They tell me I should write a blog!
They tell me I should write a blog! So here I am, my very first blog post.
I thought about introducing myself, but my bio is on my page and the back cover of my book! I thought about expalining that I've never written a blog before, but who really wants to hear that?
Which leaves me with only one other option. How I came to write an epic tale based on the first documented ghost sighting in America!
In the fall of 2015 Halloween was fast approaching. Since my childern have become adults and all moved away I really struggle with the whole trick or treating thing. It's not that I don't like children, I do! It's just that I miss my own children and reminders of them when they were little are exceptionally hard. So after a couple of Halloweens where I opened the door and just started bawling I figured it was best not to traumatize the neighborhood kids any further so I stopped giving out candy. Instead I browse the local bookstores for a really scary story and I curl up with a good book in my dark house with only a reading light on.
Such was the case in 2015 when I picked up the non fiction "The Documentary History of The Nelly Butler Hauntings." From the moment I started reading I was enthralled with this moment in history. At the time I had no idea it was the first historically documented ghost sighting in the nation. I would learn that all later. No that night I just sat and read the whole thing until the wee hours of the morning.
I'm a researcher at heart. We always laughed in the family that most people do crossword puzzles, I look for dead people. Pouring through old census records, vital records, walking around cemeteries, that's my thing. So naturally the very next day I was putting that membership to Ancestry.com to good use! After several days of online researching I came to realize there was no more to this story then what was contained in the book I had read Halloween night. I was never going to know how George and Nelly met. What role, if any had Lydia played in their lives before the appearance of the ghost. Lydia herself intrigued me. You don't just all of a sudden get blamed for "talking to spirits" so had she exhibited earlier behaviors that made this all seem so plausible to the community? There was nothing to be found on what happened before the moment they all dropped into the historical record and nothing to fill the gaps even during the time of the ghostly sightings.
So I put it away. I have file drawers full of rabbit holes I've chased in the world of genealogy! What was one more?
But they wouldn't let me rest. For three weeks I kept thinking about them, about their story, about what it must have been like to live through that! History can be so dry. Facts, data, statistics, they don't give us any emotion, thoughts or drama! And boy there must have been drama in this relationship!
One night I literally woke up in the middle of the night. I know it sounds so cliche and what any author of a creepy ghost story would say, but it's true! I literally woke up thinking of them again and at that moment I made the decision. I was going to write their story! There were no thoughts of getting it published. Of actually ever holding a book in my hand. No at the moment I decided to write the story I wanted to read!!
And here we are.....
Next blog post - that car with the vanity license plate!!
The Gathering Room: A Tale of Nelly Butler
I thought about introducing myself, but my bio is on my page and the back cover of my book! I thought about expalining that I've never written a blog before, but who really wants to hear that?
Which leaves me with only one other option. How I came to write an epic tale based on the first documented ghost sighting in America!
In the fall of 2015 Halloween was fast approaching. Since my childern have become adults and all moved away I really struggle with the whole trick or treating thing. It's not that I don't like children, I do! It's just that I miss my own children and reminders of them when they were little are exceptionally hard. So after a couple of Halloweens where I opened the door and just started bawling I figured it was best not to traumatize the neighborhood kids any further so I stopped giving out candy. Instead I browse the local bookstores for a really scary story and I curl up with a good book in my dark house with only a reading light on.
Such was the case in 2015 when I picked up the non fiction "The Documentary History of The Nelly Butler Hauntings." From the moment I started reading I was enthralled with this moment in history. At the time I had no idea it was the first historically documented ghost sighting in the nation. I would learn that all later. No that night I just sat and read the whole thing until the wee hours of the morning.
I'm a researcher at heart. We always laughed in the family that most people do crossword puzzles, I look for dead people. Pouring through old census records, vital records, walking around cemeteries, that's my thing. So naturally the very next day I was putting that membership to Ancestry.com to good use! After several days of online researching I came to realize there was no more to this story then what was contained in the book I had read Halloween night. I was never going to know how George and Nelly met. What role, if any had Lydia played in their lives before the appearance of the ghost. Lydia herself intrigued me. You don't just all of a sudden get blamed for "talking to spirits" so had she exhibited earlier behaviors that made this all seem so plausible to the community? There was nothing to be found on what happened before the moment they all dropped into the historical record and nothing to fill the gaps even during the time of the ghostly sightings.
So I put it away. I have file drawers full of rabbit holes I've chased in the world of genealogy! What was one more?
But they wouldn't let me rest. For three weeks I kept thinking about them, about their story, about what it must have been like to live through that! History can be so dry. Facts, data, statistics, they don't give us any emotion, thoughts or drama! And boy there must have been drama in this relationship!
One night I literally woke up in the middle of the night. I know it sounds so cliche and what any author of a creepy ghost story would say, but it's true! I literally woke up thinking of them again and at that moment I made the decision. I was going to write their story! There were no thoughts of getting it published. Of actually ever holding a book in my hand. No at the moment I decided to write the story I wanted to read!!
And here we are.....
Next blog post - that car with the vanity license plate!!
The Gathering Room: A Tale of Nelly Butler
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