Ghost Story-Graveyard

“So, this is the story of Jill Rose Amelia. Jill Rose Amelia was a regular girl, an elementary school student. She didn’t necessarily fit in. She was an outcast as she walked home by herself everyday after school. Everyone was always kind of creeped out about this girl because everyday after school, this girl would always walk through a graveyard. They would all look from afar because they were all scared of big graveyards. They couldn’t ever see what she was doing but she would always stop at one tombstone. She would stand there for a long period of time and then just keep walking. So, they kept watching her and would never see her at school but would always see her walk home with a backpack. So one night, the group of kids that were watching her mustered up some courage and went into the graveyard to see what tombstone she always went to. So there walking through this dark graveyard at night in the center of town, right next to the oldest church in town. So they finally get to this gravestone and they realize that it’s one of the oldest in the graveyard. It’s pretty hard to read so they have to get really, really close just to see what it says. They get up to it and the one kid who was closest read it. It read Jill Rose Amelia. So they all realized that she was a ghost visiting her own tombstone. As soon as they all realized this, all of the kids freaked out and scattered into the town. But, they were never seen again as Jill Rose Amelia claimed them as her own.

Ivan said he heard this story in his hometown of Nutley, New Jersey from all of the different children. He said that everyday after school, he would have to walk past this same graveyard on the way home. Sometimes, older kids would come and tell them about the ghost of Jill Rose Amelia in order to scare them on their way home. From that point on, Ivan and the rest of his friends always walked nervously around the graveyard, looking into it fearfully. They always wondered whether or not they would see Jill Rose Amelia. Some of his friends claimed they did see her one time walking into the graveyard with her little backpack, stopping at the tombstone before walking into the distance. Ivan, however, never saw the ghost when he walked by.

Ivan said that this story is usually told at two different times. The first is the way he heard it by walking next to the graveyard and someone telling him. The other way, however, is when friends get together at night and tell it in an eerie voice to scare everybody else. He said that sometimes, people would get freaked out about it enough to actually try to find the tombstone. He doesn’t know where the tombstone is inside the graveyard because he has always been too scared to go in. Some people he knows, however, have gone in before searching for the lost tomb of Jill Rose Amelia. Whether or not anyone has seen it, he didn’t know. He did mention that the remains of the children that searched for her in the story were never found.

When I asked Ivan what the ghost story meant to him, he said that it reminded him of how scared he was whenever he used to walk past that graveyard. Now that he is much older, he wonders whether or not the ghost story is true. He hasn’t heard of anyone disappearing again so he debates if it ever happened. He did say that it impacted him enough during his childhood to never enter the graveyard without any parents or adults. Other than that, it didn’t have any importance to him because it was just a childhood ghost story. He likes to tell it to his friends that come into town though just to freak them out.

When I listened to this story, I thought it was very interesting and pretty scary. If I had a graveyard so close to my elementary school, I would be deeply afraid of it and the little girl. I also think that whether or not this story is actually true, little girls tend to be the central focus of many ghost stories. I don’t know why exactly but many ghost stories portrayed on TV and in the film industry have to deal with creepy little girls with frightening smiles. Therefore, I can see why this story easily scares people. I also think this story represents graveyards in general and the fear they put on people. Graveyards are typical beginnings for a lot of ghost stories just like this one. I believe that individuals can find stories similar to Ivan’s in many small towns with eerie graveyards.