The Lady in the Lake

I can't resist.  I know I should, but I can't.  I have too many wonderful ghost stories from Chattanooga to not write at least a little about one of them.  So here is my favorite.   There is an old cemetery on a mountain in Chattanooga.  The cemetery is called Greenwood Cemetery and the most remarkable ghost stories from this cemetery aren't really from the cemetery at all.  It is the quarry across the road from the cemetery that has the most remarkable ghost stories.  The quarry looks more like a small pond than a quarry, but according to local legend, this pond is deep with caverns that drift off into nowhere lurking beneath its murky depths.

There are many stories associated with this quarry.  There are tales of spectral green lights and drownings.   But the most poignant story is the story of a young woman afflicted with polio.   Apparently the disease crippled her and reduced her to a shell of a woman.   Her husband was left to care for her, but he wasn't really up to the job.   He took her out to the quarry and rolled her into the water and watched her drown.

Many tell the story of this young woman.  They say she comes out at night.   She drifts across the water dressed in white.  She is beautiful, like she was before the disease.  She comes with the mist and when the mist touches the ground, the footprints she leaves behind aren't footprints at all.   They are wheelchair tracks.

The White Lady of the Philipines

It is probably no surprise that I love Halloween.  I wait all year for Halloween, so I was thrilled when my Halloween costume came today.   I ordered this one and in order to celebrate my love of ghost stories,  I am going to be a white lady this year for Halloween.  White Ladies are my favorite ghosts.   They are tragic, romantic figures wandering the shadowy realm between this world and the next.   White Ladies are the ghosts of young women who died tragically, often times for love.  They are always seen in long white dresses.   Every culture seems to have these white lady phantoms.   Carl Jung would have loved them.   It is no surprise that they are popular in the Philippines, as they seem to be popular everywhere.  My father is Filipino, so when I found this story, I couldn't resist putting it here as one of my favorite white lady stories.

The most popular Filipino white lady is the White Lady of Balete Drive. Like most white ladies,  this white lady appears as a long haired beauty in  lovely white gown.   During World War II,  the Japanese occupied the Philippines and were particularly cruel and brutal to the locals.   This is no surprise.  The Japanese atrocities during World War II were legendary and never were they worse than the Rape of Nanjing and the Rape of Manila, in the Philippines.  They called what the Japanese did to these two cities rapes, because they not only committed genocides, but did particularly perverse and sexually deviant things to the city's residents before they killed them.  Although this white lady is not from Manila, she was a victim of rape at the hands of Japanese soldiers during  World War II.   According to legend, she was raped and killed by Japanese soldiers during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines in World War II.   Most of the stories associated with her are told by taxi drivers who have seen her on the road late at night.   Other drivers and travellers have also seen her wandering the lonely moonlit road of Balete Drive.  She is often blamed for the accidents along this road.  that Most of the stories that have come out about her were told by taxi drivers doing the graveyard shift.   One taxi driver even claims she asked him for a ride.

I found another interesting Filipino white lady story at http://www.castleofspirits.com/whitelady.html .  This is a first hand account of an encounter with a white lady and as I could not do the story justice by retelling it,  I thought it was more appropriate to put a link.  As I get ready for Halloween,  I will be thinking of these tragic white ladies.  I hope my costume does them justice.  My dress is above.