Tag Archives: ghost story

The Ghost of Grandma Badger

Nationality: Hispanic/White
Age: 50
Occupation: Long shore man
Residence: Huntington Beach, CA
Performance Date: 4/29/14
Primary Language: English

The Ghost of Grandma Badger

            Personal Background:

            My dad is a long shore man in the port in San Pedro, California. He currently lives in Huntington Beach, California, although he grew up in San Pedro. He has a mother who is Mexican and a father who is European, so he was able to experience two very different side when he was growing up.

            Seeing a Ghost:

When my dad lost his grandmother, he had a moment when he was walking in his house and he passed by her old room, and out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw her. It turned out it was just the television on a stand. It was a brown television on a brown stand, and he said, “The stand was about four eleven, and she was about four eleven. She also used to wear clothes that were that exact brown.”

He is someone who does not believe in ghosts, he thinks that it may have actually been his grandmother standing there for a second. They spent a lot of time together, and they even shared a room at one point with her. He says it seemed so real, even though it was just for a second. Now, whenever he goes to his parents’ house, he does not like being there alone. If he ever has to be there for any reason alone, he says he, “gets the hell out of there,” as fast as he can. They have rooms in the house that people do not use, so it makes him uncomfortable to be there.

Analysis:

To me, my dad saw thought he saw his grandma because he missed her. She had just died, and he had been very close to her. In a way I do believe him since he is my dad and he is someone I trust. From the etic view, it may seem strange, but to him it is not strange at all. It also shows how death affects people in America. It is something that is depressing, while in other parts of the world is not seen that way. Death can be something that makes people see and hear things they did not believe in before.

El Callejon de el Beso

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/29/14
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

El Callejon de el Beso

Personal Background:

            Paola is a junior at the University of Southern California. She has spent a lot of time if Mexico with her family, and is able to keep her connection with her family since she lives in Los Angeles. She grew up in Los Angeles with a lot of different Mexican influences throughout her life.

Ghost Story:

Paola knows a lot of different stories from growing up, but the one she liked the most was called El Callejon de el Beso, which in English translates to The Alley of the Kiss. She does not remember if she heard it on a tour of a city when she was little, or if she heard it from her parents. She feels it must has been her parents trying to scare her from staying away from the alleys of buildings, as well as to listen to them when it comes to serious situations. This ghost story takes place within a city, similar to where Paola had family.

“When they were rebuilding a city in Mexico, they built the structures so close together that you were able to touch the windows from each building at the same time. A boy and a girl had their windows very close together, and they ended up falling in love. The father of the girl did not approve of the boy, but that didn’t make the girl stop seeing the boy. One day when the girl and the boy were meeting in the alley between their buildings, the girl’s father came out with a gun and tried to shoot the boy. Since the alley was so narrow, the father ended up shooting both the boy and his daughter. It is said that the two haunt that area now.”

Paola did not have all of the details, but this story means a lot to her. To her, it meant that she needed to listen to her parents, otherwise they would hurt her in some way, as well as the person she was seeing. As she got older, she realized this was not the point of the story, but she still does not want to do anything to disobey her parents this much. A lot of this has to do with her culture and the morals her parents have taught her.

Analysis:

This is an example of a ghost story, as well as a legend. The story before the haunting part seems as though it could be completely true. It may have been a legend that turned into a ghost story over time.

To me, it was a way for Paola’s parents to keep her from doing things she was not supposed it. It has as though many of the Mexican tales have a to do with keeping children out of trouble.

 

Lady in White

Nationality: White
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/29/14
Primary Language: English

Lady in White

Personal Background:

Sydney is a sophomore at the University of Southern California and is studying Environmental Science. She lives in Los Angeles right now, but is originally from Chicago. Living in big cities has been great since she has been able to be around so much diversity with the schools she has gone to.

Legend:

Sydney says she has one story she always tells when people ask for ghost stories, although this is more of a legend. It is called the Lady in White.

“There is a woman who is dressed all in white, because she is a ghost. She tries to seduce men who are driving alone at night. She stays off to the side of the road dressed in a white dress, and when the men who are alone pull over to talk to her, she kills them. She would do this late at night, and usually on older country roads. She did this because she was killed by a man in a car, so she is getting her revenge.”

Sydney says she heard about this story when she was about 10 from TV, though she does not remember the show. It was something she was never afraid of since she was not a single man. It was just not a story she was able to relate to, which made it more fun to be able to tell the story. She does not believe to be real anyway, so it was more of a fun story she was able to tell her friends.

Analysis:

This is a ghost story that also has legendary aspects. The original story about how the woman was killed in a car sounds as if that could possibly be real. A woman who is killing men that are driving alone does not sound like something that is impossible either.

To me, this sounds like a story that is made for kids to tell during campfire. It is simple enough to remeber, and it is a way the girls are able to scare the boys. The title is so generic, it could be any woman who is dressed in white.

The Killing Doll

Nationality: Korean
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Mission Viejo, CA
Performance Date: 3/14/2014
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

The Killing Doll

The Informant:

My friend, was born in South Korea. She came the States at a young age, before beginning elementary school. She told this story near a campfire that my friends and I held before spring break.

The Story:

I heard this when I was in elementary school, in the third grade I think. A family friend told me this story, she was a couple years older, in middle school as I recall.

“When I was younger, my family was taking care of a friend’s dog. A day before the dog came, my sister and I visited a garage sale down the street. My sister decided to purchase a doll. It looked like a regular doll except for the fact that it had four fingers straight and the thumb was curled toward the palm. We didn’t think much of the strange hands and brought the doll back home. The next day my whole family decided to go out and locked the dog in the room, and it happened to be in the room with the doll, so that it would not tear up the house. When the entire family came back the dog wasn’t breathing so we took him to the vet and it was pronounced dead. It was only later when we came back home that we realized the doll only had three fingers outstretched.

We had a weird feeling about the doll so the next day we decided to return it.”

The Analysis:

I questioned her about this story because I personally heard a similar one in my childhood. The story centers on the strange doll and implies that it somehow kills a living force a night after someone or something is spent in the same room as it. How the death occurs remains unknown.

Ghost leaving hairbrush on the dresser

Nationality: American
Age: 30s-40s
Performance Date: April 14th, 2014
Primary Language: English

Information about the Informant

My informant is the father of a high school girl who was visiting USC campus for a college tour.

Transcript

“And then her mother passed away just a few years ago. Um, and she was close to her mom. And her mom, you know, died suddenly. They didn’t expect her to die. And she may have been not taking her medication or something of that nature. So it’s like maybe preventable. Preventable. Um. So her old–and this woman’s fifty, so she’s not like a kid. Um. The mom–the woman–her mother was in her…maybe close to 80. Um. So she went to a psychic. Someone had said, ‘Oh, maybe you’ll feel–get closure from this woman,’ so she goes and listens to this woman. And the woman said, ‘Oh yeah, your mom’s here with you and she’s sorry that she had to leave. But she’s looking over you,’ and all that stuff. And the– my friend was still thinking this was just kinda, ‘Ok, this woman’s just telling her [inaudible].’ And then she starts saying–she said, oh, there was things that– she left some stuff in her house for her. But they had already gone to the house to clean it. Um, clean the apartment. Um, so she said but there was things that were left there for her. So she said, ok, whatever. So she went back to the house. Another day, not even that day. She was–a couple of days later. And there was–there was things sitting on the…the dresser. That weren’t there. I mean, she says they weren’t there before. She says, ‘I’ve–we cleaned, everything was in boxes.’ And it was a brush, like her mom’s brush, that she would brush her hair, like, my friend when she was a little girl, her mom would use this brush. And there were a few other little things that were sitting there. On the–on the dresser. And, like she said it was–it–the whole house had been cleaned and packed up. So she went back to that woman–the woman. She says, ‘Oh, can you tell me more?’ And she says, ‘Oh, she’s always looking out for you,’ and all that kinda stuff, ‘and will always be here.’ That was like two years ago. So she’s…totally believes all this stuff. You know, my friend believes that, oh, her mom’s looking out for her.”

Analysis

This is a prime example of a memorate. The friend in this account experienced the events in the account for herself, but her story is also part of a larger narrative about ghosts and contact from the afterlife. The significance of the experience for her is pretty clear; she was close to her mother and most likely was grieving the loss of such a beloved figure. The possibility that her mother could still interact with her even after death is a comforting one, especially reinforced by the hairbrush being left on the dresser, an item that she associates with her childhood experiences with her mother taking care of her by brushing her hair for her. My informant, however, when telling this story, sounded less than convinced that there was a supernatural reason behind the experience. I felt that, to him, this story was more important because his friend was involved in it and it marked a turning point in her life, as my informant stated that after this incident, his friend did start believing that her mother was looking after her from the afterlife, when, in his story, she too had been skeptical of the psychic being able to offer her anything substantial.