Monthly Archives: November 2013

Sunnyvale Ghost: A Story Behind It

This story is told by a girl who grew up in Sunnyvale, California.

 

“Ok, so like in Sunnyvale, there’s this “Toys R Us,” and it’s haunted. Like, you can look it up, it’s haunted. Anyways, this is the story I know behind it. So, Sunnyvale is known for its cherry orchards, and there was this, like, big cherry orchard. And um, something happened…the daughter of the owner of the orchard was killed. I think it was because she wanted to marry someone, and the father was like ‘No, you can’t do that,’  because the guy was an Indian or something – Native American – and so she killed herself by hanging herself in the orchard. Then later, the cherry orchard was torn down because the father was full of grief or something. And then, um, the “Toys R Us” was built right on top of it, like right where the cherry orchard used to be. So there are all these accounts of ghost stuff in the “Toys R Us” now, cuz the girl…she lives in the bathroom, in one of the bathrooms. So like, the faucets turn on and off without anyone there, and like it’s always so weird because when you drive by it [the store], the lights are always on – like, all the time…even at night, when it’s closed, because of the ghost. And one time, my mom was walking by one of the aisles and she walked by this toy that wasn’t automated or censored or anything, and the toy just turned on. Like it turned on and started moving all by itself. It was so weird. So we think it was the ghost, but I don’t know.”

 

This narrative seems very typical of a ghost story. It has the motif of tragic lovers, two people who were separated due to racial differences. The suicide at the now-haunted site is also very typical. The spirit of the forlorn girl now haunts the toy store built on the site of the orchard.

I collected this story one sunny afternoon, so the atmosphere was not what you would typically expect during a ghost story. This probably partially contributed to the girl’s casual and nonchalant attitude while telling this story. She seemed to take it very lightly and just told the story in a matter-of-fact sort of tone. However, when telling the part about how her mom walked by a toy that turned on by itself, she got more animated and into the story. She claims that she “believes in ghosts as a joke.”

It is also interesting to note that she explains, “This is the story I know behind it,” meaning that she acknowledges the fact that may be other stories behind the same haunting.

House Spirit

“We’ve just moved into a new house in July. It was an old house. We live here temporarily as our house was going under renovation and it would take a while to finish it.

It was the second month until something weird started happening. I have my own bedroom on the second floor and one night I just heard my two dogs barking non-stop for the whole night. I looked out the window and yelled at them several times but they never stopped until the sun came up. I thought it was just some stray cats running around our field. Then one night, I experienced some odd feelings while I was asleep. I am very easy person to fall asleep but that night, I just couldn’t. I went to toilet many times and tried to fall asleep. Every time I was about to fall into unconsciousness I felt like my whole body went numb. It was harder to breathe and I couldn’t move at all. Every time that happened I tried to fight it off and when I was able to move again I felt like the whole thing was just a dream. This dream though, kept repeating itself for the next hour or more. By 5am my whole body was covered in sweat and I had this piercing headache. I ended up sleeping with my mother and got through the night.

This happened a few times before I realized it wasn’t just a bad dream. I finally told my mother about it. She never experienced it before, but she believed me. We consulted many friends and people around us and one suggested that it could have been house’s spirit that was bothering me. I didn’t understand why it had to be me, not anyone else in the family. Then as we did researches into this, we found that the bed was in the wrong direction- it was headed south and that was the direction where dead people laid. Furthermore, it was commonly believed that house’s spirits need a place to stay so that they can take care of the household.”

In Thailand we call it “San Pra-Poom”- it is in a form of small wooden house with a little decorations and is usually located outside the house. The spirit that lives here offers protection to the house. Many houses including mine have it but the informant’s did not, so she concluded that either the spirit might want to tell her that they need somewhere to live or that she was actually disturbed by outsider’s spirit. It made sense that her house’s spirit couldn’t protect her because there was no place for them.

 

Grandma’s Ghost

                Well basically, my grandma used to live in my house and she had a dog that would sit with her on the couch every, single day and followed her around and literally did like everything with her.  It was like he was like her baby.  And then my grandma ended up passing away.  She had a seizure in our house and was rushed to the hospital and ended up dying in the hospital but we still feel like her spirit is still in our house cus’ she lived there so long before she passed away.  Then, um, one day when I was like really sad and thinking about my grandma I was like sitting in my room and I was literally looking at a picture of my .. and my dog came, uh that dog came up stairs who he never like comes up stairs with me.  He always stays downstairs with my like parents and he came up stairs and all of a sudden just started like barking at the corner of my room.  And um I sleep now in, well when I was at my house, I would sleep in the room where my grandma used to sleep and he just started barking at the corner of the room for like ten minutes and wouldn’t stop barking at the corner of the room.  Then started to do his little cry thing and just ended up laying down and staring at the corner of the room and there was nothing there and he stayed there for like thirty minutes and just ended up leaving, but I don’t know.  I felt like she was like in the room and he was like seeing her there and it was really weird, but ya…that’s it.

                This ghost story was told in a ghost story telling session, but the orator was unsure whether or not to call it a ghost story, but she truly believed that the spirit of her grandma was there.  She did not mention the word “ghost” when talking about the occurrence, but instead used “spirit”.  This story lines up perfectly with the fact that most of the ghosts people see are of family members that recently died.  Also the ghost of the grandma was experienced in the bedroom where she used to sleep, a common motif found in ghost stories.  Another interesting motif shown in the ghost story was that the dog was barking and sensing the ghost and possibly saw the ghost, while she was not able to see the ghost.  I do believe that the ghost of the grandma was in the room with her that night.

Dad’s Haunted House

My dad, Andrew Nunes, was able to share with me his experience inside his childhood home.

Andrew: “Well, um, I was home at my house in Ferndale. And…uh nobody else was there. It was a big old Victorian house and it was always making weird noises and you can hear wind blow through it and all kinds of crazy stuff. But one night, I’m lying there on the couch, and I know nobody’s home. And uh you know I’m from big family. And so I hear the front door, plain as day, open up. Someone comes in, slams the door and I hear someone run up the stairs. And it was so clear that I just figured it had to be, you know, one of our brothers and sisters that had run up the stairs. But I’m waiting for them to come back down, usually they’d run upstairs and then come back down, so I’m sitting there and had been a while like… So then I started yelling, ‘Whose here?!’, you know, cause I know somebody’s been in. And so I’m like, ‘Ah dang it’. So I go up the stairs, and I go through every room and nobody (strong emphasis on “nobody”) is up there. Nobody had come in. And then I’m like…I could feel the hairs on my arm stand up and on the back of my neck. And I’m like, “it’s that ghost in the house again”. And I’m like freaking out man.  So I’m like, I go back down and turn the TV. up really loud and I sit on the couch like, ‘What are they going to do to me next time?’ (chuckles during this sentence).  And, you know, everybody has a ghost story about that house about something happening. Um, you know, somebody creaking the floor, somebody slamming a door. It happened so often, and there was so many people living in the house, that you would think it was somebody else and then you’d figure out, ‘Hey that happened to me too’. But nobody was there. So I’d heard about the guy who used to lived there and that he had, uh, went for a walk on the beach, and no one ever saw him again. So we always figured it must be him haunting the house. But he never really did anything mean or anything so (starts laughing) so we went on with our little ghost and you know, ‘Hey it’s the ghost again’. And uh nobody worried too much about it.”

 

What was striking to me was the way in which my dad told the story. He seemed to be telling as though it was a joke or an anecdote rather than something that caused him fear. It was also amusing to hear that everyone in his household new about the ghost but just accepted its presence as almost a mundane occurrence. He even began to chuckle and laugh during his explanation of the story, almost as though if it were only a silly memory rather than a traumatizing event. His family even had their own legend of why the house was haunted with the story of the previous owner going to the beach only to never return.

In his story, I picked up on some motifs that occur in many ghost stories. For example, the story takes place in his Victorian house, which immediately brings to mind a house that is gothic in architecture and is something that has been around for many generations. There was also the fact that the previous owner mysteriously vanished. With this fact in mind, my dad’s family believed that old owner was the cause of the paranormal activity occurring throughout the house. This seems to be motif that occurs in most ghost stories, the man who does not die a, so called, “good” death and, as a result, wanders the earth in the form of an apparition. The motif of the ghosts making noises was also present, as he heard the door open and the floor creaking, almost as if there was someone actually present, even though the house was empty.

Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery

“So it was early December and my dad took ma and a couple friends to Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery which was about 25 minutes away from my house. I was in 7th grade and had heard Bachelors grove was one of the most haunted cemeteries in the United States, so I wanted to go. Umm… the cemetery itself is located a mile within a forest preserve that is close to a quiet road. It was dusk when we walked down the long path to the cemetery. Once we arrived we walked around and looked at different tombstones. Many of them had been damaged or knocked over since the cemetery went out of commission in the early 20th century. I remember coming across a grave with the name Rippet engraved on it. I saw a penny that was very shiny, like brand new, but was dated 1900. I decided to take it. Eventually, when we had left and were walking down the path, I casually mentioned the penny. My dad, whom had a summer job at a cemetery when he was in high school and had had a bad experience with taking things from the cemetery, told me I should go back and replace the penny on the grave. I brought one of my friends with me half a mile down the path back through the gates of the cemetery. As we crossed the thresholds of the cemetery the winds howled up and the night seemed instantly darker. I threw the penny back on the grave and on my way out I noticed a tall figure in black plain clothing standing off in the forest beyond the fence to my right. Me and my friend, who also saw the figure, ran down the path and back to the car. We told everyone about tour story. I still don’t know if what I saw was real, but i do believe it was a ghost.”

Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery is notoriously known as one of the most haunted cemeteries in the United States. The cemetery holds many early Illinois frontiersman of the early 19th century. After the event, my informant researched previous occurrences at the cemetery and found several other accounts of people witnessing a tall man in 19th century style black clothing standing beyond the Northern fence in the forest. One of the other stories even states that three of the four witnesses died within a year of the incident. Other illusions seen include vanishing prairie houses. The cemetery gets its name, however, from more recent events. The name Bachelor’s Grove comes from the unknown number of young men whose bodies were hidden in the pond on its grounds by Chicago gangsters in the early 1920s and 30s. The most common apparition regarding this history is of a phantom car that stops on the road, right next to the creek, just as the mobsters would have done when burying their victims.

Personally believing in ghosts, I too believe the story. My informant is a local to the area and is a very credible source. The fact that he witnessed an event that is similar to what others have seen in the same area makes the story very believable. Growing up in Illinois, Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery is notorious for being haunted and having a credible first hand account further proves this. Regardless of beliefs, Bachelor’s Grove is a spooky place to be after dark.