Tag Archives: memorate

“Hand Licker” (memorate)

“[In first grade] there was this scary story that [my classmates and I] would tell each other on the way to school – it was about this marries couple of homeowners with their dog who would always hear weird noises at night, so they’d stick their hands under the bed and let the dog lick it to make sure it was okay. One night when they heard an extra weird noise, the wife stuck her hand under the bed, and the dog licked it, but then they heard the noise again so the husband went to check it out and it was their dog locked out of the room, while something under the bed was still licking the wife’s hand.”

I asked my informant who it ended up being under the bed.

“Some guy who broke in.” she told me.

She said that the story was brought up by a classmate one day and spread through her grade level swiftly, many of her fellow first graders marveled by the disturbing narrative.

“It was mostly just entertaining to us.”

Though I don’t doubt for a second that children will pass around vulgar stories for the sake of entertainment or “shock factor”, I believe that this story can also be viewed as a warning against blind trust. Although the couple always heard the strange noises, they never investigated the cause of the news and therefore were late to catch the creepy man who hid under their bed at night.

Sighting of Jesus during a storm on the sea

Text:

So this is the story of how my grandmother saw Jesus on her boat ride to America.

My grandmother was in Italy during World War II, and Pacentro, where she was from, was a major bombing area for the Allies. So what they would do during World War II is that they took cities that didn’t have a lot of historical importance, and were very lowly densely populated-like farming villages and places like that. Back then, bombing a place was a show of power, basically. So it was a huge bombing site during WWII, and my grandmother fled Pacentro on a boat going to the US. She was very young, probably 12 or 13. She was on the boat, coming to the US, and she was very strongly Catholic.

The boat was very rocky- they were caught in a storm coming to New York, and everyone thought they were going to die. That’s how severe the storm is, they were all worried, they were all praying, all sort of getting their affairs in order as best they could when they were on a boat and going to a different country. And so, she thinks she’s going to die. The boat is rocking severely- there’s waves crashing on the bow, water sloshing over the edge, you couldn’t even go outside, everyone was hunkered down inside the ship.

So grandmother is down in the hull, she’s sick, she’s been on this boat for a week and a half, and she falls asleep. And in her dream, she sees Jesus in the waves, and Jesus looks at her- she’s standing on the bow of the boat, Titanic style, and Jesus is standing on the waves, he turns to her and says, “Celeste, you’re going to survive. You’re going to be OK. Everyone is going to live.” And when she wakes up, the storm has completely passed. So it’s sunny, the water is calm, there is no storm for the rest of the trip, they make it through the storm and back to America with no issue. So she believed that Jesus came down and told her- basically worked a miracle- she believed that there was some aspect of God that helped her arrive safely.

Context:

The informant was recounting an earlier story told by her grandmother, who was born in Italy before immigrating to the United States.

Analysis:

One of the first things I noticed about this story is how it’s very similar to a specific Bible story within the New Testament. It reminded me of the story of Jesus encountering the disciples during a storm by walking on water to approach their boat (Matthew 14:22-33). As religions tend to play a part in folklore, and as the first teller of this story was from a heavily Catholic region of Italy, this probably isn’t a coincidence. There could be an element of the grandmother finding comfort in their religion, in the face of almost hopeless circumstances, with how there really isn’t much else for them to do in the situation. When you can turn to no one else, you turn to God.

Hotel Del Coronado ghost sighting

Text:

Informant: So, there’s a hotel down in San Diego, it’s a very famous hotel, called the Hotel Del Coronado. It’s an older hotel, and so, a while ago, the company I was with was doing some work there. I went there early and the workers were going to do work at night. So it was evening time and I was walking around, going downstairs and going around the shops and everything, going up into the lobby- if you’ve ever been to the Hotel Del Coronado, it’s just this beautiful place, very old, lots of history. Of course, the rumor is that it’s a haunted hotel. But you never expect to see anything, but you still have it in the back of your mind that something could happen there. So, I was going through the lobby and I was going to go downstairs to where there were some shops, and I was walking downstairs, and there were people walking up the stairs. And as I’m walking down the stairs, this transparent wisp of something just passes right in front of me. And I look at the guy in the stairway who’s walking up, and his eyes are huge. And he looks at me, and I look at him, and I said “did you see that?” And he goes “Oh yeah, I saw that.” And then we just kept walking.

Interviewer: How much of the hotel’s history were you aware of before this?

Informant: Well, not deep into the history, but just the notion that there’s probably a lot of ghost stories. But nothing in particular that I knew of. But yeah, like I said, when you walk into something with that kind of history, you kind of know something going on. But the fact that it wasn’t just me, but myself and a total stranger, that we both saw it, is just… scary for me.

Context:

As mentioned in the account, the informant was working at the hotel as part of their job. They were born and grew up in the United States.

Analysis:

Ghost stories have a habit of taking places in older locations and those with a lot of history. As Ulo Valk puts it, they are figures from the past who uncannily appear in the “wrong” setting. That being said, there isn’t a lot to go off of in terms of the story itself.

As the hotel is rather old, there is quite a bit of history behind it, and its own history of haunting. Kate Morgan, who took her own life in the hotel in 1892, is the main subject of ghost stories, with her death being where the ghost sightings began. Some guests noting flickering electricity, changes in room temperature, unexplained sounds, and breezes from nowhere. Very few guests, however, seem to note an actual present sighting of the figure, which makes this account far more unique. If I had to guess on an “explanation” for the event, it could very well be a result of the informant being tired, as indicated by this taking place during a work trip, and the general “aura” of the hotel itself potentially affecting the teller and other person’s perception. After all, if you expect to see ghosts in a hotel, you are more likely to see ghosts.

Stonehenge energy

Text:

Informant: When I visited Stonehenge, I very much felt that there was something about that place that was charged with energy- it just felt different- more than any other place I had been to before. Unfortunately I was with a tour group so I couldn’t hang out. I would’ve loved to have been able to, y’know, hang out and feet that feeling.

…

Interviewer: Do you remember anything else that happened around the time you went to stonehenge? Like how the trip was, when you were going up there and when you were coming back and stuff like that?

Informant: We were on a tour group, I was in high school, so it was just a bus ride in, y’know, a walk around a little bit, and then a bus ride out. There was no dramatic lead up to it.


Interviewer: Do you still remember feeling that energy?

Informant: Yeah, I still remember feeling that there was something about the place, I would have loved to get closer, and like I said it just felt charged with energy. And when I asked the people around me, they didn’t necessarily agree. It was me picking up on that.

Interviewer: Do you think there’s any particular reason for that?

Informant: I don’t know, I can’t think of anything, it’s never happened to me in any other place. I don’t know if it was- what do you call it- a family memory? Genetic memory?

Context:

This account takes place during a time when the informant was in high school. They grew up in the United States, but note that they have Scottish, English, Germanic, and Norwegian ancestry.

Analysis:

As mentioned in the interview, there isn’t too much out of the ordinary regarding the lead up to the visit to Stonehenge, with it just being a school trip. This could very well explain the more nonchalant reaction to the site for the other students visiting, compared to the informant, as it may be harder to connect with a historical site personally when the reasons for doing so are more institutional. The informant themself mentions having some Scottish ancestry, so there is a chance that they were aware of such a connection before the trip. The “energy” which they felt could very well be the result of the informant being one of the few people there with an ancestry that connected them to this particular place.

Memorate (Soul of Family Member After Death)

Nationality: American
Primary language: English
Age: 18
Occupation: Canvasser
Residence: Echo Park, CA

Text

MM’s father was on his death bed. His aunt, his father’s older sister, was taking a plane from Pittsburgh to Seattle to see him. Without her knowledge, MM’s father died while she was on the plane. She saw a burst of light flash inside and outside the plane and into the air. She knew in that moment that he had died and that must be him. She made note of the time. When she got off the plane, she was notified by someone in Seattle that MM’s father had died. His time of death was about the same as the time she recorded the light on the plane.

Context

MM was 7 or 8 when this story was shared with him by his mom. He thinks it’s beautiful and really moving. It affirms for him that there’s some kind of soul, and that humans can communicate with each other after death.

Analysis

This memorate from MM’s aunt is deeply moving and emotional. While the light MM’s aunt saw isn’t a “ghost,” I believe that her account of it as the soul of her deceased brother, as well as the personal and narrative nature of this story, classifies this as a memorate. One interesting element of this memorate is in relation to something Professor Thompson mentioned in class: friendly ghosts are more commonly reported among older people. MM’s aunt’s description of a burst of light, followed by the calm realization that her brother had passed on, makes this memorate peaceful rather than scary. These kinds of peaceful memorates represent the human impulse to make sense of and come to terms with death. Seeing her brother pass on as a bright light allowed MM’s aunt to feel that he was at peace and going to a better place in the sky. As MM notes, the story also demonstrates an idea that the dead can communicate with the living. MM’s father seems to choose to visit his sister in this story, coming to her on the plane almost as if to say, “It’s alright. I’ve passed on, but I want to say goodbye.” This matches with the traits of friendly ghost stories, which are comforting for the living loved ones of the dead.