I’ve mentioned the old Dick Strain House in my articles. This is the house my Big Daddy lived in when I was growing up. It was an old civil war home and, in the daytime, quite neglected, but in the dark of night it was completely frightening.
This old homestead looked many years older than the 100 or so years it had stood. In its glory days, it was a magnificent structure-built on the Greek revival house plan. Back when my family lived there, it was more of a “Greek reversal,” with its plaster deteriorating and columns leaning.
We were told so many stories about this old house during this time, we really didn’t know what was true or what was fiction. One that I relive in my mind every Halloween season is the one story that has remained in my memory for all these years. The second floor had a portico that was built out in front of two floor to ceiling window doors. The portico was directly in the center of the wide front porch underneath. The windows of the doors had long ago been cracked and broken and had become cloudy from years of neglect.
We were told that there was a fire that ravaged the house back during the war and that one of the girls’ sweethearts was killed during the fire on the second floor. We were also told that she walked the halls of this second story for days leading up to Halloween night searching for him. It was said that she would walkout on to the small portico and call for him and whisper his name. She did this every Halloween as the fire happened on that date. And she always came out at exactly midnight.
My cousin and I were terrified of this other worldly figure’s entrance but were more curious than scared, so we decided one Halloween night to lay in wait. We walked out underneath the cottonwood trees’ shadows hiding us in the front yard and began our vigil. We only had to wait a minute before the top doors blew open on a gust of wind as our hearts beat as hard as drumbeats. We didn’t see a thing!
In a few seconds, the wind began to blow harder, and we could hear, what we thought was a voice calling out a name on the wind. We stood very still mainly because we were paralyzed with fear. Then the doors slammed shut just as they had opened, and everything was quiet. You and I know the wind can sometimes sound like voices, carrying or calling out to a lover, especially if you have my imagination.
I’m not sure what we witnessed that night, but it sure seems so sad to me that she would be walking those halls still looking for her sweetheart.
GHOST PUMPKIN PIE
2 (10-inch) unbaked pie crust
4 beaten eggs
3 cups of baked, skinned and pureed white ghost pumpkin
1 cup of sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
½ teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon pumpkin spice (the ghost pumpkin is milder in taste and needs more spices)
1 (14-ounce) can of sweetened condensed milk
1 (12-ounce) can of evaporated milk.
Mix all together and pour into two pie shells and bake for 15 minutes at 425 degrees.
