September 5, 2024 • 48 mins
Welcome back to My Haunted Life podcast! I'm your host, Angela Hartshorn, and today we dive into a spine-chilling tale shared by a dear friend. This story involves a mysterious family heirloom, unexplained noises, and eerie occurrences that will leave you on the edge of your seat. Trigger warning: we do discuss infant death in this episode, so please listen with care.
In this episode, my friend recounts an unsettling experience his mother had with a seemingly haunted piece of infant clothing. Passed down through generations, this layette was meant for the firstborns of the family. However, it carried with it more than just family tradition—it brought along whispers of a tragic past and unexplained phenomena.
From thuds in the night to high-pitched metallic screeches, this story unravels with twists and turns that make it worthy of a horror film. You'll hear about how this layette mysteriously moved around the house, causing a series of frightful events that led to a dramatic conclusion. Was it a spirit attached to the layette, or something even more sinister?
So grab your favorite fall drink, lock the doors, and settle in for a haunting story that will make you question the presence of unseen forces in your own life.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello, Goblins and Ghouls, and welcome to my Haunted Life podcast.
I'm your host, Angela Hartshorn, and on today's episode, I'm interviewing a
dear friend who told me one of the creepiest freaking stories I've heard in a very long time.
This thing has some twists and turns, let me tell you.
(00:23):
Trigger warning for this one, though. We do talk about infant death in this one.
So, not like graphically, but please be aware.
Music.
(00:45):
Hello, my Darklings. How is everyone doing today? I hope it is spectacular.
As spectacular as your first sip of your favorite fall drink.
Drink because you are spectacular and deserve a good fall drink.
This is a very, very contentious argument in my house at the moment.
(01:09):
I'm definitely a pumpkin girly through and through, like pumpkin.
I will allow some good pumpkin spice, but I'm very particular still,
like to an obnoxious degree. agree.
The Hubs does like his apple flavors more, but his big thing right now is anything
(01:29):
s'mores, like anything.
He had a donut, a s'mores donut the other day. Loved it.
The time of writing this, pumpkin flavors haven't completely taken over the
world yet, so I've been at home making my own pumpkin chai.
I'm working on new pumpkin teas for Heart and Horn, and I will hopefully,
(01:53):
cross your fingers, have them out very, very soon.
So keep an eye out for those. But now I'm curious.
What is your favorite fall drink? I'm posting this in the Facebook group right
now, so that discussion can be started. I will report back.
By the time that this gets it's released, it will probably already have been discussed.
(02:23):
If this is the first time you're hearing about it, still, hop on, check it out.
Um, where am I? Anyway, welcome to the fall season of My Haunted Life podcast.
I cannot believe I've been doing this, like, what is it, like four years?
Obviously not that consistently, but I'm trying.
(02:44):
I am so freaking excited for the stories I'm sharing with you the next little bit.
Some of them I've been planning for freaking years and haven't allowed myself
to do so because I hadn't actually visited the sites.
So I made myself go and visit them.
(03:05):
And now I have some freaking cool stories for you and a lot of gorgeous footage.
But that's coming up in a bit. I don't want to do a whole lot of housekeeping
for this episode because with it being the the first one back,
I just really, really want to get into it. And this story is so good.
(03:25):
On today's episode, I'm interviewing a friend of mine that has an insane family
story that he wanted to share.
He reached out because he saw the post on the Facebook group requesting Furby stories.
And even though his story has nothing to do with Furbies, it reminded him to
reach out to me, this story and the way he tells it needs to be made into a movie. It's so good.
(03:55):
I it's one of those. I don't even want to give you a full like synopsis about what it is about.
Cause it's, it gives a lot of it away.
Like I knew a little bit going in, but I guess I had to put a little bit in
the description either way.
(04:15):
We'll talk about it. Again, though, trigger warning.
We do talk about infant death in this one, so keep that in mind.
New mamas, that kind of thing, Kayla. Looking at you, babes.
Just be aware. I also wanted to give a quick reason for the anonymous nature.
(04:40):
Said friend did not ask his mom's permission to relay this story.
It was something he just really wanted to tell me because it was a really good story.
I have always known him to be an honest, great guy, so I believe the story to be credible.
It's one of those good family legend situations.
(05:03):
There are little to no personal details given because if you know me and I say,
oh, it's this friend that does this thing, you will probably know who I'm talking
about basically immediately.
So this podcast is just about the story, which really slightly killed me because this friend is so cool.
(05:25):
And I, we couldn't talk about it.
But you'll love him in this.
It's so good. Anyways, so let's get into it, shall we?
Grab yourself a cup of tea. Make sure the doors are locked and the baby blanket
is close by. I have a story to tell you.
Music.
(05:50):
All right, my Darklings, we are doing something a little different today.
Yes, we have a interview, but our interview today is completely anonymous.
I know who it is. You guys don't get to know who it is. So I guess it's not
completely anonymous in that case.
(06:12):
I will totally vouch for this person. I have known this person for years.
I mean, I would say we're good friends. Yeah.
Yeah. I wouldn't say, like, besties kind of thing, but good friends.
I mean, I think one of your besties is, like, one of my besties,
so we're very close in that way.
Absolutely. I forget how long we've actually known each other for.
(06:35):
I haven't really pieced that together, but nearly a decade.
Yeah. Yeah, I was literally thinking about this. And this goes back to certain
events in Denver that don't exist anymore and beyond.
It's kind of hard to trace that. But yeah, it really has. It's been a long, long time.
(06:55):
Did we meet at fair? No, I think it was, I think other events.
I don't think it was a fair thing.
I don't think so. I think maybe it initially was like through runway modeling.
Like it's been so long. I apparently
mutual acquaintances yes totally I
was like god I mean that ages
(07:16):
everything right there because I haven't done a runway since COVID so
yeah oh my god that's been a very long time anyways long story short we've known
each other way before COVID and you what what has what What inspired you to
connect with me this time for the story?
(07:38):
I know you said, because you saw the Furby post.
Yeah, you know, I saw a post about Furby stories.
And I thought, you know, Furby's kind of reminded me of my youth and reminded
me of beyond that, like childhood toys and whatnot.
And that's kind of a part of the story that I wanted to tell.
And it just occurred to me that I've got this great story that was told to me.
(08:02):
I'm not directly involved in the story. This is my mother's story.
But it was surrounded with these toys and whatnot.
And I saw the thing for the Furby and I was like, you know, I've never really
had a chance to share this story. And it's pretty unique.
I love your podcast as it is. And I was like, you know what?
I might as well reach out and see if she wants to share this.
(08:24):
And the other fun thing with this podcast, I know very little about the story.
I'm used to being like the researcher. And honestly, the little bit you've given
me, it gave me goosebumps.
So I'm very excited for her. Very entertaining.
(08:47):
Yeah, it's a very interesting story. Again, I'm not. I'm there, but I'm not.
This is something that took place. Should I just get right into it?
Yeah, go for it. Totally. Are you good? Okay, so where to start with this?
So about five, maybe six years ago, my mom came to visit me and she brought
(09:13):
me a box of keepsakes that she's had in her house.
She's lived in the same house since the mid-90s. Her attic and her basement
are full of little keepsakes from my childhood, things that she's collected throughout the years.
And she was trying to unloading some of those and she brought a box when she
visited me and in this box were a whole lot of items that i recognized a pile of little drawings.
(09:39):
A coloring book some toys and one one item and it didn't recognize and it was
a little kind of baby blue jumper for infants like a little onesie for a baby
and i didn't recognize it i was
like what is this and she explained
to me that this was the clothing
(10:01):
that I wore home from the hospital after
I was born oh I I'd never seen
it before I was like okay that's nice you kept this yeah want me to have it
and I was kind of going what am I going to do with this yes you know and I even
asked her I was like what should I what should I do with this and she was like
(10:23):
well Some people, you know, frame them.
And she explained that at one point she had my first baby shoes that she hung
from her rearview mirror.
And she just thought, hey, maybe you'd like to have it. And I thought, well, thank you.
I don't know what I'm going to do with this. Yeah.
I mean, it sounds like a mom keepsake.
Absolutely. Absolutely. But I think she just was clearing things out.
She's getting a lot older and she just wanted me to have these items because
(10:46):
she didn't know what to do with them. That's fair.
And I kind of said, you know, mom, thank you. I don't know what I'm going to do with these.
I don't have children of my own. I don't intend to have any children.
And kind of having these big clothes around is a little bit creepy. Yeah. And she said to me,
It's nowhere near as creepy as it could have been. Mmm.
(11:10):
And I said, okay, explain it. What's the story there?
What are you talking about? And she told me this story.
So this takes place in 1976. Okay.
My mother is the firstborn of many children.
I am her first child. Okay. And when she was pregnant with me,
(11:33):
three or four months, I think, she had a baby shower.
Her friends and family got together and drew a standard baby shower, toys, gifts, food.
Love. She had a good time. It was a long, busy day, and she was really tired at the end of the day.
She packed up her car and was about to leave when my grandmother stopped her
(11:55):
as she was leaving and said, Hey, I have one more gift for you.
I wanted to give this to you privately.
Here you go. And gave her this box.
So she opened up the box and inside was a kind of a grayish blue infant clothing.
Like she called it a layette, which is just a name for clothing for babies.
(12:19):
It usually entails like a little bonnet and gloves and a little cape blit and all that stuff.
But this was just this one blue jumper. Okay, thank you for explaining that,
because I had to Google that.
Yeah. So she referred to it as a layout, and she looked at it, and it was old.
And it was really, really old, kind of, not like dirty, but it was kind of beat
(12:41):
up, and it had been around for a while.
Oh, wow. Grandmother explained to her that this had been in the family for some time.
Huh. And that the tradition was...
This was worn by the firstborn of the family. Oh.
So my mom said, oh, so is this what I wore as a baby?
(13:05):
And my grandmother said, no, this is what we brought your sister home in from the hospital.
Her name was Louine. Oh. And my mom said, who's Louine? Oh.
Oh. Oh. And my mom did not know this. She was in her mid-20s at this point.
My mom was not aware of this. Her sisters and brothers were not aware of this.
(13:30):
But before my mother was born, they had taken the child home that died a few days later. Oh.
Unfortunately, a tragedy. Yeah, very. My mom was kind of shocked by this.
Like, she didn't know about this. My grandmother was just kind of hitting with
this information. Yeah.
These clothes and being like, I'd like you to carry on this tradition.
Because Lillian passed away. Oh, my God. Yeah, what a surprise.
(13:54):
I know, right? And she was just like, but she explained, like,
my mom was, like, exhausted at this point.
So she took the somewhat creepy gift and she took it with the rest of the things and she went home.
This was, like, a Wednesday, I think she said.
And she took it to her house. Now, her house was a two-story building in Iowa.
(14:18):
Okay. In the middle of nowhere, a farmland. My dad had built this house himself.
Oh. Just about three acres of land in the middle of the farmland, Iowa.
It wasn't a farmhouse, but it was surrounded by farmers and farming.
We had neighbors that were close by, but on all other sides, it was like,
horn, as far as I can see, just middle of nowhere.
(14:39):
Okay, this is all sounding very lovely and everything, but I'm like,
this is literally every quintessential 1970s horror movie, and I'm loving it.
It's pretty nuts. Oh, my God.
So, she took all the gifts home
from the baby shower, and there's a little nursery on the first floor.
(15:02):
The setup on the first floor of this building is really standard.
Let's say a kitchen, a living room, a dining room. And then there's a long hallway
that leads to the master bathroom and bedroom.
And in that hallway, there's two other rooms. There's a little side bathroom and nursery.
So she unloaded everything into the nursery, and she didn't really touch anything.
She just kind of left it in there until the weekend.
(15:25):
And Friday night rolls around. My father at the time was working evenings.
He worked an evening shift from like 3 p.m. until midnight.
Night so he got home really late not ideal but that's
when he worked okay so during the day my
dad had helped her put together the crib and
start to put some of the furniture together for this nursery and then he went
(15:48):
he went to work so my mom was left home to finish the job and so she started
putting away all the little clothes and toys and knickknacks for the baby and
she had I had everything kind of laid out and sorted. Aw.
And she did some laundry, and she had dinner, and she was just getting to the end of the sorting.
(16:08):
And she said the last thing that she unloaded was that layette. Okay.
And she said, you know, it seemed kind of musty. It didn't seem dirty. It just seemed old.
So she kind of set it across the back of the chair. That was the one chair that was in the swirl.
She said she stacked the other clothes on the seated chair, but she remembered
laying the layette across the back of the chair. Thank you.
(16:29):
And she had dinner, and she went to bed. It was about 10 o'clock at night, and she was restless.
She was kind of having trouble falling asleep. And just as she drifted off,
she heard a noise, like a thud of some kind.
Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing spooky, nothing that scared her,
but something that woke her up and made her think her husband was home.
(16:55):
So she got out of bed, and she went to the front room. She turned on the lights and waited for a moment.
Nothing. She opened the garage. Her husband wasn't home. No cars.
So she gathered her things and she started to go back into her room.
And as she walked by the nursery down the hallway to her room,
(17:15):
she glanced in and she saw that the layette was in the middle of the room on the floor, bunched up.
Kind of in a particular way, the way it was bunched up.
Okay. And she stopped and she looked at it, and she didn't think anything of it.
She went in and she picked it up, and she kind of looked at it,
and she looked at the chair.
(17:36):
And she could have swore she put it across the back of the chair,
but she didn't think anything of it.
She set it on the seat of the chair with the other clothes.
What room is this again? This is the— This is in the nursery.
Okay, this is in the nursery. Okay. Mm-hmm.
So she went back to bed, and she laid down, and she started to drift off.
Off and as she was drifting off a noise occurred that just bolted her out of bed,
(18:00):
and she said at first she was like a loud noise happened that i really can't
explain and i said can you try yeah no i'm like i am so engrossed in this right
now oh my god so she said it sounded like.
Sheet metal being torn like a high-pitched
shriek of metal being torn oh scraping on metal but just a high-pitched like
(18:24):
she likened it to a tornado hit her farm in minnesota as a kid and it tore the
tin roof off of some of the sheds she sounded sounded like that just a high shriek real quick,
bolted her out of bed oh she she got hit with fight or flight and she shows fight,
(18:46):
she grabbed a candlestick off of her dresser and she ran into the front room
and she started yelling and she was yelling like who's in my house this is my
house who is here who is here oh my god how pregnant is she at this point she's
probably two or three months she's not that not pregnant, but she is pregnant.
But she ran in there and she started yelling. And she looked around in the front
(19:10):
room and there was nobody there.
There was no signs of entry, but this noise had scared her.
And she went and she grabbed the phone in the front room. Now this is the seventies.
This is a rotary phone and it has a cord about a mile long.
And she called my father. Now, when you call my father, you have to ask for
him. And then someone has to go find him. She's not calling him directly.
(19:32):
So she dialed the number. And before anybody could answer, she kind of just
started pacing. You know, she was nervous. She was still scared.
And as she was pacing, she got to where the nursery was.
And as somebody answered the phone and was like, hello, and she asked for her
husband, she looked on the chair and noted that the layette was missing.
(19:55):
And as the guy on the phone was like, yeah, let me go get him,
she walked into the nursery. No, no, no, no, no.
And found the layette in the crib.
Bunched up in the same position she had seen it earlier.
Oh. She ran. Yeah. She dropped the phone, and she ran. She fled from the house.
(20:17):
Oh, my God. This is 11, 1130 at night, and she ran to my neighbors.
Now, we were friends with our neighbors.
Okay. They were a very friendly family. They were farmers. We bought eggs from them.
Oh, that's cute. She knew them all by first name. So she ran to the house at
11 o'clock at night, woke them up, and said to them, there's someone in my house.
So the farmer and his wife woke their two teenage sons.
(20:42):
He grabbed a hunting rifle, and they all went back to my house.
Great neighbors. Love them.
The teenage sons took their dog, which I think was like a hunting dog,
and they checked the whole property, the outside.
While my mom and the neighbor's wife stood at the front door,
a neighbor went in and did a room-by-room sweep of the house.
(21:04):
And when he didn't find anything, all three of them did the same thing together.
The teenage sons didn't find anything, so he sent them home.
The neighbor and his wife stayed with my mom until my dad got home.
And so my mom was there, and she was, even with them having checked the house
together, she said she just had this feeling of dread.
(21:27):
She was just fearful until my dad pulled up. And as soon as he was there,
she got this sigh of relief, and she was, my husband's here, I'm okay.
And she explained to him what had happened. Yeah.
Now, she never, to the neighbor or my dad, mentioned anything about the layout specifically.
(21:49):
Oh. She heard noises. She heard bumps.
She sensed something in the house, and that she had found some things moved.
But she didn't specify the layout, and she did not tell my father the story
of the gift that her grandma gave her.
So she never shared this.
Really? Oh, my God.
(22:11):
So she chalked it up to, you know, like, they basically checked the property,
and then they said, hey, we'll check again in the morning when there's better
light to see if there are signs of intrusion.
The neighbors left. My dad and her went to bed.
Ugh. And for the rest of that weekend, my mom avoided the nursery.
She didn't poke her head back in there. She didn't go in and she didn't touch it.
(22:36):
However, her husband, my dad, did some further work in that room.
He put a dresser together. He moved a few things in and out.
He was working in there. She did not.
You still got to prepare for the baby coming. Yeah, that makes sense.
Absolutely. He's still doing all the work and everything else.
So Monday rolls around and my dad goes back to work.
And she, you know, got her courage up and went into the nursery.
(23:00):
And could not find the layout. It was gone. It was not where she had left it.
It wasn't anywhere else in the room.
And she kind of said she was thankful that my dad had been going in and out
of there because it gave her a logical excuse that maybe he moved it.
Yeah. I mean, you start, you know, trying to. He's in there moving.
(23:22):
So she's trying to be reasonable about this.
You know, she's not trying to, like, make this a paranormal thing.
She's trying to say, okay, well, maybe he moved it.
But she even went so much when she couldn't find it, and she scoured the room,
and she scoured the house.
She went back to the neighbor, and she asked him, when you were in the house,
did you touch anything? Did you move anything?
(23:44):
And he looked her right in the eye, and he said, the only thing I touched in
your house were the doorknobs and the cup of tea that you gave me after we left.
Like, that was it. Wow.
And she believed him.
So she never shared this with my dad. She never shared this with anybody.
She kind of kept this to herself. And there was never another occurrence.
(24:05):
Oh, interesting.
However, fast forward 10 years later. Oh, okay. 10 years later, my family moves.
We moved from Iowa to Wisconsin. And...
It was a big to-do. We had to hire a moving company, and people,
(24:25):
vehicles, friends were helping us move all these things.
Okay. And on the last day, all the big stuff had gone out.
It was me and my brothers and my dad left with the moving truck so we could
be extra hands on moving things.
And my mom remained behind to make one last kind of thorough sweet party.
Makes sense. So you're like 9, 10 at this point?
(24:46):
I'm about 10 years old, yeah. I left, and we were gone. and my mom was there
in the house, just kind of going through old drawers and stuff.
In the basement of this house was an unfinished half bath.
It was always kind of a creepy area. In particular, there were these tall cabinets
(25:08):
that went into the wall and it was unfinished on the inside.
So it's like really dreary and like spider webs and cobwebs and stuff like that.
And they would try to hide in there because it was big enough for a person to walk into,
but it was like into the wall okay my my
mom went down there and she said she went into the little half bath
and she saw that there was like something simple like a washcloth
(25:28):
had been left on the rack and she grabbed it and she
felt like i better look around in here and she
opened one of those cabinets so the deepest one and she
saw some tools had been left there because it was unfinished so
she grabbed whatever tools were remaining and she
kind of moved a few things aside some plywood wood
some dry walls and boards and she caught
(25:50):
a glimmer of color back of
this this uh unfinished cabinet
and she reached in and shoved into the back corner and that same little watered-up
look that it had previous was lit and she she pulled this thing out as musty
(26:12):
as it ever was and she She looked at it, and she got mad.
She got really, really upset that this was there.
Yeah. She went back to the neighbor, and she went to him. He was much older
at this point. He was retired and everything.
And she went to him, and she said his name, and she held it out to him,
and she said, Have you ever, did you move this?
(26:34):
Did you take this from the nursery when you were in my house?
Did you move this from my house?
And he picked it up, and he looked at it. He looked her in the eye,
and he said, I've never seen this in my life.
Oh. And she said, when you were in the house, how did you move around?
And he said, I went from this room to this room to this room.
And sure enough, he had gone into the nursery. Okay. And he had finished in the basement.
(26:59):
And she said to him, when you were in the basement, did you check these cabinets,
these cabinets that a person could be inside?
And he said, I didn't. I didn't think about that. I didn't know how large those
were or how deep they were. It just seemed like drawers to me,
so I didn't go in there. Okay.
And she believed him.
(27:19):
And the next thing she did was to grab the article of clothing from his hand,
and she took it to the corner of our property where there's an old burning mound.
We used to take, like, leaves and trimmings.
And she took the article of clothing, and she burned it, and she buried the remains.
Wait. And then she left the house and never returned.
(27:43):
Now, I ask her about this. i say
to her you know what do you think happened there
and she said when the farmer
told me that he had not checked that
cabinet she has to believe that someone was in that house and that someone hid
(28:05):
in those cabinets from everyone looking for him and then must have left and
he must have taken that article of clothing. I mean. Left it there.
Yeah. It's her logic. At this point, she's looking for that,
what can I tell myself, to be less scary.
Yeah, something to explain it away, yeah. Exactly. The less scary thing for
(28:28):
her was someone was at her house that night.
And yet yet she still
felt it was necessary to burn that article
of clothing oh my god okay okay
yes so that's that is the
story like this thing was i truly
(28:50):
think it was probably like a haunted item and it
had remained in that house and as a kid i
remember those little cabinets we would play hide and seek and they were
big enough for us to get inside and hide it was kind of like
that last ditch effort no one's gonna look in here because it
was creepy as all hell yeah that little
alcove and sure there was spider webs and stuff and it was just unfinished and
(29:12):
dark but there was something about that area that just left us shivering anytime
we ran it and maybe that's why it remained unfinished i'm not sure i mean that
makes sense so wait wait wait wait did Did you, so did you end up with it?
No, no, no. She burned it. Okay. Yeah, she retrieved it, and once she found
(29:32):
it and had her reasoning her way out, her logic out, she burned the article of clothing anyways.
Oh, I was going to say, if you ended up with it, I want it. Please send it to me.
I mean, she found a very similar replacement, I think, is what she found when I was born.
And I do still have that, but, I mean, that's nothing special other than I wore it as a baby.
(29:54):
You know okay so yeah that's that is it creeped me out and I always asked you
know why she hadn't really shared it with anybody and I think that something
really happened that scared her so bad that she needed to have,
something less scary to hold on to and say, no, it was just someone who broke into my house.
And that is insane to me that the less scary option was someone broke into the house.
(30:21):
I, I, I, wow. I could not imagine it. We had dogs on that farm.
We had animals. Like if somebody had come on the property, anytime someone would
come on the property, they made all kinds of noise. They were aware of it, you know?
But I don't know. Like she, She needed to tell herself that,
and that's what she told herself to this day. It was like somebody had broken into the house.
(30:44):
But I think in her mind, she knows that something haunted, something paranormal was occurring there.
Oh, wow. And I wonder why it was always balled up. Like, I wonder what the significance of that was.
You know, it was something that she pointed out, and I was like,
she made a point of saying, like, it was bunched up in a very particular way.
(31:07):
And i i never saw this article including i don't
know what the fabric looked like or anything and she described it as
old and musty almost like like it'd been
hand sewn maybe even knitted in portions but
wow in both all three occurrences of finding it it was just kind of wadded up
in a very particular fashion on the floor wow so yeah it's it's an interesting
(31:31):
story she's a very reasonable and logical woman.
Sounds that way. I've never known of her having experiences like this,
but when she shared that with me, I was like, so, haunted baby in the house?
And she was like, no, no, it was a person, must have broken in,
and that's what was scaring me, and they were moving things around.
(31:51):
Now, why they would select that one particular item to do that with, I don't know.
I can't imagine. So, for me, it seemed like something otherworldly.
And that was going to be my next question is, who do you think is moving it?
Like, is there a spirit in the house that's really excited for a baby?
Because, you know, when people are pregnant and expecting, activity is known to start picking up.
(32:15):
Or do you think it was actually attached to this?
See, it's really hard for me to say because the last infant who wore this possibly died in it.
See, my mother's unborn, well, the true firstborn of my mother's side of the
family died a few days after being born and brought home.
(32:39):
Wow. And she certainly wore this home from the hospital.
She certainly wore it in the time that she was alive. Was she wearing it when she died?
Or was it the first thing that was put on her and she was attached to it?
There's any number of reasons why a spirit could or would be attached to this.
Oh, wow. Why a child would choose to, you know, make these sounds,
(33:01):
haunt my mother or even warn her when she's also pregnant and know the same
line. You know, it's so hard for me to say.
Wow. Because I know there's like pregnancy, like psychosis kind of things where,
you know. Absolutely. Things start happening.
Absolutely. And my mother very much, when I was like, you know,
why did you not tell dad more details about it? Yeah, literally,
(33:24):
I would call Joran immediately and be like, you would not believe what just happened.
Absolutely. And I think a lot of it, you know, she didn't want to come off as,
I'm pregnant and hysterical.
She didn't want to be like, seeing things or losing my mind or this type of thing.
She didn't want to scare him and she didn't want to scare herself.
(33:45):
Again, a very, very logical, very reasonable woman. I don't know why she didn't
confess all this, but she never told him that story. Wow.
Do they know what happened to her older sister?
No, I don't know what the complications were. I could and should ask her that.
(34:08):
Yeah, but she had just found out. She didn't even know.
It's very strange that my grandparents did not share with their large family
the fact that they had had one child before all of them were born who didn't survive but a few days.
Yeah, like, my family doesn't talk to each other whatsoever,
(34:30):
but, like, we knew there were twins before my mom kind of thing.
Right, right. Yeah, they kept that to themselves. Wow. Oh, my God. Mm-hmm.
No, this, I did not expect it to be, like, this. I'm like, you literally should write this down.
(34:53):
Yeah i it's funny i i said the same thing to my mom i was like you need to write
these stories down and she has she has started writing some of her memories
like like a journal good and,
she was sharing this story with me and she explained that she was doing this journal now,
and she was like do you want to do you want to read my journal i was like yeah
(35:14):
i'd love to take a look at it but i think i know all your stories and she was
like well do you remember this story I was like, yeah, yeah,
that was when your brother threw the glass against the wall and it broke and he made you clean it up.
She said, what about this story? And I said, oh, yeah, that was when you were
in Cancun and the bear came into your camp and built a hole in the tent.
She said, oh, yeah, I guess you know all my stories.
(35:37):
And you remember the story about how my college roommate was murdered by a serial killer.
And I was like, whoa, what?
And proceeded to tell me that story. But we might have to save that one for another time. Ah!
(35:58):
Oh, my God. Yes, yes. That was the same reaction that I had.
I was like, what happened now?
And, yeah, sure enough, she wanted to tell me a story about how her college
roommate was murdered by a fairly infamous serial killer. Oh, my God.
Yes, and it's even more terrifying. It is a terrifying story.
(36:20):
So literally my mind is like going through all the famous, like, this is in the 70s.
I'm like, where was she at this point? She's in Iowa. Okay, okay.
Midwest. Yeah. I'm going to save that one for another time.
But yeah, my mom's stories are pretty crazy.
(36:42):
Oh, and you see, that's what you get for being like, oh, yeah,
I already know your stories. She drops another bombshell on you.
Oh, my gosh. So, did anyone in your family know this story other than when she
told you this five years ago?
No, no. I have since talked to my other brothers, and they were like, what?
(37:03):
And they're much like myself. They're into the creepy stuff, the spooky stuff.
Yeah. So, when I told them that, that was when they kind of were like,
oh, yeah, that little half bathroom, that little cabinet where we could hide. I was like, yeah.
Do you remember wanting to hide in there, but you couldn't do it for very long?
Mom, the cat was always creepy as hell in there.
So they were assured, like, yes, that creepy baby clothing was in there trying to get us.
(37:29):
Oh, my God. And she never told your dad?
No, no. I mean, my parents have since divorced.
Okay. So, I mean, they've both remarried and are very happy,
and they're actually very good friends to this day. Oh, that's nice.
But however, that was one story, you know, I just found out about this,
like, maybe five years ago.
And that's so amazing that she just randomly dropped this, like,
(37:55):
family history story almost. Surprise!
I think, like, she kind of forgets some of the things that she has or hasn't shared.
But, like, I just mentioned, I was like, it's kind of creepy to get this clothing.
And she's like, well, you want to hear about creepy?
And broke this story down. And I, again, like when she, even the way that she
(38:15):
described it and the way that she was telling it to me, I felt like she wanted
to reassure herself that although she was experiencing these things,
in the end, because the neighbor never checked that closet and because that
closet was where we found, where she found the article of clothing,
someone must have been in the house, taken that and moved it around and hid down there.
(38:40):
And and that idea to me is like so that person could have been hiding there
even when my dad got home yeah it was never checked he could have been there
for days like who was this person like to me that seems more fearful but yeah
she just she couldn't she was just like i i can't otherwise,
i don't have a way to explain this oh my god it's like she'd rather be able
(39:05):
to explain it and something that's
very scary rather than saying this was possibly something paranormal.
I mean, I feel like that's a very Midwestern thing. Because my dad's same era,
same age, from Wisconsin.
Like, he would see stuff move in our house or, like, deal with me and seeing
(39:28):
things and stuff. And it was always, like...
Nah, has to be something else. Yeah, absolutely.
And when she was telling the story and, you know, she's telling me the story,
I'm listening the same way that you did.
And I guess the portion of the story where she was like, I could have swore
I set the layout on the back of that chair as the last thing I touched.
And here it is in the middle of the floor.
Oh, well, it can't be anything. I'll just go pick it up and put it with the clothes.
(39:51):
It must have just fallen a foot away on the middle. It's like,
like, mom, are you hearing what you're saying?
Like, you just carried on? like it was bunched
up in the middle of the floor you knew what you had done you know it's
one of those things like it just couldn't be that wow
were there like any pets in the house or anything
nothing like that we had some we had an outdoor dog
(40:13):
a few farm cats that you'd see around them now
and then but like nothing inside the house like i said the same thing i
was like could the window have been open and blown this over like could
a fan have come on from the ac is like no out it was like this
moved and the the one that she specified was
when she went back when she was on the phone she finds it she
knows she had picked it up and set it on the seat at this point it was very
(40:35):
aware like i'm putting this here and it was in the crib again it moved again
and it was in that same kind of bunched up watered up ball that she described
and i was like i guess it must have It had been somebody in the house, you know, like.
Wow. Yeah, it is a crazy, crazy story. Wow.
(40:58):
I mean, it's one of those, like, thank God you never put it on kind of thing.
Oh, I wish. That would have been a story. That would have been something to
have. If I actually had it, that would have been fantastic.
Do you know if her sister was the first one to get it? Because it was a handy down.
Yes. So the whole thing was it was like a tradition for the firstborn of the
(41:21):
generation to wear this.
So my mom was the firstborn of six. I was the firstborn of three.
And I think her mother was the firstborn. So she had it and then she gave it
to her firstborn and so on and so forth.
Okay. So it's at least three generations back. Exactly.
I'd say longer. I don't have the lineage. I don't have a trace back.
(41:42):
Okay. She made it sound like my grandmother explained this had been in the family for some time.
I don't know what that means exactly, but at least three.
So, yeah, like it was to go to her firstborn, whose name was Louine.
Louine. But Louine didn't live very long. But she certainly wore this article
(42:04):
of clothing and most likely, quite possibly, dyed it. Right.
Not me. I'd probably end the tradition at that point, but people can't let things go.
Yeah, like, that's not something to, wow, wow.
Yeah, yeah. It's some craziness. And like I said, I didn't know about this until maybe five years ago.
(42:30):
And just, I love the random drops that your mom does.
I'm so thankful she's journaling now. I want to read her journals now.
Oh, my God. And I absolutely, like, I'm glad I learned this so that I could
ask questions along the way, you know? Yeah.
Like, we're trying to make my grandmother do stuff like this,
but it's so much nicer that your mom is, like, younger and you can actually
(42:50):
still, like, converse. That's really cool.
Absolutely. And she kind of, like, you know, when she's telling the story,
she was glossing over things.
Like, she was like, so I ran to the neighbors and I took them back to the house
and I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Like, you took one of them? You took two? Like, did they do anything?
Thing oh yeah he grabbed a hunting rifle and the boys took the
dogs and the dogs went around the outside of the house and i stood
(43:13):
at the front door with the neighbor wife and he
went inside i was like oh my god like she would just kind
of like all these little details i was like how did this and then what'd they
do you know like she kind of was just like and then they went aside and checked
and there wasn't anybody there and then we waited for my husband like no no
details yeah did you check the house oh we went from room to room and made sure
(43:36):
the windows and doors were all locked and,
she did explain like oh my god back in this time like locking the doors wasn't
something you did well especially out there yeah yeah middle of Midwest Iowa 70s like.
Like what I was saying to her, I was like, somebody could have gotten the house.
(43:58):
And she was like, oh, yeah.
The back basement door was most likely unlocked. Like I didn't have a reason
to lock it. I had been working out there the previous day.
I probably left it open. Like mom.
Oh, my God. Wow. That is my story.
Dude, you killed it. It was so good.
(44:22):
Yeah, I do wish that she had not. I do wish she'd kind of kept that article of clothing.
But I think she felt, I think at that point, she hadn't come to terms with the
fact that it could have been something otherworldly. And she was like, this has to go.
I mean, I understand protecting kids and stuff like that.
(44:43):
But at the same time, I'm like, damn it. I want it so bad right now.
But really, you know, No, it was kind of probably a farewell to that place as well.
Like, we had lived there for 10, I think she'd been there for 12 years,
and we were moving to a different state, and she was, you know,
saying goodbye to friends, she was saying goodbye to the house,
and saying goodbye to anything else that might have been holding on. Mm.
(45:05):
Wow. Dude. Now, you undersold this story, like, seriously.
Oh, my God. I tell it as I was told, and I try to remember the questions that
I asked, because I had many. Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah. Totally undersold it. This was amazing.
(45:28):
Thank you so, so freaking much. And yeah, we have to have you on again with your mom.
I want to know the serial killer story.
I know that one. I know she'd like to talk about it. So maybe we can set that up sometime.
Oh, hell yeah. Yeah, it's rough. It is rugged, but let's just keep this one between us. Okay.
(45:51):
Music.
A big freaking thank you to my dear friend.
Yeah, it's weird for me to not say a name, but you know who you are. And thank you again.
This was absolutely wonderful and a great freaking way to start off spooky season.
(46:13):
Thank you to everyone out there listening today.
My Haunted Life podcast is written, researched, produced, edited, and hosted by me.
Although this time I didn't have to write or research anything.
I swear, I really need to get back into doing interviews. I freaking love them so much.
(46:33):
Don't forget to check out the Patreon page. If you like what you hear and want
to support the show, please subscribe there.
You can support the show for as little as $2 a month.
If you have any information about any kind of ghost story, I don't know how you would have.
(46:55):
Any information about today's show but you
know like being haunted because a baby sister you never
knew about was hanging out or any
other ghost story just you know email me at my haunted life podcast at gmail.com
or write me on facebook instagram tiktok and youtube all at my haunted Life podcast.
(47:22):
I kept it as simple as possible.
While you're there, please like and follow and comment. It honestly makes my day.
And let's not forget the podcast group. I love the podcast group.
And make sure to tell your friends and family about it. Word of mouth goes a long way.
And music is by Ghost Stories Incorporated.
(47:46):
And that's all I got for you guys this week. um yeah I hope you guys have a
wonderful week I will see you next time and until then stay spooky.
Music.
Hello, Goblins and Ghouls, and welcome to my Haunted Life podcast.
I'm your host, Angela Hartshorn, and on today's episode, I'm interviewing a
dear friend who told me one of the creepiest freaking stories I've heard in a very long time.
This thing has some twists and turns, let me tell you.
(00:23):
Trigger warning for this one, though. We do talk about infant death in this one.
So, not like graphically, but please be aware.
Music.
(00:45):
Hello, my Darklings. How is everyone doing today? I hope it is spectacular.
As spectacular as your first sip of your favorite fall drink.
Drink because you are spectacular and deserve a good fall drink.
This is a very, very contentious argument in my house at the moment.
(01:09):
I'm definitely a pumpkin girly through and through, like pumpkin.
I will allow some good pumpkin spice, but I'm very particular still,
like to an obnoxious degree. agree.
The Hubs does like his apple flavors more, but his big thing right now is anything
(01:29):
s'mores, like anything.
He had a donut, a s'mores donut the other day. Loved it.
The time of writing this, pumpkin flavors haven't completely taken over the
world yet, so I've been at home making my own pumpkin chai.
I'm working on new pumpkin teas for Heart and Horn, and I will hopefully,
(01:53):
cross your fingers, have them out very, very soon.
So keep an eye out for those. But now I'm curious.
What is your favorite fall drink? I'm posting this in the Facebook group right
now, so that discussion can be started. I will report back.
By the time that this gets it's released, it will probably already have been discussed.
(02:23):
If this is the first time you're hearing about it, still, hop on, check it out.
Um, where am I? Anyway, welcome to the fall season of My Haunted Life podcast.
I cannot believe I've been doing this, like, what is it, like four years?
Obviously not that consistently, but I'm trying.
(02:44):
I am so freaking excited for the stories I'm sharing with you the next little bit.
Some of them I've been planning for freaking years and haven't allowed myself
to do so because I hadn't actually visited the sites.
So I made myself go and visit them.
(03:05):
And now I have some freaking cool stories for you and a lot of gorgeous footage.
But that's coming up in a bit. I don't want to do a whole lot of housekeeping
for this episode because with it being the the first one back,
I just really, really want to get into it. And this story is so good.
(03:25):
On today's episode, I'm interviewing a friend of mine that has an insane family
story that he wanted to share.
He reached out because he saw the post on the Facebook group requesting Furby stories.
And even though his story has nothing to do with Furbies, it reminded him to
reach out to me, this story and the way he tells it needs to be made into a movie. It's so good.
(03:55):
I it's one of those. I don't even want to give you a full like synopsis about what it is about.
Cause it's, it gives a lot of it away.
Like I knew a little bit going in, but I guess I had to put a little bit in
the description either way.
(04:15):
We'll talk about it. Again, though, trigger warning.
We do talk about infant death in this one, so keep that in mind.
New mamas, that kind of thing, Kayla. Looking at you, babes.
Just be aware. I also wanted to give a quick reason for the anonymous nature.
(04:40):
Said friend did not ask his mom's permission to relay this story.
It was something he just really wanted to tell me because it was a really good story.
I have always known him to be an honest, great guy, so I believe the story to be credible.
It's one of those good family legend situations.
(05:03):
There are little to no personal details given because if you know me and I say,
oh, it's this friend that does this thing, you will probably know who I'm talking
about basically immediately.
So this podcast is just about the story, which really slightly killed me because this friend is so cool.
(05:25):
And I, we couldn't talk about it.
But you'll love him in this.
It's so good. Anyways, so let's get into it, shall we?
Grab yourself a cup of tea. Make sure the doors are locked and the baby blanket
is close by. I have a story to tell you.
Music.
(05:50):
All right, my Darklings, we are doing something a little different today.
Yes, we have a interview, but our interview today is completely anonymous.
I know who it is. You guys don't get to know who it is. So I guess it's not
completely anonymous in that case.
(06:12):
I will totally vouch for this person. I have known this person for years.
I mean, I would say we're good friends. Yeah.
Yeah. I wouldn't say, like, besties kind of thing, but good friends.
I mean, I think one of your besties is, like, one of my besties,
so we're very close in that way.
Absolutely. I forget how long we've actually known each other for.
(06:35):
I haven't really pieced that together, but nearly a decade.
Yeah. Yeah, I was literally thinking about this. And this goes back to certain
events in Denver that don't exist anymore and beyond.
It's kind of hard to trace that. But yeah, it really has. It's been a long, long time.
(06:55):
Did we meet at fair? No, I think it was, I think other events.
I don't think it was a fair thing.
I don't think so. I think maybe it initially was like through runway modeling.
Like it's been so long. I apparently
mutual acquaintances yes totally I
was like god I mean that ages
(07:16):
everything right there because I haven't done a runway since COVID so
yeah oh my god that's been a very long time anyways long story short we've known
each other way before COVID and you what what has what What inspired you to
connect with me this time for the story?
(07:38):
I know you said, because you saw the Furby post.
Yeah, you know, I saw a post about Furby stories.
And I thought, you know, Furby's kind of reminded me of my youth and reminded
me of beyond that, like childhood toys and whatnot.
And that's kind of a part of the story that I wanted to tell.
And it just occurred to me that I've got this great story that was told to me.
(08:02):
I'm not directly involved in the story. This is my mother's story.
But it was surrounded with these toys and whatnot.
And I saw the thing for the Furby and I was like, you know, I've never really
had a chance to share this story. And it's pretty unique.
I love your podcast as it is. And I was like, you know what?
I might as well reach out and see if she wants to share this.
(08:24):
And the other fun thing with this podcast, I know very little about the story.
I'm used to being like the researcher. And honestly, the little bit you've given
me, it gave me goosebumps.
So I'm very excited for her. Very entertaining.
(08:47):
Yeah, it's a very interesting story. Again, I'm not. I'm there, but I'm not.
This is something that took place. Should I just get right into it?
Yeah, go for it. Totally. Are you good? Okay, so where to start with this?
So about five, maybe six years ago, my mom came to visit me and she brought
(09:13):
me a box of keepsakes that she's had in her house.
She's lived in the same house since the mid-90s. Her attic and her basement
are full of little keepsakes from my childhood, things that she's collected throughout the years.
And she was trying to unloading some of those and she brought a box when she
visited me and in this box were a whole lot of items that i recognized a pile of little drawings.
(09:39):
A coloring book some toys and one one item and it didn't recognize and it was
a little kind of baby blue jumper for infants like a little onesie for a baby
and i didn't recognize it i was
like what is this and she explained
to me that this was the clothing
(10:01):
that I wore home from the hospital after
I was born oh I I'd never seen
it before I was like okay that's nice you kept this yeah want me to have it
and I was kind of going what am I going to do with this yes you know and I even
asked her I was like what should I what should I do with this and she was like
(10:23):
well Some people, you know, frame them.
And she explained that at one point she had my first baby shoes that she hung
from her rearview mirror.
And she just thought, hey, maybe you'd like to have it. And I thought, well, thank you.
I don't know what I'm going to do with this. Yeah.
I mean, it sounds like a mom keepsake.
Absolutely. Absolutely. But I think she just was clearing things out.
She's getting a lot older and she just wanted me to have these items because
(10:46):
she didn't know what to do with them. That's fair.
And I kind of said, you know, mom, thank you. I don't know what I'm going to do with these.
I don't have children of my own. I don't intend to have any children.
And kind of having these big clothes around is a little bit creepy. Yeah. And she said to me,
It's nowhere near as creepy as it could have been. Mmm.
(11:10):
And I said, okay, explain it. What's the story there?
What are you talking about? And she told me this story.
So this takes place in 1976. Okay.
My mother is the firstborn of many children.
I am her first child. Okay. And when she was pregnant with me,
(11:33):
three or four months, I think, she had a baby shower.
Her friends and family got together and drew a standard baby shower, toys, gifts, food.
Love. She had a good time. It was a long, busy day, and she was really tired at the end of the day.
She packed up her car and was about to leave when my grandmother stopped her
(11:55):
as she was leaving and said, Hey, I have one more gift for you.
I wanted to give this to you privately.
Here you go. And gave her this box.
So she opened up the box and inside was a kind of a grayish blue infant clothing.
Like she called it a layette, which is just a name for clothing for babies.
(12:19):
It usually entails like a little bonnet and gloves and a little cape blit and all that stuff.
But this was just this one blue jumper. Okay, thank you for explaining that,
because I had to Google that.
Yeah. So she referred to it as a layout, and she looked at it, and it was old.
And it was really, really old, kind of, not like dirty, but it was kind of beat
(12:41):
up, and it had been around for a while.
Oh, wow. Grandmother explained to her that this had been in the family for some time.
Huh. And that the tradition was...
This was worn by the firstborn of the family. Oh.
So my mom said, oh, so is this what I wore as a baby?
(13:05):
And my grandmother said, no, this is what we brought your sister home in from the hospital.
Her name was Louine. Oh. And my mom said, who's Louine? Oh.
Oh. Oh. And my mom did not know this. She was in her mid-20s at this point.
My mom was not aware of this. Her sisters and brothers were not aware of this.
(13:30):
But before my mother was born, they had taken the child home that died a few days later. Oh.
Unfortunately, a tragedy. Yeah, very. My mom was kind of shocked by this.
Like, she didn't know about this. My grandmother was just kind of hitting with
this information. Yeah.
These clothes and being like, I'd like you to carry on this tradition.
Because Lillian passed away. Oh, my God. Yeah, what a surprise.
(13:54):
I know, right? And she was just like, but she explained, like,
my mom was, like, exhausted at this point.
So she took the somewhat creepy gift and she took it with the rest of the things and she went home.
This was, like, a Wednesday, I think she said.
And she took it to her house. Now, her house was a two-story building in Iowa.
(14:18):
Okay. In the middle of nowhere, a farmland. My dad had built this house himself.
Oh. Just about three acres of land in the middle of the farmland, Iowa.
It wasn't a farmhouse, but it was surrounded by farmers and farming.
We had neighbors that were close by, but on all other sides, it was like,
horn, as far as I can see, just middle of nowhere.
(14:39):
Okay, this is all sounding very lovely and everything, but I'm like,
this is literally every quintessential 1970s horror movie, and I'm loving it.
It's pretty nuts. Oh, my God.
So, she took all the gifts home
from the baby shower, and there's a little nursery on the first floor.
(15:02):
The setup on the first floor of this building is really standard.
Let's say a kitchen, a living room, a dining room. And then there's a long hallway
that leads to the master bathroom and bedroom.
And in that hallway, there's two other rooms. There's a little side bathroom and nursery.
So she unloaded everything into the nursery, and she didn't really touch anything.
She just kind of left it in there until the weekend.
(15:25):
And Friday night rolls around. My father at the time was working evenings.
He worked an evening shift from like 3 p.m. until midnight.
Night so he got home really late not ideal but that's
when he worked okay so during the day my
dad had helped her put together the crib and
start to put some of the furniture together for this nursery and then he went
(15:48):
he went to work so my mom was left home to finish the job and so she started
putting away all the little clothes and toys and knickknacks for the baby and
she had I had everything kind of laid out and sorted. Aw.
And she did some laundry, and she had dinner, and she was just getting to the end of the sorting.
(16:08):
And she said the last thing that she unloaded was that layette. Okay.
And she said, you know, it seemed kind of musty. It didn't seem dirty. It just seemed old.
So she kind of set it across the back of the chair. That was the one chair that was in the swirl.
She said she stacked the other clothes on the seated chair, but she remembered
laying the layette across the back of the chair. Thank you.
(16:29):
And she had dinner, and she went to bed. It was about 10 o'clock at night, and she was restless.
She was kind of having trouble falling asleep. And just as she drifted off,
she heard a noise, like a thud of some kind.
Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing spooky, nothing that scared her,
but something that woke her up and made her think her husband was home.
(16:55):
So she got out of bed, and she went to the front room. She turned on the lights and waited for a moment.
Nothing. She opened the garage. Her husband wasn't home. No cars.
So she gathered her things and she started to go back into her room.
And as she walked by the nursery down the hallway to her room,
(17:15):
she glanced in and she saw that the layette was in the middle of the room on the floor, bunched up.
Kind of in a particular way, the way it was bunched up.
Okay. And she stopped and she looked at it, and she didn't think anything of it.
She went in and she picked it up, and she kind of looked at it,
and she looked at the chair.
(17:36):
And she could have swore she put it across the back of the chair,
but she didn't think anything of it.
She set it on the seat of the chair with the other clothes.
What room is this again? This is the— This is in the nursery.
Okay, this is in the nursery. Okay. Mm-hmm.
So she went back to bed, and she laid down, and she started to drift off.
Off and as she was drifting off a noise occurred that just bolted her out of bed,
(18:00):
and she said at first she was like a loud noise happened that i really can't
explain and i said can you try yeah no i'm like i am so engrossed in this right
now oh my god so she said it sounded like.
Sheet metal being torn like a high-pitched
shriek of metal being torn oh scraping on metal but just a high-pitched like
(18:24):
she likened it to a tornado hit her farm in minnesota as a kid and it tore the
tin roof off of some of the sheds she sounded sounded like that just a high shriek real quick,
bolted her out of bed oh she she got hit with fight or flight and she shows fight,
(18:46):
she grabbed a candlestick off of her dresser and she ran into the front room
and she started yelling and she was yelling like who's in my house this is my
house who is here who is here oh my god how pregnant is she at this point she's
probably two or three months she's not that not pregnant, but she is pregnant.
But she ran in there and she started yelling. And she looked around in the front
(19:10):
room and there was nobody there.
There was no signs of entry, but this noise had scared her.
And she went and she grabbed the phone in the front room. Now this is the seventies.
This is a rotary phone and it has a cord about a mile long.
And she called my father. Now, when you call my father, you have to ask for
him. And then someone has to go find him. She's not calling him directly.
(19:32):
So she dialed the number. And before anybody could answer, she kind of just
started pacing. You know, she was nervous. She was still scared.
And as she was pacing, she got to where the nursery was.
And as somebody answered the phone and was like, hello, and she asked for her
husband, she looked on the chair and noted that the layette was missing.
(19:55):
And as the guy on the phone was like, yeah, let me go get him,
she walked into the nursery. No, no, no, no, no.
And found the layette in the crib.
Bunched up in the same position she had seen it earlier.
Oh. She ran. Yeah. She dropped the phone, and she ran. She fled from the house.
(20:17):
Oh, my God. This is 11, 1130 at night, and she ran to my neighbors.
Now, we were friends with our neighbors.
Okay. They were a very friendly family. They were farmers. We bought eggs from them.
Oh, that's cute. She knew them all by first name. So she ran to the house at
11 o'clock at night, woke them up, and said to them, there's someone in my house.
So the farmer and his wife woke their two teenage sons.
(20:42):
He grabbed a hunting rifle, and they all went back to my house.
Great neighbors. Love them.
The teenage sons took their dog, which I think was like a hunting dog,
and they checked the whole property, the outside.
While my mom and the neighbor's wife stood at the front door,
a neighbor went in and did a room-by-room sweep of the house.
(21:04):
And when he didn't find anything, all three of them did the same thing together.
The teenage sons didn't find anything, so he sent them home.
The neighbor and his wife stayed with my mom until my dad got home.
And so my mom was there, and she was, even with them having checked the house
together, she said she just had this feeling of dread.
(21:27):
She was just fearful until my dad pulled up. And as soon as he was there,
she got this sigh of relief, and she was, my husband's here, I'm okay.
And she explained to him what had happened. Yeah.
Now, she never, to the neighbor or my dad, mentioned anything about the layout specifically.
(21:49):
Oh. She heard noises. She heard bumps.
She sensed something in the house, and that she had found some things moved.
But she didn't specify the layout, and she did not tell my father the story
of the gift that her grandma gave her.
So she never shared this.
Really? Oh, my God.
(22:11):
So she chalked it up to, you know, like, they basically checked the property,
and then they said, hey, we'll check again in the morning when there's better
light to see if there are signs of intrusion.
The neighbors left. My dad and her went to bed.
Ugh. And for the rest of that weekend, my mom avoided the nursery.
She didn't poke her head back in there. She didn't go in and she didn't touch it.
(22:36):
However, her husband, my dad, did some further work in that room.
He put a dresser together. He moved a few things in and out.
He was working in there. She did not.
You still got to prepare for the baby coming. Yeah, that makes sense.
Absolutely. He's still doing all the work and everything else.
So Monday rolls around and my dad goes back to work.
And she, you know, got her courage up and went into the nursery.
(23:00):
And could not find the layout. It was gone. It was not where she had left it.
It wasn't anywhere else in the room.
And she kind of said she was thankful that my dad had been going in and out
of there because it gave her a logical excuse that maybe he moved it.
Yeah. I mean, you start, you know, trying to. He's in there moving.
(23:22):
So she's trying to be reasonable about this.
You know, she's not trying to, like, make this a paranormal thing.
She's trying to say, okay, well, maybe he moved it.
But she even went so much when she couldn't find it, and she scoured the room,
and she scoured the house.
She went back to the neighbor, and she asked him, when you were in the house,
did you touch anything? Did you move anything?
(23:44):
And he looked her right in the eye, and he said, the only thing I touched in
your house were the doorknobs and the cup of tea that you gave me after we left.
Like, that was it. Wow.
And she believed him.
So she never shared this with my dad. She never shared this with anybody.
She kind of kept this to herself. And there was never another occurrence.
(24:05):
Oh, interesting.
However, fast forward 10 years later. Oh, okay. 10 years later, my family moves.
We moved from Iowa to Wisconsin. And...
It was a big to-do. We had to hire a moving company, and people,
(24:25):
vehicles, friends were helping us move all these things.
Okay. And on the last day, all the big stuff had gone out.
It was me and my brothers and my dad left with the moving truck so we could
be extra hands on moving things.
And my mom remained behind to make one last kind of thorough sweet party.
Makes sense. So you're like 9, 10 at this point?
(24:46):
I'm about 10 years old, yeah. I left, and we were gone. and my mom was there
in the house, just kind of going through old drawers and stuff.
In the basement of this house was an unfinished half bath.
It was always kind of a creepy area. In particular, there were these tall cabinets
(25:08):
that went into the wall and it was unfinished on the inside.
So it's like really dreary and like spider webs and cobwebs and stuff like that.
And they would try to hide in there because it was big enough for a person to walk into,
but it was like into the wall okay my my
mom went down there and she said she went into the little half bath
and she saw that there was like something simple like a washcloth
(25:28):
had been left on the rack and she grabbed it and she
felt like i better look around in here and she
opened one of those cabinets so the deepest one and she
saw some tools had been left there because it was unfinished so
she grabbed whatever tools were remaining and she
kind of moved a few things aside some plywood wood
some dry walls and boards and she caught
(25:50):
a glimmer of color back of
this this uh unfinished cabinet
and she reached in and shoved into the back corner and that same little watered-up
look that it had previous was lit and she she pulled this thing out as musty
(26:12):
as it ever was and she She looked at it, and she got mad.
She got really, really upset that this was there.
Yeah. She went back to the neighbor, and she went to him. He was much older
at this point. He was retired and everything.
And she went to him, and she said his name, and she held it out to him,
and she said, Have you ever, did you move this?
(26:34):
Did you take this from the nursery when you were in my house?
Did you move this from my house?
And he picked it up, and he looked at it. He looked her in the eye,
and he said, I've never seen this in my life.
Oh. And she said, when you were in the house, how did you move around?
And he said, I went from this room to this room to this room.
And sure enough, he had gone into the nursery. Okay. And he had finished in the basement.
(26:59):
And she said to him, when you were in the basement, did you check these cabinets,
these cabinets that a person could be inside?
And he said, I didn't. I didn't think about that. I didn't know how large those
were or how deep they were. It just seemed like drawers to me,
so I didn't go in there. Okay.
And she believed him.
(27:19):
And the next thing she did was to grab the article of clothing from his hand,
and she took it to the corner of our property where there's an old burning mound.
We used to take, like, leaves and trimmings.
And she took the article of clothing, and she burned it, and she buried the remains.
Wait. And then she left the house and never returned.
(27:43):
Now, I ask her about this. i say
to her you know what do you think happened there
and she said when the farmer
told me that he had not checked that
cabinet she has to believe that someone was in that house and that someone hid
(28:05):
in those cabinets from everyone looking for him and then must have left and
he must have taken that article of clothing. I mean. Left it there.
Yeah. It's her logic. At this point, she's looking for that,
what can I tell myself, to be less scary.
Yeah, something to explain it away, yeah. Exactly. The less scary thing for
(28:28):
her was someone was at her house that night.
And yet yet she still
felt it was necessary to burn that article
of clothing oh my god okay okay
yes so that's that is the
story like this thing was i truly
(28:50):
think it was probably like a haunted item and it
had remained in that house and as a kid i
remember those little cabinets we would play hide and seek and they were
big enough for us to get inside and hide it was kind of like
that last ditch effort no one's gonna look in here because it
was creepy as all hell yeah that little
alcove and sure there was spider webs and stuff and it was just unfinished and
(29:12):
dark but there was something about that area that just left us shivering anytime
we ran it and maybe that's why it remained unfinished i'm not sure i mean that
makes sense so wait wait wait wait did Did you, so did you end up with it?
No, no, no. She burned it. Okay. Yeah, she retrieved it, and once she found
(29:32):
it and had her reasoning her way out, her logic out, she burned the article of clothing anyways.
Oh, I was going to say, if you ended up with it, I want it. Please send it to me.
I mean, she found a very similar replacement, I think, is what she found when I was born.
And I do still have that, but, I mean, that's nothing special other than I wore it as a baby.
(29:54):
You know okay so yeah that's that is it creeped me out and I always asked you
know why she hadn't really shared it with anybody and I think that something
really happened that scared her so bad that she needed to have,
something less scary to hold on to and say, no, it was just someone who broke into my house.
And that is insane to me that the less scary option was someone broke into the house.
(30:21):
I, I, I, wow. I could not imagine it. We had dogs on that farm.
We had animals. Like if somebody had come on the property, anytime someone would
come on the property, they made all kinds of noise. They were aware of it, you know?
But I don't know. Like she, She needed to tell herself that,
and that's what she told herself to this day. It was like somebody had broken into the house.
(30:44):
But I think in her mind, she knows that something haunted, something paranormal was occurring there.
Oh, wow. And I wonder why it was always balled up. Like, I wonder what the significance of that was.
You know, it was something that she pointed out, and I was like,
she made a point of saying, like, it was bunched up in a very particular way.
(31:07):
And i i never saw this article including i don't
know what the fabric looked like or anything and she described it as
old and musty almost like like it'd been
hand sewn maybe even knitted in portions but
wow in both all three occurrences of finding it it was just kind of wadded up
in a very particular fashion on the floor wow so yeah it's it's an interesting
(31:31):
story she's a very reasonable and logical woman.
Sounds that way. I've never known of her having experiences like this,
but when she shared that with me, I was like, so, haunted baby in the house?
And she was like, no, no, it was a person, must have broken in,
and that's what was scaring me, and they were moving things around.
(31:51):
Now, why they would select that one particular item to do that with, I don't know.
I can't imagine. So, for me, it seemed like something otherworldly.
And that was going to be my next question is, who do you think is moving it?
Like, is there a spirit in the house that's really excited for a baby?
Because, you know, when people are pregnant and expecting, activity is known to start picking up.
(32:15):
Or do you think it was actually attached to this?
See, it's really hard for me to say because the last infant who wore this possibly died in it.
See, my mother's unborn, well, the true firstborn of my mother's side of the
family died a few days after being born and brought home.
(32:39):
Wow. And she certainly wore this home from the hospital.
She certainly wore it in the time that she was alive. Was she wearing it when she died?
Or was it the first thing that was put on her and she was attached to it?
There's any number of reasons why a spirit could or would be attached to this.
Oh, wow. Why a child would choose to, you know, make these sounds,
(33:01):
haunt my mother or even warn her when she's also pregnant and know the same
line. You know, it's so hard for me to say.
Wow. Because I know there's like pregnancy, like psychosis kind of things where,
you know. Absolutely. Things start happening.
Absolutely. And my mother very much, when I was like, you know,
why did you not tell dad more details about it? Yeah, literally,
(33:24):
I would call Joran immediately and be like, you would not believe what just happened.
Absolutely. And I think a lot of it, you know, she didn't want to come off as,
I'm pregnant and hysterical.
She didn't want to be like, seeing things or losing my mind or this type of thing.
She didn't want to scare him and she didn't want to scare herself.
(33:45):
Again, a very, very logical, very reasonable woman. I don't know why she didn't
confess all this, but she never told him that story. Wow.
Do they know what happened to her older sister?
No, I don't know what the complications were. I could and should ask her that.
(34:08):
Yeah, but she had just found out. She didn't even know.
It's very strange that my grandparents did not share with their large family
the fact that they had had one child before all of them were born who didn't survive but a few days.
Yeah, like, my family doesn't talk to each other whatsoever,
(34:30):
but, like, we knew there were twins before my mom kind of thing.
Right, right. Yeah, they kept that to themselves. Wow. Oh, my God. Mm-hmm.
No, this, I did not expect it to be, like, this. I'm like, you literally should write this down.
(34:53):
Yeah i it's funny i i said the same thing to my mom i was like you need to write
these stories down and she has she has started writing some of her memories
like like a journal good and,
she was sharing this story with me and she explained that she was doing this journal now,
and she was like do you want to do you want to read my journal i was like yeah
(35:14):
i'd love to take a look at it but i think i know all your stories and she was
like well do you remember this story I was like, yeah, yeah,
that was when your brother threw the glass against the wall and it broke and he made you clean it up.
She said, what about this story? And I said, oh, yeah, that was when you were
in Cancun and the bear came into your camp and built a hole in the tent.
She said, oh, yeah, I guess you know all my stories.
(35:37):
And you remember the story about how my college roommate was murdered by a serial killer.
And I was like, whoa, what?
And proceeded to tell me that story. But we might have to save that one for another time. Ah!
(35:58):
Oh, my God. Yes, yes. That was the same reaction that I had.
I was like, what happened now?
And, yeah, sure enough, she wanted to tell me a story about how her college
roommate was murdered by a fairly infamous serial killer. Oh, my God.
Yes, and it's even more terrifying. It is a terrifying story.
(36:20):
So literally my mind is like going through all the famous, like, this is in the 70s.
I'm like, where was she at this point? She's in Iowa. Okay, okay.
Midwest. Yeah. I'm going to save that one for another time.
But yeah, my mom's stories are pretty crazy.
(36:42):
Oh, and you see, that's what you get for being like, oh, yeah,
I already know your stories. She drops another bombshell on you.
Oh, my gosh. So, did anyone in your family know this story other than when she
told you this five years ago?
No, no. I have since talked to my other brothers, and they were like, what?
(37:03):
And they're much like myself. They're into the creepy stuff, the spooky stuff.
Yeah. So, when I told them that, that was when they kind of were like,
oh, yeah, that little half bathroom, that little cabinet where we could hide. I was like, yeah.
Do you remember wanting to hide in there, but you couldn't do it for very long?
Mom, the cat was always creepy as hell in there.
So they were assured, like, yes, that creepy baby clothing was in there trying to get us.
(37:29):
Oh, my God. And she never told your dad?
No, no. I mean, my parents have since divorced.
Okay. So, I mean, they've both remarried and are very happy,
and they're actually very good friends to this day. Oh, that's nice.
But however, that was one story, you know, I just found out about this,
like, maybe five years ago.
And that's so amazing that she just randomly dropped this, like,
(37:55):
family history story almost. Surprise!
I think, like, she kind of forgets some of the things that she has or hasn't shared.
But, like, I just mentioned, I was like, it's kind of creepy to get this clothing.
And she's like, well, you want to hear about creepy?
And broke this story down. And I, again, like when she, even the way that she
(38:15):
described it and the way that she was telling it to me, I felt like she wanted
to reassure herself that although she was experiencing these things,
in the end, because the neighbor never checked that closet and because that
closet was where we found, where she found the article of clothing,
someone must have been in the house, taken that and moved it around and hid down there.
(38:40):
And and that idea to me is like so that person could have been hiding there
even when my dad got home yeah it was never checked he could have been there
for days like who was this person like to me that seems more fearful but yeah
she just she couldn't she was just like i i can't otherwise,
i don't have a way to explain this oh my god it's like she'd rather be able
(39:05):
to explain it and something that's
very scary rather than saying this was possibly something paranormal.
I mean, I feel like that's a very Midwestern thing. Because my dad's same era,
same age, from Wisconsin.
Like, he would see stuff move in our house or, like, deal with me and seeing
(39:28):
things and stuff. And it was always, like...
Nah, has to be something else. Yeah, absolutely.
And when she was telling the story and, you know, she's telling me the story,
I'm listening the same way that you did.
And I guess the portion of the story where she was like, I could have swore
I set the layout on the back of that chair as the last thing I touched.
And here it is in the middle of the floor.
Oh, well, it can't be anything. I'll just go pick it up and put it with the clothes.
(39:51):
It must have just fallen a foot away on the middle. It's like,
like, mom, are you hearing what you're saying?
Like, you just carried on? like it was bunched
up in the middle of the floor you knew what you had done you know it's
one of those things like it just couldn't be that wow
were there like any pets in the house or anything
nothing like that we had some we had an outdoor dog
(40:13):
a few farm cats that you'd see around them now
and then but like nothing inside the house like i said the same thing i
was like could the window have been open and blown this over like could
a fan have come on from the ac is like no out it was like this
moved and the the one that she specified was
when she went back when she was on the phone she finds it she
knows she had picked it up and set it on the seat at this point it was very
(40:35):
aware like i'm putting this here and it was in the crib again it moved again
and it was in that same kind of bunched up watered up ball that she described
and i was like i guess it must have It had been somebody in the house, you know, like.
Wow. Yeah, it is a crazy, crazy story. Wow.
(40:58):
I mean, it's one of those, like, thank God you never put it on kind of thing.
Oh, I wish. That would have been a story. That would have been something to
have. If I actually had it, that would have been fantastic.
Do you know if her sister was the first one to get it? Because it was a handy down.
Yes. So the whole thing was it was like a tradition for the firstborn of the
(41:21):
generation to wear this.
So my mom was the firstborn of six. I was the firstborn of three.
And I think her mother was the firstborn. So she had it and then she gave it
to her firstborn and so on and so forth.
Okay. So it's at least three generations back. Exactly.
I'd say longer. I don't have the lineage. I don't have a trace back.
(41:42):
Okay. She made it sound like my grandmother explained this had been in the family for some time.
I don't know what that means exactly, but at least three.
So, yeah, like it was to go to her firstborn, whose name was Louine.
Louine. But Louine didn't live very long. But she certainly wore this article
(42:04):
of clothing and most likely, quite possibly, dyed it. Right.
Not me. I'd probably end the tradition at that point, but people can't let things go.
Yeah, like, that's not something to, wow, wow.
Yeah, yeah. It's some craziness. And like I said, I didn't know about this until maybe five years ago.
(42:30):
And just, I love the random drops that your mom does.
I'm so thankful she's journaling now. I want to read her journals now.
Oh, my God. And I absolutely, like, I'm glad I learned this so that I could
ask questions along the way, you know? Yeah.
Like, we're trying to make my grandmother do stuff like this,
but it's so much nicer that your mom is, like, younger and you can actually
(42:50):
still, like, converse. That's really cool.
Absolutely. And she kind of, like, you know, when she's telling the story,
she was glossing over things.
Like, she was like, so I ran to the neighbors and I took them back to the house
and I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Like, you took one of them? You took two? Like, did they do anything?
Thing oh yeah he grabbed a hunting rifle and the boys took the
dogs and the dogs went around the outside of the house and i stood
(43:13):
at the front door with the neighbor wife and he
went inside i was like oh my god like she would just kind
of like all these little details i was like how did this and then what'd they
do you know like she kind of was just like and then they went aside and checked
and there wasn't anybody there and then we waited for my husband like no no
details yeah did you check the house oh we went from room to room and made sure
(43:36):
the windows and doors were all locked and,
she did explain like oh my god back in this time like locking the doors wasn't
something you did well especially out there yeah yeah middle of Midwest Iowa 70s like.
Like what I was saying to her, I was like, somebody could have gotten the house.
(43:58):
And she was like, oh, yeah.
The back basement door was most likely unlocked. Like I didn't have a reason
to lock it. I had been working out there the previous day.
I probably left it open. Like mom.
Oh, my God. Wow. That is my story.
Dude, you killed it. It was so good.
(44:22):
Yeah, I do wish that she had not. I do wish she'd kind of kept that article of clothing.
But I think she felt, I think at that point, she hadn't come to terms with the
fact that it could have been something otherworldly. And she was like, this has to go.
I mean, I understand protecting kids and stuff like that.
(44:43):
But at the same time, I'm like, damn it. I want it so bad right now.
But really, you know, No, it was kind of probably a farewell to that place as well.
Like, we had lived there for 10, I think she'd been there for 12 years,
and we were moving to a different state, and she was, you know,
saying goodbye to friends, she was saying goodbye to the house,
and saying goodbye to anything else that might have been holding on. Mm.
(45:05):
Wow. Dude. Now, you undersold this story, like, seriously.
Oh, my God. I tell it as I was told, and I try to remember the questions that
I asked, because I had many. Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah. Totally undersold it. This was amazing.
(45:28):
Thank you so, so freaking much. And yeah, we have to have you on again with your mom.
I want to know the serial killer story.
I know that one. I know she'd like to talk about it. So maybe we can set that up sometime.
Oh, hell yeah. Yeah, it's rough. It is rugged, but let's just keep this one between us. Okay.
(45:51):
Music.
A big freaking thank you to my dear friend.
Yeah, it's weird for me to not say a name, but you know who you are. And thank you again.
This was absolutely wonderful and a great freaking way to start off spooky season.
(46:13):
Thank you to everyone out there listening today.
My Haunted Life podcast is written, researched, produced, edited, and hosted by me.
Although this time I didn't have to write or research anything.
I swear, I really need to get back into doing interviews. I freaking love them so much.
(46:33):
Don't forget to check out the Patreon page. If you like what you hear and want
to support the show, please subscribe there.
You can support the show for as little as $2 a month.
If you have any information about any kind of ghost story, I don't know how you would have.
(46:55):
Any information about today's show but you
know like being haunted because a baby sister you never
knew about was hanging out or any
other ghost story just you know email me at my haunted life podcast at gmail.com
or write me on facebook instagram tiktok and youtube all at my haunted Life podcast.
(47:22):
I kept it as simple as possible.
While you're there, please like and follow and comment. It honestly makes my day.
And let's not forget the podcast group. I love the podcast group.
And make sure to tell your friends and family about it. Word of mouth goes a long way.
And music is by Ghost Stories Incorporated.
(47:46):
And that's all I got for you guys this week. um yeah I hope you guys have a
wonderful week I will see you next time and until then stay spooky.
Music.
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