Subject: Ghost Story

Informant: Lily Fitzpatrick

Background Information/Context: When I asked Lily if she had or knew of any ghost stories, she said:

“Oh I’ve seen a ghost before! In my cousin’s house in Baltimore! I swear to God, she was wearing a blue skirt suit and holding a clipboard!

There’s a whole narrative behind it because I didn’t realize what it was at first because I was young, but I remember what it looked like so specifically for, like, forever. But I didn’t know, like, what it was exactly at the time, but Charlie [her older brother] saw a ghost. He went to his friend’s ranch and went to the bathroom and opened the door, and he saw, like, a Native American woman standing there. And he got scared and closed the door, and then he opened it again and saw just the outline of the woman. And so he ran to his friends and told them that there was a ghost in the bathroom, and they all ran to the bathroom to see it, but when they got there, it was gone.

And his friend whose family owned the ranch told [Charlie] this used to be a Native American burial ground. And [Charlie is] the most rational, practical person I’ve ever met, so if he says he saw a ghost, ghosts are real. And then I got to thinking about my ghost story, like, hmm, I think I saw a ghost.

So anyway, I was at my cousin’s house in Baltimore, and it’s an old house that’s kinda scary, like with creaky staircases and stuff, and I was sitting in the living room. I was probably, like, eleven, and I looked up, and standing in the doorway, standing there, was a woman in a blue pencil skirt holding a clipboard. And then I looked away, and I thought ‘Oh that was weird. I must have just seen something out of the corner of my eye.’ And so I looked back, and she was still there, and it was a ghost. But I wasn’t scared at all. Like, it wasn’t scary. I think ghosts are good—at least, they’re not bad.”

Conclusion: As someone who does not completely believe in ghosts, I was surprised at how fully Lily believed that she and her brother had seen ghosts and that ghosts actually do exist. I found her story really fun to listen to though because of how enthusiastic she was about the story and because I could tell that what she was telling me actually happened to her.