Haunted tales from Santa Cruz CA! Submitted by MB: mburke@sleepworld.com I personally do not believe in ghosts, per-se. I believe in evil spirits, aka demons, that can cause things to occur only through a person, but not inhabit locations/homes etc. I provide the following two stories of my childhood in Santa Cruz, CA. Harvey West Park - Santa Cruz, California Recently a house was built next to the site of an old Chinese graveyard, which was located next to a pre-civil war graveyard as well...When I was approx. 12 I visited this graveyard with my cousins. I lived less than a mile from the site and thought it would be fun to visit it. So we walked there and examined to tombstones. There is a paved stairway leading up the hill towards housing units. We climbed the staircase and found an old shack which we decided to look into, but before we got there an old woman with white hair appeared to exit the shack, carrying a broom she seemed to sweep the front of the shack. Upon seeing us, she shouted obscenities at us and told us to leave, which we did quickly. Years later we went back to the site, there was no shack and no old lady, and apparently never had been one. I've discussed it with many locals, who though hearing similar stories, swear no such shack existed. The woman though seems to have a reputation as a west coast "White Lady" who haunts the town. ------------The second story is of a more
personal nature, as it pertains to my family and therefore I will leave out many
details (names specifically.) I lived at 177 Mission St, across from Holy Cross
Church and the replica Santa Cruz Mission for twelve years. This house is two
stories and currently is painted gray. Built in the twenties for the Santa Cruz
famous native Ms. Neary. Ms. Neary was responsible for donating funds for
rebuilding the Santa Cruz Mission. The home had a few 'secret compartments'
where we found an empty safe and hid our valuables. When we moved into the house
in 1981 there had been some cult members living there. Candles had left round
marks in the floor and sheets had been hung in the rooms to turn them into
triangles. Being a religious family, we prayed over the house and destroyed and
burned the evidence of the cult activity. Having so many rooms, we took in
visiting family members and friends often. It was on one of these occasions that
a very disturbing incident occurred. A relative (by marriage) was staying with
us in what my mother called the 'grandmother's room' where there was a crib and
a daybed. This room had once been mine, as a child, though I'd never experienced
anything out of the ordinary, it was later converted to taking care of the
children of my brothers and sister. On the wall was a painting of a Raggedy Ann
doll and there was an opening for a stove pipe in the wall covered by a metal
plate that rattled in strong wind. In the center of the room, hanging from the
light, was a child's mobile. After midnight we all heard a scream. My father is
a big guy and nearly bust the door to this girl's room off it's hinges. Inside
we found her curled into a ball in the corner of the room covered in blankets,
sobbing. The mobile was spinning wildly and playing music and the painting was
turned...She claimed she'd heard voices calling her and the mobile began moving
and the painting spinning. We all realized that she could have started the
mobile herself, and the painting was easy to move, but she seemed genuinely
frightened. My parents stayed up the rest of the night praying with her and counseling
her. She admitted to them of being involved in cult (specifically what she
called Satanism...) Needless to say, I didn't sleep much for a few days.
MB
Thanks MB for sharing your amazing
experience! :)
|