Great Grandma’s Chair

Age: 72

Age: 19

Text:

“In our family, we have unassigned assigned seats for dinner. After my mother, Elizabeth, passed away in the house, we would keep that seat at the table empty out of habit. Well, one day, about a year after her death, we had a guest over and so I offered my seat up to the guest. I would sit in my mother’s seat. When I sat down, I felt an immense weight on my shoulders and an overwhelming feeling of sadness. It only left me once I left the chair. I ended up having to sit at a folding chair and the chair remained empty. Since then, I do not let anyone sit in that seat as it’s her chair. Even today when I am eating at the table, out of the corner of her eye it can look like someone is sitting in the seat. I believe it is her.”

Context:

This was told to the informant by his grandmother, about his great-grandmother. It was told on Thanksgiving at family dinner. The story itself took place roughly 10 years ago.

Analysis:

In this story, a grandmother speaks about her late mother to her grandchild to explain why a seat is kept at the dinner table for someone who has died. It is a sign of respect to the dead, as well as slight fear against change. This story sparks the debate of if there is truly a ghost or if grief itself can manifest into a spiritual form. The story functions as a warning against erasing past relatives, as well as a loving tale that past relatives never actually leave the family, even in the afterlife.

Car Crash Victim

Age: 72

Age: 19

Text
“It was 1987, in Secaucus, New Jersey, and I was driving home from work. A woman suddenly appeared in front of my car and I hit her. She was an older woman dressed in black. I called the police, and they took her to the hospital. I later found out through the obituary that she had passed away later on. I don’t believe it was from me hitting her, but her health declined after the accident. This is why I keep a plastic black flower in my car. I had nightmares from hitting her, though I know she knows I did not do it on purpose. Now, whenever I enter the car, even after getting a new one, I say hello to her.”

Context

The informant is the man’s grandson. He used to drive an hour to work each day.

Analysis

The man is giving a warning to the informant to watch the roads when driving. He has to live with the guilt that he contributed to someone’s death. The man now dedicates his rides to the woman he hit as an act of respect. He seemed extremely remorseful to the informant. The plastic flower refers to the woman who wore black. As grim as it seems, it serves as a great reminder to watch the roads because now he is haunted by his past car accident.

Rose, Theater Ghost Memorate

Age: 19

Story: What I remember is that Rose was a former student that died in the school and haunted the theatre in particular. She would bang around in the cats [catwalks] and ventilation especially if you were the only one in the theatre. Among techs I think there was more serious beliefs about how to treat Rose, aka ghost light and personally always saying hi and bye to rose if I was the first one in or last one out, or if she made noises I would talk to her sometimes. – JH

Context: This story was told directly to the archivist as a friend. It is regarding a ghost that was thought to populate their high school theater since the program’s inception.

Teller seems fairly convinced of the rituals that go into the ghost, they mention turning on the ‘ghost light,’ which is the last light left on the stage when people have left, and talking to it in their spare time.

Theaters are often places that claim to experience ghosts. The story of Rose was passed between multiple generations of student tech workers, perhaps to explain things like the weird banging in the ventilation shafts or unexplainable tech problems. There is no evidence showing that a former student died in the school, but a mockumentary was made by some former theater students showcasing Rose’s inception.

Brother Monkey and Brother Lion / African American Myth

Age: 47

So, it starts off with all the animals living in the forest together peacefully, for the most part. There’s brother monkey, there’s brother lion, they’re kinda like homies they hang out together all the time, there’s brother zebra, there’s sister elephant, there’s uh, a whole bunch of other animals that you can make up along the way, right? So, brother monkey is known for not being the nicest of people he always just be messing with people, just mokeying around, right? Well, one day he finds out that sister elephant is having a birthday party and he was not invited. So he goes to brother lion he say, “brother Lion, did you get invited to this birthday party?” He said, “oh yeah I did. you talking about sister elephant? She having a birthday we gonna have cake we gonna have punch its gonna be great, right?” And he’s like, “what the hell. This ish here did not invite me to this birthday part. And um, brother lion was like, “oof. I wonder why.”  right? Because brother monkey, he just be messing with everybody and monkeying around. Well, brother monkey decided, he got it into his head that he was gonna make sure that everybody know that they shouldn’t be messing with him they should invite him to their birthday party and stop… what’s the word I wanna use, uh. Hold on a second. He said that wanted to, uh, make sure that everybody know who the boss of this here forest, right? He said, and he’s like… brother lion’s like, “Who’s the boss?” He said “you of course brother lion. You’re the boss, you the king of the forest. Uh, but I’m the boss.” He said, “Uh huh, whatever you say brother monkey.” so they get ready and they go to the birthday party. Everybody turn around when brother monkey coming in the birthday said, “oooh, who invited him I thought he wasn’t invited. What’s going on here?” right? People be whispering in the side. And brother monkey he walk up to sister elephant. He said, “I see you didn’t invite me to your birthday party huh? You’ll get enough of doing that.” So he said, “I’m gonna poop on your cake and pee in your punch!” so he go and he go to the cake and he poop a lil turdlet on the cake and he go whip out his little weeny and he piss in the punch. He said, “now all of yall aint gonna have no cake and no punch! You didn’t invite me!” And he was expecting that brother lion his homeboy was gonna back him up. And sister elephant was mad. She roared. She roared everywhere. She was like, “what the hell did you don did. This is why don’t nobody wanna invite you to no birthday invite you nowhere cuz you always wanna be starting stuff. That’s why you wasn’t invited. And I am so mad that I’ll make you eat that cake and drink that punch!” Brother monkey’s like, “yeah right. You’re gonna be up against the king of the forest brother lion! That’s my home dude, you know he gonna have my back!” And he looked around and he looked at brother lion. “Brother lion,” he’s like, “you got me brother lion?” Brother lion’s like, “you know what? You pooped on the cake and you peed in the punch, you made your bed. I ain’t got you on this one brother monkey, that was not a nice thing to do.” So he had to eat that cake and eat that punch. – Tj’Jamika English

This story was told to the informant by their father when they were young.

The informant was very protective of this story and explicitly asked to be named and credited in its posting. They claimed that it had been passed down to them by their father, who likely used it as a tool for his own self reflection.

This sort of myth seems to be very popular in diasporic African communities, and is much akin to the Anansi the Spider stories. In this, a sort of trickster animal spirit tries to overpower another and gets checked, displaying a cultural importance in upholding social boundaries. The strong characters do come come to the defense of the weak because they have committed societal wrongs. It seems to uphold a desire for healthy social awareness, checked hubris, and responsibility for one’s actions.

The Haunted Mirror

Age: 18

Text:

Interviewer: “S, tell me your story whenever you’re ready.”

SA: “Okay. So, my uncle had moved into a house a couple years ago, and my grandparents and my aunt had helped him move in. 
And while they were looking at the house, they really liked it. He was able to get everything unpacked. But he and his wife, a couple weeks or months after he had moved in, weird things started happening. 
Like, while he was home alone and his wife was at work, lights shut on and off, or he would hear things around the house, which shouldn’t have been possible because he was home alone. So after a while, with all these strange things happening, um, he decided to call, uh, like, a ghost specialist. Like a, like a priest or something like that. 
And basically the priest went through the house and saged it. Then he got somebody who he wanted to just check deeper into what was happening. But basically this person was asking a bunch of questions. 
They’re like, yeah, there is something definitely off about the house. We just don’t know what it is. And as they kept asking him more and more questions, they finally asked him something that really clicked to him, which was, ‘do you have a mirror in your garage?’ 
And he was like, yes, like, how did you know? They were like, ‘where did you like get this mirror?’ 
And basically he had told them, he said, he had gotten this mirror, which was ike, it was almost like a cultural thing around the mirror. It was like a face on top of this tiny mirror that was in his garage. 
And he told the priest or whoever it was, come in and check the house, that he had got it from a garage sale, and then the person told him you need to get rid of it immediately, because there was a spirit attached to it. And that is what was happening in the house. And basically, they told them, don’t ever bring things back from garage sales, because you never know why the person is even trying to sell it. 
Because it was a really nice mirror. So why were they trying to sell it for not a lot of money in the first place? And as soon as he got rid of the mirror, all of the weird things disappeared.”

Interviewer: “Thank you so much. Um, what do you think of the story? Do you believe it?”

SA: “My uncle… My uncle likes to lie a lot. So what do I think? 
I thought he was lying. But what made me really believe it is that his wife was also saying these things were happening and she isn’t a liar. So it’s probably true.”

Interviewer: 
”What do you think about it?”

SA: “About what?”

Interviewer: “The ghost and whether or not you believe in it or believe in ghosts in general.”

SA: “
I believe that stuff like that can happen. I believe things like that could happen, but I also believe it could be things other than ghosts.”

Interviewer: “Like such as?”

SA: 
“The wind?”

Context:

She was told the story when she was 13, and her uncle was about 39. He grew up in Oregon, and he was unemployed at the time of the story. He told this story to her in the living room of her grandparents house. The actual setting of the story took place in St. John’s, Oregon.

Analysis:

This is a clear example of peer / familial groups and their influence on ghost stories. The informant, knowing her uncle, was fairly certain he was probably not telling the truth. However, because of her aunt’s testament, she believed it. This story also follows typical ghostly motifs (flickering lights, strange noises, etc.)