A haunted house in Meriden?

[Lionel]

Taylor Girdley, 6, walks near a window in her mother's bedroom while pointing to a door which leads to the hallway and stairs. (Dave Zajac / Record-Journal)

MERIDEN — The east bedroom on the first floor of Jacqueline Glen's house never did give her much rest — not sound sleep, at least. She grew up in the home, an 1800s Colonial near City Park, and later raised her kids there.

Since she was 5 years old, Glen, now 37, claims she has had vivid encounters with a black figure that watched her from the doorway as she slept.

"I used to see a man standing there. It was just a shadow with a blinking thing coming out of the mouth area. Red, it was blinking red," Glen recalled.

But the shadowy image wasn't the only spirit to inhabit the house, she said. A second figure, one of a little girl who appears blue from head to toe, has been spotted from time to time and heard calling out faintly: "Mommy … mommy."

"Nobody was around. It would always sound like it was far away," Glen said.

Noises in the night have become commonplace — the same, too, for objects that move across rooms. Faces in windows and figures in doorways have proved most startling. The haunting of Glen's house at 159 Franklin St. is nothing new to her or her family, but nothing they've grown comfortable with, either.

"We don't really bring it up unless somebody is at our house and something happens. The best thing was not to react to it. As soon as we started learning to live with it, it didn't bother us," Glen said.

From a Ouija board, ghosts named Abe and Veve identified themselves, but did not explain their reasons for lingering behind. The history of the house dates back more than 120 years, but research into the house at 159 Franklin St. did not reveal any publicized mishaps or murders.

City assessment records list Glen's house as built in 1890. But letters her family discovered in the house date back to 1881, sent to a Miss Maggie Dillon of 159 Franklin St. Most of the letters caught Dillon up on gossip and what was up in Green Point, Long Island. One letter from Mamie Nelson in 1882 read:

"… What made you ask me if John Lynah was arrested. I don't think he was, for Jim told me he was to the Friendship's ball the other night and all the girls was mached on him. He looked so nice. It seems funny he don't write to you. Maybe he is angry. The best thing you can do is to write another letter to him and see if he will answer that." In her post script, she added: "I hate to be called Mary now for it seems outlandish. Don't forget."

Death records stated that a Margaret Dillon, wife of Patrick Dillon, died in 1893 of diphtheria at age 45.

According to city records that date back to the 1860s, Lyman F. Parker owned the land in the vicinity of the house and in 1900, German immigrants Leopold and Fredericka Steudtner bought the house for $700.

Death records stated that in 1909, Parker, at 95 years old, died of "old age" by a "gradual decline." At the time he had lived nearby at 167 Franklin St.

In 1911, Fredericka died at age 31 of a "disease of heart" and ownership of the house transferred through her estate to her husband.

In 1922, on Jan. 19, the house transferred by quitclaim from Leopold Steudtner to a woman identified in city records as his wife Lena. Four days later on Jan. 23, he died of "pulmonary tuberculosis" at age 60. City records state that he died at 199 W. Main St., the location of Drs. David and Edward Smith.

In 1947, Lena Steudtner turned over the property to Berta Lena Massow and Ruth Elaine Steudtner. In 1965, Lloyd Brown bought the property. In telephone directories, Brown and a Maxwell Morgan were listed as residents. Brownie's Janitor Service ran out of the house, as well.

In 1968, Glen's father David Vachon bought the house. It was around 1971 when Glen first saw the shadowy figure near the foot of her bed. But encounters quieted down — until the family began renovations to the third-floor attic.

In 1980, Vachon and his family finished the project, building in two bedrooms, a bathroom, a storage room and a common room that linked them together. Stuffed in the rafters, behind the old plaster walls, they found Maggie Dillon's letters, which they sorted and saved.

Glen, then 14, moved from downstairs into one of the new attic rooms and across the common room was her sister Andrea, then 13.

One night the girls had their cousin Sharon over. She slept in Andrea's room. Around 3 a.m., Glen heard banging in the common room. To her, it sounded like her parents' filing cabinet just outside her door. She heard paper fluttering, too. Once, twice she heard the noise. After the third time her sister called out from the room: "Is that you doing that?"

"No! Is that you?" Glen said back.

Glen opened her door, shocked at what she found.

"That was freaky. You run in there and everything is normal — not a thing out of place," she said. "There was nothing I could really do but grin and bear it. I used to pray a lot. Then it kind of died down."

With a house full of Glen's own children — Josh, 17, Cassandra, 15, Gina, 10, and Taylor, 6 — the strange occurrences have persisted.

In 2000, about the time Cassandra reached puberty, Glen said that energy from her daughter roused the ghosts again.

"With Cassie, it was objects being moved around," Glen said.

Once, when Glen was in the house alone, she found her purse across the room after having just set it on the coffee table.

"It wasn't like it fell off the coffee table. I'd see it and it was on the other side of the room," she said.

By that time, Glen had moved her room across the house to the master bedroom off the living room. But her little girls Taylor and Gina inherited her room.

From the top bunk of the bunk beds they shared, Gina awoke to find the shadow figure standing at the foot of her bed.

"His head was black. It was just in the shape of a body," Gina said. "I climbed down. I rubbed my eyes and it went away."

Glen kept the stories from them until after they confided in her about the strange things they saw from their bunk beds.

"It's OK; I did, too," she told them about seeing the ghosts. "My little ones were seeing the shadow ghost in exactly the same place when I was 5."

Glen, who raises her children as Christians but has practiced Wicca herself for several years, scrawled Gaelic symbols on the peeling wallpaper and some words of hope to remind them to be strong, and to protect them.

On their bedroom wall, "Jesus loves me. I am not afraid" stands out in red marker alongside pen mark scribbles and crayon renditions of flowers that smile.

In 2000, Glen, Josh and Glen's friend Michael Girdley sat around a Ouija board to try to gain some insight into the haunting. According to Glen, the board spelled out the name of a man — Abe Gajowski — and that of a little girl called Veve. Neither Gajowski nor a young Veve show up in any city records or directories.

Through the Ouija board Abe Gajowski told them he was there to protect the house. Glen said she got bad vibes about Abe and believes he was the one holding Veve in the house.

"He said something was trying to get in. Then there was one point he said we should burn the Ouija Board. I burned it in the back yard. I knew what I was dealing with was a doorway. I just did what it said," Glen said.

Months later, Glen attended a paranormal seminar hosted by famed ghost hunters Ed and Loraine Warren. They took interest in the house. In the summer of 2001, paranormal investigator Mark Murad came out to Glen's house on behalf of the Warrens. Upstairs in the finished attic, he and another investigator joined Glen in staking out the ghost. In one room used for storage, they stood in the dark, then saw something move in front of them that was darker than dark.

"I felt somebody was in that room. We just kept taking pictures in the dark," Murad said.

Having investigated dozens of haunted houses and now working to publish a book on his experiences, he said he rated Glen's haunting low — a three on a scale of 10.

"There was nothing hostile. I didn't sense any kind of rage," he said. "In this house at night, you'd be nervous. My explanation is they (ghosts) like fear. All of it spreads from fear. They feed off of it."

The Warrens recommended that Glen have the house blessed. Two priests from Saint Laurent Church sprinkled holy water from room to room. But when the priests left, Glen said, the house smelled of mildew. The same happened whenever a priest would visit or even call.

Priests from Saint Laurent declined to return calls for comment about the haunting. Other church leaders, however, have dealt more openly with the topic.

On a handful of occasions, the Rev. Edmund Nadolny of Saint Stanislaus Church has been called to bless homes, including some for residents convinced they live with ghosts.

Nadolny has not ruled out whether ghosts exist, but said on a case-by-case basis he has found natural explanations to unusual circumstances. He was not involved with the blessing of Glen's house, but dealt with a Naugatuck woman who claimed she was being attacked at night by a spirit.

Nadolny found out that the woman had unresolved anger toward her deceased husband. The bruises came not from a ghost, however, but from herself as she slept.

"She had all kinds of bruises to show for it. What I found out, it was a psychological problem," he said.

Between God and man there is another level — the "supranatural," — according to Nadolny. Angels do exist, as does the devil, he said: "There is a presence of evil — just look at the front page of the (newspaper)."

As for Glen and her children, they remain convinced that that their house truly is haunted.

"Nowadays it's mostly the lights being turned on and off and Gina seeing the shadow," Glen said.

View: Full Article | Source: Record Journal

Edited December 20, 2003 by Lionel