talking about. It was during this time
that I learned something about myself that I had never known and perhaps is a reason why things
happened as they did and continue to do so.
The first horror movie I recently sat and watched was Amityville Horror. I had purchased both it
and the new remake and sat and watched them back to back. My wife didn’t watch the old movie
with me, but did sit and watch the remake. Later that night, our house became active.
I did some writing that evening and as I wrote, very cold drafts kept hitting me. I
told my wife that we had company and to expect our son not to sleep well that night. As expected,
our son woke up saying there was someone in his room and the wife and I heard quite a bit of
movement up and down the hall that night. I just figured the house was acting up as it occasionally
has been and wrote it off at that.
Things died down for the most part. The only time I really have been noticing things in this house
is when I sit down to write this story. My son has been seeing things on and off, but I really
hoped it was just the imagination of a young child at work, but deep down I knew that wasn’t the
case. As time went by, activity would increase and decrease, never knowing why or who was to
blame. I continued to watch horror movies on and off as time went on, and found that I
enjoyed them. Many have a good story to tell, but more importantly, many have elements that
resemble things that have happened to me personally.
I didn’t watch these movies all that often, but when I did my wife really wasn’t all that
interested in watching them with me. We have a home theater in our basement and as
expected, it is very dark down there. As we would watch movies, we could hear noises from upstairs
and around the basement. She would become scared and I just told her she was getting scared by the
movie and the noises were nothing. There were times I thought the noises did sound pretty strange,
but I was just never all that concerned about them, I just wanted to watch the show. After about
the fifth or sixth movie, something happened that changed our movie watching location. We
were watching a movie with an occult theme, when it sounded as if someone was beating on the
side of the house. I ran up the stairs and it was coming from the back wall. I flipped on the
lights, but there was nothing to be seen. After that night, she refused to watch that sort of movie
down in the theater;
she wanted to be in the well lit upstairs living room.
The last horror/paranormal movie we watched together is the one that really started me to thinking
about things. It wasn’t so much the movie, but what happened during the movie. We had no
intention of watching a movie that evening, but while flipping channels the movie White Noise came
on. I had wanted to see it and my wife sat down with me in the living room to watch it. Our son
fell to sleep very early that evening and was back in his room sleeping. The movie had an
interesting premise in that a person can communicate with the dead by watching a television or
listening to a radio that is on but not tuned to a channel.
I was really interested in the movie, but things kept getting in the way of enjoying
it. Early on, my wife kept thinking she saw something run past the sliding glass doors.
I would sit and look out occasionally and finally I too thought I saw something, looked like a dark
shadow darting past the glass. After telling her there was nothing there, I then told her to close
the blinds and come sit by me. I figured there was no reason for her to see that and she had been
sitting right next to the sliders, so I didn’t want her over there after that. Not long after she
closed the sliders, something hit the back of the house. The noise was loud, so loud in fact
it woke up our sleeping son. I grabbed my spotlight and ran outside to see if anything or
anyone was out there, didn’t see a single thing. I did have an uneasy feeling the entire time
I was outside I really didn’t like, the feeling of being watched that had always followed
me down in the old home. I went back in the house and told my wife it must have been a raccoon or something, and we continued watching the movie.
The thing is, I don’t like to lie to my wife, but I also don’t like for her to be scared. She has
always heard about the stories of the old home, but never lived through anything like that. I know
she has always wondered why we stayed in that home as long as we did. I also know she is very aware
of my abilities and often knows when I am seeing or feeling things. She knows by my reactions when
something isn’t right, so I have learned to try to mask from her when I am seeing things I am
not comfortable with. I would never do anything to put her at risk, but I would also never
scare her for no reason.
We continued to watch the movie, close to the end things started to really pick up. I was really
getting into the movie when it sounded like our son was walking towards us from the other end of
the home. You could hear the footsteps get closer and closer and finally we both turned around
expecting to see him right behind us. There was nothing. I called out to our son, silence. Suddenly
I got a touch of something I didn’t like, the cold. It was right then, a light over the bar blew
up. My wife jumped up screaming, “what the hell is it?” She was looking at my arms to see if
the hair on them was standing up. My wife knows that if the hair on my arms is standing up,
things aren’t good and it is the only thing I can’t poker face with her. I jumped up
and took off towards our son’s room. Suddenly he started screaming before I could reach his
door. As I turned on the hall light, again another light bulb blew. My wife was following
closely behind and went in and calmed him and stayed in his room for a good while.
Another Trip in Time
I wasn’t sure what to do, I knew she was scared and the boy had again seen something, but there
just wasn’t anything I could do. I stayed with them for a few moments to make sure things remained
calm and then went back and finished the rest of the movie. The movie ended a short time later
and I headed back to our bedroom and my wife came to bed shortly after. She told me that was the
last time she was ever going to be in the house when I sat and watched a movie of that
nature; she was sick and tired of things happening. And then it hit me. Things were
happening. Every time I sat and watched a movie like that, things would happen around me. Not only
would they happen around me, they would also affect the people around me.
I had noticed that on the nights I wrote this story, the home often acted up. Now,
by watching movies of a paranormal nature, the house acted up as well. What does all this mean? Had
it only been something that happened to me, I would just think I was crazy or imaging things, but
my wife and son were getting to see the show as well. My wife is used to lights acting strange
around me; she first noticed something I had never. Street lights often go out as I drive. I
never paid much attention until she mentioned it, but after her saying something, I see it happen
as well. As I drive down streets, street lights go out, sometimes as many as four or five at
different times in an evening. This is something that has always happened to me, but I never
thought much about it, but it is something that really bothers her. She says it never happens
when she drives alone or rides with others and from what she tells me, she has asked many people if
it happens to them and they say no as well. I have looked into it somewhat and there are
actually others that claim the same thing happens to them, personally I just think we are all nuts
but that has yet to be determined.
Anyway, apparently when I watch these movies, I must open up. As I have mentioned before, I
can turn things on and off as far as picking up activity. I have learned over the years to control
it fairly well, but when I watch these movies or write about the old home, I must let down the
defenses. The part about all this that troubles me is, I am not just opening up and
seeing things, I must be channeling in a way. It is as if I actually am drawing
spirits to my home, they don’t seem to stay all that long, mostly gone within twelve hours
or so. By watching these movies, could I actually be drawing spirits to me? As far as my wife is
concerned, she is convinced that is the case. She wants nothing to do with these movies and wishes
I would just go back to watching comedies.
I guess the bigger question in my mind now is, are houses haunted or am I? Perhaps it is a
combination of both? I call tell if a house is active or not, but can I also make a house haunted
if I open up while being in that home? If so, perhaps the old home was haunted and by my seeing
things, I was also drawing other things to the home. There may have only been one spirit there to
begin with and I brought the rest out to stay or perhaps they were all there the entire time. I
just don’t know. What I do know is that in my current home, they don’t seem to stay for very
long. After twelve hours or so, things usually calm down. I have been making sure that when I do
sit and watch horror movies or write that I intentionally try to make sure not to get too relaxed.
If I start to hear or feel things, I will shut the movie off for a bit and try to make sure I am not inviting anything into our home. Even as I type this, I have the television and the internet going to keep my mind occupied as to not get things active this evening. Too bad there isn’t a book on how all this works. There used to be a television series called the Greatest American Hero, about a man who gets a suit that gives him abilities but didn’t get the instructions. I often feel like that guy. I know there must be a reason why I can do and see the things I do, but I have yet to really learn how to control it to benefit others. I can tell a person if a house they are interested in is
haunted or not, but I can’t tell them by who. The part that scares me is that I think I could very
easily, but I am still too scared to really take that step. Perhaps that is the way it should be.
Maybe we really aren’t supposed to know, “too much.” All I know is that while it is a very
interesting thing to live through, I really wouldn’t want others to have to deal with it.
Picking up the Pieces
When we moved from the old home, we ended up renting a barn to store many of the items we
had picked up over the years. The barn was located behind the home of my aunt and uncle, just up
the hill from the old home. Well, here it is 17 years later and we finally get around to getting
items out of the barn and bringing them to the city where we live. My father and I went down one
Saturday morning, didn’t have much on my mind that day, just knew we had a long day’s work ahead
of us.
In the barn, there were hundreds of various Jeep parts and items we had picked up at
auctions over the years. They were all too big to haul to the city when we first moved, but now we
finally had a place to bring them and sort through them. It was nice being back down there. From
the top of the hill, you could see the old home and the small town. It is a nice homestead, plenty
of mature trees and views that you don’t get in many parts of the area. I found myself
occasionally looking down the hill at the old home, remembering things that had happened over
the years. Overall, most of my memories are good ones. I enjoyed growing up down there, even though
I had to deal with things that most people didn’t.
After a long day of sorting through items covered in years of dust and bird droppings, it was time
to get it all back to the city and unload. We visited a short while with my aunt and uncle before
heading out and then away we went. Since the truck and trailer were completely loaded down, I
decided to go around the small town instead of driving through it for two reasons. The
first reason, the small town always had a habit of hiring overzealous police officers who seemed to
enjoy pulling people over for the slightest of reasons and secondly, with so much stuff on the
trailer, I wanted to make sure it was all going to stay on, so going down back roads seemed like a
safer place to test our load.
The route I decided went right past the old home I went on my way at a very slow speed. The road
was very rough; the county had been removing all the tree lines from the roads in order to make new
drainage ways, all the big equipment had really taken their toll on the old dirt roads. I was
driving along at about 10 miles per hour when I suddenly began to get very sad. I didn’t know why,
I had been in a great mood all day and was looking forward to digging through all the items we were
carrying.
Things seem to manifest in different ways. Sometimes I see things as if they were
actually happening and sometimes it is as if I were watching a rerun through the eyes of someone
else, seeing and feeling what the person who I am making a connection with went through. In
this case, it was the latter. As I slowly drove down the old dirt road, I felt as though I was
grieving deeply. I had been down that dirt road hundreds, if not thousands of times over
the last two decades and not once had I ever felt this way. As a kid, I used to walk down
that road all the time with my old dog, hunting frogs and looking for anything that
looked of importance, not once had I ever had an experience like the one I was about to have.
As I drove further, I made it to the corner of cemetery road. My plan was to go down cemetery
road, past the cemetery and that would take me around the town. As I made the turn, something
caught my eye. I looked over at the cemetery and saw what appeared to be children at Ephraim’s
grave. There were three children there, sitting there talking to the grave and among
themselves. The middle child then appeared to be placing some wild flowers in the vase
atop the tombstone. I was just about in tears at this point, something was very odd,
even odder than what I am used to. We had to stop just shy of the cemetery for the train.
Trains have to switch tracks at the small town and it takes some time, so I got out of
the truck and went back to the trailer. I sat on the trailer and watched the cemetery through the
train cars. I could see the children interacting with the tombstone; they would occasionally hug it
and run around playing. I then saw something that really hit hard. I thought I heard a horse, I
turned to look in the direction and I could clearly see the old home. With all the trees removed
from the roads, the cemetery was in clear view of the old home. From my bedroom window,
the grave of Ephraim would have been in clear view. As I looked over at the home, I thought I
saw a horse and buggy.
The friend of mine that was chased out of the house many years ago had sworn he had seen a horse
and buggy on different occasions when going down my road and others had made the same claim,
but I had never seen such a thing. As I continued to watch, the buggy started to get
closer. It was a rather fancy buggy, not knowing much about horses, I have no idea what kind of
horse it was. There was a woman in the buggy, she wore a long dress and wore a bonnet of
sorts, nothing fancy, just looked as though she were heading out for a ride. As it
approached, it would fade in and out, and as this happened, it was as if I were getting feelings
from the driver of that buggy. The story was becoming clear. The woman in the buggy was
Margaret, making a journey she had made many times. The children would begin to miss
their father and take off running through the fields, over to the cemetery to visit
him. Margaret would search the home looking for them and when not being able to find them,
would know where they had gone and take the journey to go bring them home. The sense of emotions
was overbearing. I have never felt so much sadness. I then watched as the buggy pulled up to the
gravestone, she got out and sat down with the children and then it all went away. The
feelings of sadness and grief vanished as quickly as they had begun and everything was back to
normal.
I had rarely thought of how things must have been after the passing of Ephraim, nor had I ever
thought of researching Margaret. Ephraim had always been my point of interest and nearly always
lead to a dead end. When I got home, I decided to see if there was any information on
Margaret on the internet. I searched for quite sometime and then quite by chance, I happened to
find some information. I learned that at one time, they were one of the wealthiest and most
successful farms in Kansas. They were not only one of the most successful, but they were one of
very few chosen to be featured in the 1887 Kansas Atlas. They were one of the largest land
owners in the county and were among a list of the wealthiest as well. With Ephraim dying in
1884, Margaret had been left to run the place and raise the family. A portrait of the home was
featured in the 1887 Atlas.
By taking the long way home, I had managed to learn more about the old home than I had ever known.
I still didn’t know how Ephraim died or what became of his children, but I now had a glimpse into the life of his wife and what they went through after his death. There was
much sadness and grief in that home, perhaps it is that sadness and grief that resulted in the home
having so much trouble to this day. Could the reason for my room being so active be tied to the
fact that the cemetery was visible from there? It was the only room with no electricity and
also the only room with a lock very high up on the outside to keep people out. Was it locked
to keep the kids from hanging out in there and looking out at their father? Perhaps it is
something that happened later that created the troubles for the old home. There are still a
number of years in which I have no idea who owned the home or what happened there. The secrets may be tied to those years, I just don’t know yet. Secrets have been slow to reveal themselves when it concerns that place. It seems to seldom happen when I wish it would, but usually when I am not
giving any thought to the place. I will find more answers, in time.
Family Info: Mr. Hilyard came to Kansas in 1870, taking up his abode in Greenwood
County. The parental household consisted of fourteen children of whom Margaret
E. was the fourth in order of birth. She was a maiden of seventeen years when the family removed to Macon County and she was there married November 21, 1867, to Ephraim James. Mr. James was born near Columbus, Ohio, March 19, 1837, and became a resident of Macon County. After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. James continued to live there until their removal to Kansas in 1874. They settled in Belle Plaine Township, Mr. James purchasing six hundred and fifty acres of land upon which he engaged quite extensively in farming until the illness which resulted in his death, April 11, 1884.
To Mr. and Mrs. James there was born a family of eight children, the eldest of whom, a
daughter, Laura J, is the wife of O. C. Watson of Belle Plaine; William lives in Belle Plaine
Township; Powell died when one year old ; Emma, Elmer, Albert, George and Sybil, remain at
home with their mother. Mrs. Margaret E. James was a second time married April 19,
1888, to E. S. Capps, a native of Illinois and of English parentage.
In religious belief Mrs. Capps is a Universalist, as was also her first husband. Mr. James was an
intelligent man and took a warm interest in educational affairs.
House location: There is a house in the county southeast of Belle Plaine on 80th about 3/4 of a
mile east down the road from Rock Road on the right side.
The Things We Pick Up
It wasn’t long after the trip down to the cemetery that I had a bit of a personal revelation.
Ever since I first started to write the story, I have had an interest in movies that I would rarely
sit and watch before, horror movies. While living in the home, we rarely watched horror movies, and
the ones I did manage to see just never scared me. After moving away from the home, I just never
wanted to watch movies that dealt with ghosts, the occult or paranormal activity, I would
always try to stick with comedies or other light hearted genres.
The reason I started watching the movies recently was because a person I speak to has an interest
in them, so I decided to watch some of the shows he had been talking about. It was during this time
that I learned something about myself that I had never known and perhaps is a reason why things
happened as they did and continue to do so.
The first horror movie I recently sat and watched was Amityville Horror. I had purchased both it
and the new remake and sat and watched them back to back. My wife didn’t watch the old movie
with me, but did sit and watch the remake. Later that night, our house became active.
I did some writing that evening and as I wrote, very cold drafts kept hitting me. I
told my wife that we had company and to expect our son not to sleep well that night. As expected,
our son woke up saying there was someone in his room and the wife and I heard quite a bit of
movement up and down the hall that night. I just figured the house was acting up as it occasionally
has been and wrote it off at that.
Things died down for the most part. The only time I really have been noticing things in this house
is when I sit down to write this story. My son has been seeing things on and off, but I really
hoped it was just the imagination of a young child at work, but deep down I knew that wasn’t the
case. As time went by, activity would increase and decrease, never knowing why or who was to
blame. I continued to watch horror movies on and off as time went on, and found that I
enjoyed them. Many have a good story to tell, but more importantly, many have elements that
resemble things that have happened to me personally.
I didn’t watch these movies all that often, but when I did my wife really wasn’t all that
interested in watching them with me. We have a home theater in our basement and as
expected, it is very dark down there. As we would watch movies, we could hear noises from upstairs
and around the basement. She would become scared and I just told her she was getting scared by the
movie and the noises were nothing. There were times I thought the noises did sound pretty strange,
but I was just never all that concerned about them, I just wanted to watch the show. After about
the fifth or sixth movie, something happened that changed our movie watching location. We
were watching a movie with an occult theme, when it sounded as if someone was beating on the
side of the house. I ran up the stairs and it was coming from the back wall. I flipped on the
lights, but there was nothing to be seen. After that night, she refused to watch that sort of movie
down in the theater;
she wanted to be in the well lit upstairs living room.
The last horror/paranormal movie we watched together is the one that really started me to thinking
about things. It wasn’t so much the movie, but what happened during the movie. We had no
intention of watching a movie that evening, but while flipping channels the movie White Noise came
on. I had wanted to see it and my wife sat down with me in the living room to watch it. Our son
fell to sleep very early that evening and was back in his room sleeping. The movie had an
interesting premise in that a person can communicate with the dead by watching a television or
listening to a radio that is on but not tuned to a channel.
I was really interested in the movie, but things kept getting in the way of enjoying
it. Early on, my wife kept thinking she saw something run past the sliding glass doors.
I would sit and look out occasionally and finally I too thought I saw something, looked like a dark
shadow darting past the glass. After telling her there was nothing there, I then told her to close
the blinds and come sit by me. I figured there was no reason for her to see that and she had been
sitting right next to the sliders, so I didn’t want her over there after that. Not long after she
closed the sliders, something hit the back of the house. The noise was loud, so loud in fact
it woke up our sleeping son. I grabbed my spotlight and ran outside to see if anything or
anyone was out there, didn’t see a single thing. I did have an uneasy feeling the entire time
I was outside I really didn’t like, the feeling of being watched that had always followed
me down in the old home. I went back in the house and told my wife it must have been a raccoon or something, and we continued watching the movie.
The thing is, I don’t like to lie to my wife, but I also don’t like for her to be scared. She has
always heard about the stories of the old home, but never lived through anything like that. I know
she has always wondered why we stayed in that home as long as we did. I also know she is very aware
of my abilities and often knows when I am seeing or feeling things. She knows by my reactions when
something isn’t right, so I have learned to try to mask from her when I am seeing things I am
not comfortable with. I would never do anything to put her at risk, but I would also never
scare her for no reason.
We continued to watch the movie, close to the end things started to really pick up. I was really
getting into the movie when it sounded like our son was walking towards us from the other end of
the home. You could hear the footsteps get closer and closer and finally we both turned around
expecting to see him right behind us. There was nothing. I called out to our son, silence. Suddenly
I got a touch of something I didn’t like, the cold. It was right then, a light over the bar blew
up. My wife jumped up screaming, “what the hell is it?” She was looking at my arms to see if
the hair on them was standing up. My wife knows that if the hair on my arms is standing up,
things aren’t good and it is the only thing I can’t poker face with her. I jumped up
and took off towards our son’s room. Suddenly he started screaming before I could reach his
door. As I turned on the hall light, again another light bulb blew. My wife was following
closely behind and went in and calmed him and stayed in his room for a good while.
Another Trip in Time
I wasn’t sure what to do, I knew she was scared and the boy had again seen something, but there
just wasn’t anything I could do. I stayed with them for a few moments to make sure things remained
calm and then went back and finished the rest of the movie. The movie ended a short time later
and I headed back to our bedroom and my wife came to bed shortly after. She told me that was the
last time she was ever going to be in the house when I sat and watched a movie of that
nature; she was sick and tired of things happening. And then it hit me. Things were
happening. Every time I sat and watched a movie like that, things would happen around me. Not only
would they happen around me, they would also affect the people around me.
I had noticed that on the nights I wrote this story, the home often acted up. Now,
by watching movies of a paranormal nature, the house acted up as well. What does all this mean? Had
it only been something that happened to me, I would just think I was crazy or imaging things, but
my wife and son were getting to see the show as well. My wife is used to lights acting strange
around me; she first noticed something I had never. Street lights often go out as I drive. I
never paid much attention until she mentioned it, but after her saying something, I see it happen
as well. As I drive down streets, street lights go out, sometimes as many as four or five at
different times in an evening. This is something that has always happened to me, but I never
thought much about it, but it is something that really bothers her. She says it never happens
when she drives alone or rides with others and from what she tells me, she has asked many people if
it happens to them and they say no as well. I have looked into it somewhat and there are
actually others that claim the same thing happens to them, personally I just think we are all nuts
but that has yet to be determined.
Anyway, apparently when I watch these movies, I must open up. As I have mentioned before, I
can turn things on and off as far as picking up activity. I have learned over the years to control
it fairly well, but when I watch these movies or write about the old home, I must let down the
defenses. The part about all this that troubles me is, I am not just opening up and
seeing things, I must be channeling in a way. It is as if I actually am drawing
spirits to my home, they don’t seem to stay all that long, mostly gone within twelve hours
or so. By watching these movies, could I actually be drawing spirits to me? As far as my wife is
concerned, she is convinced that is the case. She wants nothing to do with these movies and wishes
I would just go back to watching comedies.
I guess the bigger question in my mind now is, are houses haunted or am I? Perhaps it is a
combination of both? I call tell if a house is active or not, but can I also make a house haunted
if I open up while being in that home? If so, perhaps the old home was haunted and by my seeing
things, I was also drawing other things to the home. There may have only been one spirit there to
begin with and I brought the rest out to stay or perhaps they were all there the entire time. I
just don’t know. What I do know is that in my current home, they don’t seem to stay for very
long. After twelve hours or so, things usually calm down. I have been making sure that when I do
sit and watch horror movies or write that I intentionally try to make sure not to get too relaxed.
If I start to hear or feel things, I will shut the movie off for a bit and try to make sure I am not inviting anything into our home. Even as I type this, I have the television and the internet going to keep my mind occupied as to not get things active this evening. Too bad there isn’t a book on how all this works. There used to be a television series called the Greatest American Hero, about a man who gets a suit that gives him abilities but didn’t get the instructions. I often feel like that guy. I know there must be a reason why I can do and see the things I do, but I have yet to really learn how to control it to benefit others. I can tell a person if a house they are interested in is
haunted or not, but I can’t tell them by who. The part that scares me is that I think I could very
easily, but I am still too scared to really take that step. Perhaps that is the way it should be.
Maybe we really aren’t supposed to know, “too much.” All I know is that while it is a very
interesting thing to live through, I really wouldn’t want others to have to deal with it.
Picking up the Pieces
When we moved from the old home, we ended up renting a barn to store many of the items we
had picked up over the years. The barn was located behind the home of my aunt and uncle, just up
the hill from the old home. Well, here it is 17 years later and we finally get around to getting
items out of the barn and bringing them to the city where we live. My father and I went down one
Saturday morning, didn’t have much on my mind that day, just knew we had a long day’s work ahead
of us.
In the barn, there were hundreds of various Jeep parts and items we had picked up at
auctions over the years. They were all too big to haul to the city when we first moved, but now we
finally had a place to bring them and sort through them. It was nice being back down there. From
the top of the hill, you could see the old home and the small town. It is a nice homestead, plenty
of mature trees and views that you don’t get in many parts of the area. I found myself
occasionally looking down the hill at the old home, remembering things that had happened over
the years. Overall, most of my memories are good ones. I enjoyed growing up down there, even though
I had to deal with things that most people didn’t.
After a long day of sorting through items covered in years of dust and bird droppings, it was time
to get it all back to the city and unload. We visited a short while with my aunt and uncle before
heading out and then away we went. Since the truck and trailer were completely loaded down, I
decided to go around the small town instead of driving through it for two reasons. The
first reason, the small town always had a habit of hiring overzealous police officers who seemed to
enjoy pulling people over for the slightest of reasons and secondly, with so much stuff on the
trailer, I wanted to make sure it was all going to stay on, so going down back roads seemed like a
safer place to test our load.
The route I decided went right past the old home I went on my way at a very slow speed. The road
was very rough; the county had been removing all the tree lines from the roads in order to make new
drainage ways, all the big equipment had really taken their toll on the old dirt roads. I was
driving along at about 10 miles per hour when I suddenly began to get very sad. I didn’t know why,
I had been in a great mood all day and was looking forward to digging through all the items we were
carrying.
Things seem to manifest in different ways. Sometimes I see things as if they were
actually happening and sometimes it is as if I were watching a rerun through the eyes of someone
else, seeing and feeling what the person who I am making a connection with went through. In
this case, it was the latter. As I slowly drove down the old dirt road, I felt as though I was
grieving deeply. I had been down that dirt road hundreds, if not thousands of times over
the last two decades and not once had I ever felt this way. As a kid, I used to walk down
that road all the time with my old dog, hunting frogs and looking for anything that
looked of importance, not once had I ever had an experience like the one I was about to have.
As I drove further, I made it to the corner of cemetery road. My plan was to go down cemetery
road, past the cemetery and that would take me around the town. As I made the turn, something
caught my eye. I looked over at the cemetery and saw what appeared to be children at Ephraim’s
grave. There were three children there, sitting there talking to the grave and among
themselves. The middle child then appeared to be placing some wild flowers in the vase
atop the tombstone. I was just about in tears at this point, something was very odd,
even odder than what I am used to. We had to stop just shy of the cemetery for the train.
Trains have to switch tracks at the small town and it takes some time, so I got out of
the truck and went back to the trailer. I sat on the trailer and watched the cemetery through the
train cars. I could see the children interacting with the tombstone; they would occasionally hug it
and run around playing. I then saw something that really hit hard. I thought I heard a horse, I
turned to look in the direction and I could clearly see the old home. With all the trees removed
from the roads, the cemetery was in clear view of the old home. From my bedroom window,
the grave of Ephraim would have been in clear view. As I looked over at the home, I thought I
saw a horse and buggy.
The friend of mine that was chased out of the house many years ago had sworn he had seen a horse
and buggy on different occasions when going down my road and others had made the same claim,
but I had never seen such a thing. As I continued to watch, the buggy started to get
closer. It was a rather fancy buggy, not knowing much about horses, I have no idea what kind of
horse it was. There was a woman in the buggy, she wore a long dress and wore a bonnet of
sorts, nothing fancy, just looked as though she were heading out for a ride. As it
approached, it would fade in and out, and as this happened, it was as if I were getting feelings
from the driver of that buggy. The story was becoming clear. The woman in the buggy was
Margaret, making a journey she had made many times. The children would begin to miss
their father and take off running through the fields, over to the cemetery to visit
him. Margaret would search the home looking for them and when not being able to find them,
would know where they had gone and take the journey to go bring them home. The sense of emotions
was overbearing. I have never felt so much sadness. I then watched as the buggy pulled up to the
gravestone, she got out and sat down with the children and then it all went away. The
feelings of sadness and grief vanished as quickly as they had begun and everything was back to
normal.
I had rarely thought of how things must have been after the passing of Ephraim, nor had I ever
thought of researching Margaret. Ephraim had always been my point of interest and nearly always
lead to a dead end. When I got home, I decided to see if there was any information on
Margaret on the internet. I searched for quite sometime and then quite by chance, I happened to
find some information. I learned that at one time, they were one of the wealthiest and most
successful farms in Kansas. They were not only one of the most successful, but they were one of
very few chosen to be featured in the 1887 Kansas Atlas. They were one of the largest land
owners in the county and were among a list of the wealthiest as well. With Ephraim dying in
1884, Margaret had been left to run the place and raise the family. A portrait of the home was
featured in the 1887 Atlas.
By taking the long way home, I had managed to learn more about the old home than I had ever known.
I still didn’t know how Ephraim died or what became of his children, but I now had a glimpse into the life of his wife and what they went through after his death. There was
much sadness and grief in that home, perhaps it is that sadness and grief that resulted in the home
having so much trouble to this day. Could the reason for my room being so active be tied to the
fact that the cemetery was visible from there? It was the only room with no electricity and
also the only room with a lock very high up on the outside to keep people out. Was it locked
to keep the kids from hanging out in there and looking out at their father? Perhaps it is
something that happened later that created the troubles for the old home. There are still a
number of years in which I have no idea who owned the home or what happened there. The secrets may be tied to those years, I just don’t know yet. Secrets have been slow to reveal themselves when it concerns that place. It seems to seldom happen when I wish it would, but usually when I am not
giving any thought to the place. I will find more answers, in time.
Additional Information Found from freudhawk's research
Town: Belle Plaine, KS (Sumner County)Family Info: Mr. Hilyard came to Kansas in 1870, taking up his abode in Greenwood
County. The parental household consisted of fourteen children of whom Margaret
E. was the fourth in order of birth. She was a maiden of seventeen years when the family removed to Macon County and she was there married November 21, 1867, to Ephraim James. Mr. James was born near Columbus, Ohio, March 19, 1837, and became a resident of Macon County. After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. James continued to live there until their removal to Kansas in 1874. They settled in Belle Plaine Township, Mr. James purchasing six hundred and fifty acres of land upon which he engaged quite extensively in farming until the illness which resulted in his death, April 11, 1884.
To Mr. and Mrs. James there was born a family of eight children, the eldest of whom, a
daughter, Laura J, is the wife of O. C. Watson of Belle Plaine; William lives in Belle Plaine
Township; Powell died when one year old ; Emma, Elmer, Albert, George and Sybil, remain at
home with their mother. Mrs. Margaret E. James was a second time married April 19,
1888, to E. S. Capps, a native of Illinois and of English parentage.
In religious belief Mrs. Capps is a Universalist, as was also her first husband. Mr. James was an
intelligent man and took a warm interest in educational affairs.
House location: There is a house in the county southeast of Belle Plaine on 80th about 3/4 of a
mile east down the road from Rock Road on the right side.
Pictures from Kansas Atlas 1887
http://www.davidrumsey.com/maps830024-23544.html
Picture from Google Maps (2014)--Seems like a match to me
http://www.davidrumsey.com/maps830024-23544.html
Picture from Google Maps (2014)--Seems like a match to me
