Ghosts in the house

Mama was a great storyteller but she was also truthful. Her ghost story was something she remembered and also something that was told to her many times. In the late summer of 1926, when Mama was seven years old, two birds got into their house. The same week her mother saw two shooting stars. Old wives tales said these were both signs of upcoming death in the family. 

On Sept. 15, Mama's fourteen-month-old baby sister died. Three days later on Sept. 18, Mama's grandmother, who lived in the same house with them, died. Soon after the family hired a live-in housekeeper and cook to help Mama's very pregnant mother with her chores. One morning at breakfast the housekeeper said she could not sleep the night before because of a blue-eyed baby girl who kept looking in the door at her. But when she got up to check the baby was gone. The little baby that had died had bright blue eyes. The next youngest child had brown eyes so it could not have been her looking through the door. A few days later the housekeeper said that when she was sleeping the night before an old woman came to her bed. The old woman said, "This is my bed and my feet are cold and you need to move over." The old woman disappeared. 

The housekeeper announced she was quitting and would not be back. The bed had belonged to the grandmother who had recently died. And she always complained of cold feet and would warm bricks by the fire to put at the bottom of her bed. Wish Mama was here to tell me that story one more time.