The Ghost of a Girl Named Howard

The Weedon House was built in 1817 and sits at the center of Huntsville, Alabama's historic district.  It is surrounded by constitution village and other historic structures.  It is a classic example of Federalist style architecture and was home to Howard Weedon, one of Huntsville's more renknowned female artists. Ms. Weedon was famous for her lovely and touching paintings of African Americans.  In an era when most African Americans were depicted as either animals or fools, she captured the spirit of her subjects and gave them life and humanity.  Her painting were even used as models for some of the characters in Gone with the Wind.  When Huntsville was occupied by Union forces in 1862, the Union Army requisitioned Weeden House and used it for its officers quarters.  After the war, Howard Weedon and her sister Kate lived out their lives in Weedon House.  There, Howard was able to paint and live her dreams of creation as a starving artist.  Ms. Weedon lived and died in Weedon house.  Some say she still stays there.  Weedon House now belongs to the city of Huntsville and is open for tours.

My mother got to visit the Weedon House this week.  She interviewed to be the director of the museum that now occupies the house.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed for her because she has a passion for history and old houses and she would do an amazing job tending to this old house.  While she was there, she saw water damage on the walls and those interviewing her explained that the walls always weep there.   They aren't sure why and they haven't been able to stop the weeping.   Those that believe in ghosts site this as the most conclusive evidence of a haunting a Weedon House.  The walls there always weep and no one knows why.  The weeping isn't the only sign of haunting in the old house.  The old grandfather clock in the foyer is said to continue chiming even though the clock has no working parts and phantoms have been seen lingering in the upstairs window.   I hope my mother gets her job at the Weedon House, maybe I can learn more about the ghosts there and maybe I can find the secrets behind its weeping walls.

Sharing Ghost Stories at the Huntsville Public Library

I was lucky enough to be invited to speak at the Huntsville Public Library tonight.  I was invited to share my ghost stories and spread chilling tales for Halloween.  This was wonderful for me.  I was nervous. I'm a writer not a speaker so I wasn't sure how I'd do, but I was helped by a fabulous audience and the staff at the library.   I may have floundered a bit with my story telling skills, but my audience saved me with fabulous stories.

One of my favorite stories came from a lady sitting in the front row.  She is going to send me photographs and details later, but from what she said tonight I learned a lot about The Moody Brick.  Her great-great grandfather was involved in a tragedy I hadn't heard of at my favorite haunted house, The Moody Brick.  I wrote about the Moody Brick in my book Haunted North Alabama.  It is a house that has been haunted by dark shadow from its construction.  Many have died there, but this lady told me her family story.   Her ancestor was an abolitionist and three men who resented his views murdered him and buried him at The Moody Brick.  His murders were apprehended and hung from the old tree in front of the house.  This only adds to the many horror stories and tragedies that creep out of the haunted location like a dark shadow and the lady shared her story with everyone making the Moody Brick more real and more personal.

Another visitor told a story about another haunted location from my book.  He spoke of Hell's Gates.  I've been to Hell's Gates looking for ghosts and found only wind and darkness.  But he says while he visited this dark location, an unseen force pelted him with sticks and bramble and sent him running into the darkness.  In the darkness, he tripped and hurt his ankle.   Another gentleman told us about the house he lived in, which is very haunted.   He says his ghost is a moody sort of woman who is protective of her old home.  A final lady, stood up and told us stories from Huntsville's haunted train station, The Huntsville Depot.  She shared the encounters of those she knew and spoke of the multitude of ghost that creep out of the old train station.

I learned a lot tonight, but mostly I learned that public speaking is the best way to gather new ghost stories.  I also learned it is much more fun to listen than to speak.

The Tragic Ghost of a Murdered Mother

In 1998, a teen named Jeffrey Franklin murdered his parents with the blunt end of an axe.  He then went on to try to kill his siblings.  One sibling was at dance and escaped the madness, but the other three were attacked with cruel brutality.  This event occured a few blocks from where I lived.  The Franklin family went to my church.  My mother taught Jeff in religious education and was friends with Mrs. Franklin.  In my small community, this was an earthquake.  A few days ago, a Huntsville local sent me this ghost story.  I've edited place and people names for obvious reasons, but left the rest of the story as it was sent to me.  The writer said I could post the story as long as I left the place names etc. out. 

"In 2005, I was working at A. Rehab  . Well, I'd heard stories of a phantom nurse who was said to walk the halls at night, but being a veteran of several nursing homes, I'd heard a lot of stories like that, seems like every nursing homes has it's resident ghost. Turns out that this one was a little different. I was speaking to a couple of the night shift CNAs, (cna, in case you don't know, is a Certified Nursing Assistant, which I was at the time, waiting on my nursing license to come through), and they had both told me of watching a nurse they didn't recognize, walk down the hall and into a residents room, when they followed after her, and entered the room, the only ones there were the two residents that shared the room and they were sleeping, but the curtain between the beds was moving as if it had been pushed or disturbed. I dismissed it as a neat story but nothing more. The next week, I was waiting to clock out after finishing up my shift, and was standing at the time clock, with about 5 minutes to go, when I noticed that across the hall from where I was, the lights were on. The room I was looking into was the physical therapy department, it had double doors, and each had a window in the center. I thought maybe someone had just forgotten to turn off the lights, so I was going to go do that. I crossed the hall and looked into the room. Now this room is a rectangular shape, and if you were looking into it from the door, you would be looking in from one of the long sides of the rectangle, and the other side of the room was lined with windows looking out on an open area outside. It was 11:00 at night so it was dark outside, making the windows into the room very reflective and mirror-like, as I was looking in, I saw the reflection of a nurse, in front of me, slightly to my left, walking very fast, moving from right to left. Well, my initial thought was that someone was in that room and they were exiting through a side door. I saw this very clearly, it was a female, dressed in a white nurses uniform, white skirt, and top, no hat, she was about 5'5" or so, with dark hair just below her collar. She didn't look left or right, but moved straight ahead, very fast and with a purpose. I grabbed the doorknob and tried to open the door, but it was locked, upon further investigation, it turns out that someone had apparently left the lights on, and that there was no other door way to enter or exit, also, after looking in for a while, I realized that due to the windows on the other side of the room, I could see the entire room, and it was completely empty. Then I remembered the phantom nurse story and the reality of what I had seen started to set in and I got creeped out, I crossed the hall, clocked out, went home, and didn't sleep well.


What does this have to do with poor Mrs. Franklin? Here's how it came together for me. 6 months later, I was now an lpn, and I worked at another nursing home in  Huntsville, one night over dinner, i was talking to another nurse and I happened to tell her this story, when I described what I'd seen, her eyes got very large, and her exact words were, "I bet that's Cynthia!". Not being from this area, I didn't know who she was talking about. She then went on to tell me that "Cynthia" was Cynthia Franklin, and that she had known her and that they worked at A. Rehab together. She went on to tell me that her son Jeffrey had, in the late '90s, flipped out and murdered her and other family members. At the time, I thought that even if this was this Cynthia, why the heck would she hang around a nursing home she worked at after her death. Jump forward a couple years, I'm currently employed at another nursing home here in Huntsville, I was telling this story to another nurse and when I got to the part where the last nurse had told me her name, the one I was speaking with told very matter of factly, "Oh, yeah, I was working with Cynthia when it happened, I knew her very well", and here's when it all clicked. The nurse I was talking too, was a lady named Jane Doe who had been there at A. Rehab , she and Cynthia worked together and she explained to me that Cynthia would often stay at work until 2 or 3 in the morning, because she was afraid of her son  and she didn't feel safe or comfortable in her own home. Stella told me that the only place she felt safe was at work, so she stayed there as much as she could. So know for some reason, I, a complete stranger to the Franklins and for no reasons other than sheer coincidence had learned the identity of the phantom nurse at A. Rehab, and as a bonus, I even understood why she was there. It was the only place she felt safe for her, so she comes back. If you ask day shift personnel, they'll tell you they've never heard of a phantom nurse, but you ask the night shift CNAs, the long time employees, and you'll get a different story, if you can get them to talk about it at all.

I have to say, I don't tell you this lightly, and I don't know if I would like for this to be made public, after all, her kids are still alive and this would I'm sure be a very sensitive subject to them and others who might have known and loved this lady. Also, it seems that I cannot escape the Franklin case as it turns out that upon over hearing me talking to Jane Doe, one of my CNAs had currently been working Huntsville Hospital at the time and she was one of the aides that helped take care of the children there. According to her, those children were the most pitiful that anyone had seen, and everyone worked very hard to help them, but they all thought those kids' story was one of the sadest they had heard, you could hear the sadness in her voice and see it in her eyes when spoke of them. I just thought it was strange how all these details kept revealing themselves to me, and how I keep getting glimpses into this case that I have no ties to, or reason to know these things."