"Raising A Family In A Haunted House" with Kent J. Wolfe

On this episode we welcome author Kent J. Wolfe to chat about his book "Ghost Theories: Raising a Family in a Haunted House". The book is based on TRUE events of Kent raising his daughters and living in a haunted house for 5 years. We chat about what happened during their time in the house and how it affected him and his family!

Grab your copy of Kent's book at the link below!

https://www.amazon.com/stores/Kent-J-Wolfe/author/B0C1Q1B5P2?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-unseen-paranormal-podcast--5862293/support.

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Join us as we dive into thehistory, hauntings, and high strangers of
the world to try to better understandthe paranormal. I will be your guide.
I am paranormal researcher and investigator EricFreeman Simms. Welcome to the Unseen
Paranormal Podcast. Hey everybody, welcomeback to the Unseen Paranormal. I am

(00:28):
your host Eric. As usual,today we have an awesome guest. I
am a bit under the weather,as you can hear with possibly I don't
know, allergy, sinus, infection, something going on, so I'm going
to keep this brief day. Butanyway, we have a great yesterday.
I really enjoyed this conversation. Hisbook is amazing and it is called Ghost
Theories, and it's about him raisinghis daughters for five years, his two

(00:50):
daughters for five years in a hauntedhouse and they moved in because they fell
in love with the house and didnot know that it was haunted, and
they started having all these experiences.And what I really like about the book,
it's a lighthearted story. There's nothingnegative or malicious that ever happened to
them in this house. But itwas very well written. You get to
know the characters really well and itis a non fixing true story. So

(01:11):
mister Kent, Jay Wolf was thefather and he's the one that wrote the
book. So y'all sit back andrelax and enjoy the show, and we'll
talk to you next time when I'mfeeling better. So y'all have a good
day. Stay sale o there.Hey Kent, thanks for joining us today,
Eric for having me. Yeah.Yeah, I come across your book
on Amazon, and I was like, I love these type of books about

(01:34):
people's first hand encounters, uh withmoving into haunted houses and haunted places,
and and like we were talking aboutbefore we started recording, I love how
you wrote it as well, withall the feeling in there and the things
that were going on in your lives, and so everybody kind of gets a
picture of you as a as theperson, and also your your daughters and

(01:55):
your girlfriend at the time, andand all that stuff in the house,
so you can kind of picture it. I love that kind of detail instead
of just the stories. Well,thank you. Yeah, it was you
know, we were just basically anormal, mundane family that happened to move
into a a haunted house, youknow, So yeah, it was pretty
interesting at the time, but likeI say, it really wasn't anything that

(02:17):
we were looking to do. Wejust fell into it. Yeah. Yeah,
and you kind of give some backstoryabout why you particular you you picked
this particular house to rent. Uh, you kind of when you were a
kid, moved on to a farmfor a few years and and kind of
fell in love with that life,but then had to go back to the
city. That's correct. Yeah,I really liked the rural lifestyle. The

(02:40):
old farmhouse is the country, youknow, you're not crowded in. And
so when this house came up forrent, I was very, very excited
about it, you know, Ithought, and I knew where the house
was. They'd driven by a lot, so I knew where it was.
I was a little uh excited alsothat their rent wasn't very high. It

(03:01):
was probably one hundred and fifty dollarsa month, maybe two hundred dollars a
month, less than what was youknow, on the market at that time.
Yeah, and this this was backin the eighties. Yeah, I
was in the mid eighties. Yeah, so put that in perspective for people
thinking, well, my rent's notthat cheap nowadays. Yeah, Yeah,

(03:22):
it was in the mid eighties,so yeah, rent's not that cheap.
Now, we were lucky to geta nice house for four hundred and fifty
bucks a month, you know,Yeah, you might get a cardboard box
for one hundred and fifty months.That's it. And so, like you
said, you've driven by this housemany many times and kind of was familiar
with it. And so you startout the book with you and your your

(03:42):
girlfriend at the time going in lookingat the house, and you had some
you had an interesting experience the firsttime in there. It was interesting,
and you know, I really didn'tknow what was going on at the time,
you know, if it was justexcitement for being you know, a
great old house. I mean itwas built in the eighteen hundreds, so

(04:03):
it was a great old house,all the bridge and the woodwork and all
that. So it was kind ofexciting. And I was in a crunch
because I sold my other house,so I had to find something to rent,
you know, within a month.So you know, it just fell
into this. So I was veryexcited about about that. And so,
you know, initially I didn't realizethat marine my girlfriend at the time was

(04:29):
having any type of you know,thoughts or feelings or anything like that.
I really can't explain it. Ithought maybe it was he had just varnished
the floors and stuff like that.Maybe it was fumes, but it was.
It was quite. It was quitethe feeling and very very strong.

(04:50):
Yeah, and you it's it's interestinghow people I've heard a lot of people
describe when they buy older houses,they're kind of drawn that way that and
into renting them as well, likeI just belong here for some reason.
You just have the overwhelming feeling thatI'm supposed to be here, and and

(05:10):
a lot of those houses ended upbeing being haunted. So you know,
there's the question, is that thespirit saying, oh, I pick you
for whatever reason. I know you'rea good person or whatever. The reasoning
is, I pick you to dealwith this or the universe because maybe because
you were skeptical, the universe orGod or whatever said okay, I want
you to go through this experience.So it opened up your mind. Yeah,

(05:30):
very true. Yeah, maybe thespirit or spirits that were there thought,
hey, this guy's a skeptic.We're gonna we're gonna change his mind,
you know that kind of thing.But yeah, the feelings were very
strong, and it was like,either I needed to live there or I
used to live there, or youknow, I had been there. I
mean, that was kind of theIt was very comforting in the house,

(05:54):
like, hey, I know thishouse, I've been here, I used
to live here, and you know, I don't really know I've explained it
even to this day, but itwas just kind of an overwhelming feeling that
I had. And even those thingsjust started happening the first time you took
your daughter's there, so you endedup getting getting to rent the house.

(06:15):
And the first time your daughters wentthere, they were nine and seven,
I believe I remember quickly. Yeah, they were seven and ten. Yeah,
And so they had some experiences,but you were you weren't convinced yet.
No, I wasn't. I wasoutside when they were in the house
exploring after we finally, uh,you know, we're renting it, and
I took them over there to showit to them, and they had some

(06:38):
experience with noises and they thought somebodywas walking up the stairs, which initially
they thought it was me. Theywere and my daughters. There were two
bedrooms upstairs, which was going tobe mine and my youngest daughter Ray,
So they were upstairs exploring around andthey heard some clunking and walking and and

(06:59):
no voice or anything like that.But then they looked for me, and
then they saw me outside. Sothey were convinced that somebody else was in
the house. Now whether they thoughtit was a ghost or if they thought
just somebody was in the house,but they did scramble outside, so I
had to take them back in andtry to prove that it was just all

(07:23):
normal natural sounds that old houses make, basically, Yeah, and going into
because that house, part of itwas built a long long time ago,
and then it kind of added onas a family home. Yeah, they
added on the garage to the backand the laundry room, bathroom and stuff.
Of course in the eighteen hundreds,there wasn't any interior bathroom, you

(07:44):
know. Yeah, So so partof the house was was really really old
and had been an old farmhouse.I'm guessing probably the entire its entire life,
it had been a farmhouse, correct. And most of the things that
happened were in the original part ofthe house, you know, in the
in the front part, which isyou know, the original party used to
have a small kitchen, but theydid expand the kitchen out, so most

(08:07):
of things happened in the original sectionof the house. Yeah, and it's
it's interesting. I always find interestingtalking to people like you who who had
younger kids and trying to want toprotect your kids in different ways, not
necessarily something that's that's evil or that'sthreatening them, but also to protect them
from not being scared to move intothat house because of the things happening,

(08:30):
right. Yeah, And like Isay, you know, we're quite a
while. I wasn't convinced of anything. I just thought it was you know,
different and actual noises, you know, So when we started hearing footsteps
and stuff, yeah, yeah,you know, it could be anything kinds
of thing. But yeah, Iwasn't, you know, convinced we lived

(08:52):
in a haunted house. Now,Maureen was she you know, she was
convinced about it. And my oldestdaughter, Sherry, who was ten at
the time, which I didn't knowit at that time, but she had
experienced some things as well on herown and it didn't really scare her.

(09:13):
Yeah, and so she just shejust had an interest in ghost or a
belief in ghost just in general.Yeah, Marine, I mean yeah,
Marine, yeah, yeah, shedid. She believed in that that it
was all possible and so forth.She was always trying to convince me,
and and anytime I tried to explainit away, she had a reason why

(09:37):
I couldn't explain it away, Andit was some type of paranormal activity,
which you know as the longer welive We lived there five years, so
the longer we lived there, themore things were happening. But really it's
hard to put into the book iskind of chronologically in order. But there

(09:58):
was things that you know, happenedthroughout. But when you know the first
time we heard, you know,the footsteps upstairs after we moved in,
there wasn't really any reason, noexplanation I could come up with on what
would cause that. Yeah, itwas always you know, it was always

(10:18):
upstairs, just in a little footsteps. But you know, these things weren't
happening every day, or they weren'thappening with a you know, frequently.
I mean we could be there sixmonths and not experience anything. Yeah,
and then things would start happening.And I believe that there were things we

(10:39):
didn't even notice, you know,with items that came up missing that I
explained in the story. There wereitems that came up missing or moved or
miss you know, I always thought, well, it was just misplaced.
I never connected those dots. Onetime my wallet was came up missing and

(11:01):
it was always on my dresser,and I thought maybe the girls were playing
a trick on me or something.But when they went to school, I
went upstairs and lo and behold,there it was back on my dresser.
Excuse me, man, we couldn't. I couldn't explain that, like where
that was or how it wasn't thereand suddenly it was there. But at

(11:24):
that time too, I wasn't reallythinking, you know, anything really paranormal.
It's like maybe just missed it orsomebody put it back and you know
that kind of thing. Yeah.Yeah, So did it seem to you?
I know it started out with likefootsteps and the door slamming. Did
things seem to escalate over time tolike get because you're talking about now things

(11:45):
are kind of disappearing and reappearing.So it seemed like things ramped up.
I know at other houses, evenmy own house is haunted, and and
like you're saying, you know,six months nothing would happen, but then
a lot of stuff would happened,right, Yeah, it ramped up a
little bit, and it started afterMaureen and I got married and she moved
in. Things would you know,happen more frequently and maybe, you know,

(12:11):
maybe she just pointed them out.I know there is one section in
there where there was actually no explanation. That was the bathroom, when we
were in the bathroom, that therewas no explanation for that at all.
There's no way that something like thatwould happen if without anybody actually physically being

(12:35):
in the house. I mean,you know, a living person. There's
really no way that would have happened. And that's when I started changing my
mind a little bit, like,well, maybe there's more to this than
animals walking on the roof or youknow, little things disappearing and I thought
they were just misplaced, you know, that kind of thing that really started

(12:56):
I really piqued my interest then,because that was never really you know,
I was skeptical of well, andlike I explained in the book, with
you know, with thousands of yearsof people dying and if you can come
back as a ghost, why aren'twe overrun with them, you know that
kind of thing. Well, youknow, Marine had an answer for that.

(13:18):
She said maybe after they crossed dover, they said screw and I'm not
going back. You know who knows. You know, I can't explain it,
but you know who I don't.You know, even to this day,
there's no I could never come upwith any explanation of the you know,
what happened when we were in thebathroom. They're taking our bath together.
We were married, so it wasokay that we did that. But

(13:41):
yeah, no explanation for it,no reason. I couldn't come up with
anything. Yeah, and over time, how did it affect your daughters?
You know, Sherry, Sherry wasn'tafraid. She had, you know,

(14:01):
no problem living there. I meanshe would the girls would actually be home
by themselves after school for maybe ahalf hour an hour every day. Sometimes
Share would be there by herself.Ray on the other hand, you know,
she was younger, Yeah, shewasn't as uh, you know,
she wasn't as she was a fraidycat like I was, you know,

(14:24):
when I was a kid. Soit did affect her some some more when
she was younger. You know,later on in life, she really liked
it. I mean she has greatmemories of it and you know, actually
had a good time. We actuallywanted to buy that house, but the

(14:45):
the owners weren't ready to sell yet, so we were thinking of actually buying
it, and of course they didn't. It didn't work, you know,
after things started. It was probablylike a year year and a half after
we lived there, just sitting aroundand talking at the dinner table. The
girls would say something like, hey, I heard somebody walking upstairs, or

(15:07):
I heard a door closed downstairs,and then they would think that I just
came home and I didn't, andthen they thought, well, maybe the
wind, just you know, windjust closed the door, that kind of
thing. I started taking notes.I had a journal, and I started
writing things down and just you know, kind of compare notes with people.
So anytime they came up with something, I would write it down and write

(15:31):
down the date, you know,those kind of things so I could remember
about it. And then decided toI was writing some short stories and poetry
and stuff then, and I eventuallywrote a short this book as a short
story, and then an authored friendof mine read it and saw my notes

(15:52):
and everything and said, you needto write a full book on this because
you have too much information and justput in the short story. So that's
that's how that started. And thatwas years later. I was in.
I didn't started writing that until youknow, mid mid later two thousands,

(16:14):
like two thousand and seven, eightsomething like that is when I started actually,
you know, compiling my notes andtalking back to my girls and Maureene
and you know, and that's howso that's how that all started. So
we kind of collaborated on that.Yeah, And there's uh, there's some
stories in the book that I foundinteresting because it seems like the spirits,

(16:37):
whoever was there, was kind ofhelpful sometimes. One of the stories that
kind of stood out was one ofyour daughters came downstairs for some water and
the cabinet opened by itself. Hey, here are the cups. Yeah.
Yeah, And we had just movedin, so and she didn't tell me
about that until later, but wehad just moved in and a few months

(16:59):
before that, and she got upin the middle of the night and to
get a drink of water and walkin the turn on the light and walk
in the kitchen, and the cabinetdoor that had the glasses into the cabinet
door open for so yeah, AndI said, then then they close it
too. You know, I wasa smart alley and still because I was
skeptical. It's like, yeah,whatever, the cabinet door open, whatever,

(17:22):
you know, that kind of thing, and then just teasing her about
it. But but that's it actuallyhappened. She swore that that's what happened.
And I thought, well, maybeshe turned on the maybe it was
open. She turned on the light. You know, you're trying to your
eyes get used to it, andshe thought she saw it open. But
but now it opened for her.Yeah, yeah. And did other things

(17:44):
happen like that where they seem tobe helpful. I've heard lots of stories
of that, Yeah, not toomuch. It is far, you know
that for me, I think ityou know, that little apparition, you
know, like to play tricks onme, you know how stuff, you
know, that kind of thing,to let me know it was you know
it, something was there, butnothing that was helpful. Now. It

(18:07):
did one afternoon, it was afew years after we lived there. It
Sherry was doing her homework on thecouch. She was the only one home,
and the mail came. Of course, you know, you got to
walk out to the road to themailbox. She went out there. She
came back in and her you know, her backpack and her tracker keeper and

(18:30):
all those things. That she hadin her backpack were off the couch and
the backpack was gone, and shelooked and looked and looked for it.
Then she finally found it. Itwas underneath the dining room table and everything
was neatly zipped up, and shewas the only one there. It didn't
scare her, but she thought itwas, you know, quite interesting.
But she didn't tell me about thatright away. It was a while later.

(18:55):
We were discussing something and she broughtthat up, but she never again
when I came home. She didn'tsay, hey, Dad, you know,
something moved my backpack. So butand I don't know why. Maybe
she you know, well she knewwas going to tease her about it.
You know, well you're going toget out of homework, you know that.
So you know, she was probablya little you know, hesitant on

(19:19):
uh, you know, bringing thatkind of stuff up. But yeah,
and then in the paranormal world,we have the two different hauntings that we
believe have and we believe there's intelligentthings, you know that interact like that,
like opening cabinets and like hiding stuffkind of tritures. And then you
also have like the what we callresidual which is kind of the footsteps that
just happened all the time, doorsopen and closing. M So it's interesting

(19:42):
to have all of that going onand try to work through, Okay,
what's what's actually something that's interacting withus, and what's just something that's just
you know, phantom noises, right, And are they trying to communicate with
us? Are they trying to youknow, say something to us? And
you know, and that's you know, and quite a few things would happen,

(20:03):
you know, on a beautiful summerday with the windows open, and
you know, it wasn't any anythingyou know where it was always in the
middle of the night. You know, it wasn't always if only one person
was there, you know. SoI mean there were things that happened when
all four of us were there andwe all experienced it at the same time.

(20:23):
And then the cat was pretty interesting. You know, we got a
cat and it would act just likeit was being scratched and petted. Normal.
So if you're around the cat andyou went down and rubbed this back,
its tail goes up in the airand it arched up, you know,
stuff like that because you're petting it. It would act like that.

(20:45):
Quite a bit and then lay onthe floor like it was pawing at somebody's
hands as it was being scratched.And that would go on and right in
front of us, and then itwould be over and the cat would jump
on the couch and we done.So that happened too, so which was
interesting. There was no the firsttime it happened, you know, all

(21:08):
the girls were freaked out about it, and so I tried to say,
well, maybe it's you know,maybe the cat's getting sick, you know,
so just leave them alone, youknow. So because you know,
we didn't know Marin and I didn'tknow it what was actually going on.
But you know, it happened.It happened quite a bit, and it
happened in front of other people.Yeah. I didn't put all of that

(21:29):
in the book, you know.So yeah, so you know, it
might have happened three or four timeswhen other people were there, you know,
if we were having uh, youknow, a party and people over
for dinner, you know, orfamily. You know, the cat would
do that then and they go,what's wrong with your cat? And obvious
leave alone, leave leaving alone.He's got you know, hip problems or
something. I wasn't about to explainall that doing. But you know,

(21:52):
my family knew my family, youknow, a couple of my sisters were
there and when things happened, andwe just kind of explained it away,
like no big deal. You know. It's interesting though, because it got
to the point where things would wewould hear something, or something would happen,
we would just ignore it. Itjust became like an ordinary every day

(22:15):
occurrence. That wasn't every day,but you know, just an ordinary occurrence
like somebody walking, you know,across the floor upstairs. You know,
it's like and we'd all look upand just say something like, you know,
footsteps, you know, that kindof thing. And it was it
never it was never menacing there.We never felt, you know, like
we were in danger. And likeMareene said, if something was trying to

(22:38):
scare us out of the house,why did we have those feelings when we
went there and looked at it,you know, so why didn't they try
to scare us, you know,out of there instead of inviting us in
which is you know, which istrue? And nothing really, you know,
truly frightening happened. It was,you know, except to Ray and

(22:59):
I don't want to give all ofthat away. But you know, but
and after that point it's like,okay, so too, no denying anything
now. But even after that,the girls, you know, it was
about another year we were there.Even after that, you know, the
girls liked it there. They hadno problem for being there by themselves,

(23:21):
you know, that kind of thing. So it was never menacing. Nothing
ever menacing happened. You know.There there were voices, there were things
that you know, might disappear.There's interesting thing with the washing machine,
and you know, I thought there'sno way would happened. Well, Maureene,
and I did an experiment and andsure enough it did, you know,

(23:45):
So so I say it was itwas interesting, and it wasn't.
It was never frightening, and itnever you know, things didn't happen,
you know, every day, youknow, we can go months without anything.
Yeah, And with the washing machine, you would put clothes in and
like start the load and go offand do something else like you you know,

(24:07):
normally do when you're doing laundry andcome back and the lid was up
and the washers not even on right. Oh, yeah, and that happened
quite a bit. Yeah, thelid would be up and you know when
that first happened to me, Ithought that was the only person home they
when the girls had their first dayof school after removed there, I was
home for the day, took theday off doing chores and doing laundry,

(24:30):
and you know, went out andmowed the lawn and thought we'll come in
and threw the clothes in the dryer. Well, the lid was up.
You know. I just told myself, well, that was stupid, would
do that wall But then I rememberit as I was eating, I thought,
well, wait a minute. WhenI was closing the lid, it
slipped from my hands and slammed down, and I picked the lid back up

(24:52):
and then set up to make sureit wasn't like bench or anything. I
set it back down, so Iknew. I knew that lid was down
of the washer, so I hadno idea why it would come up,
and I never mentioned it to Marine. It came up one day when actually
her and I were doing chores aroundthe house, and you know, the

(25:12):
lid was up, and I toldher, I said, I left the
lid up on the washing machine again. She said, what do you mean
again, Well, it's happened before, you know, I think I put
it down and I come up andthe lids up, and then she said,
you know, that's happened to me, and I thought it was just
me. I go, well,wait a minute, let's compare notes on

(25:33):
that, you know. So,yeah, we did a little experiment and
then knew for a fact that itwasn't just being forgetful to put the lid
down. But it was interesting itwas only the washer and not the dryer,
you know, the dry the dryerdoor. When do you close the
dryer door, it wouldn't go backin and the dryer door is open.

(25:55):
Yeah. One thing too, Iyou know, time when I was looking
at uh, looking at notes andcompiling and started writing, a lot of
things revolved around water. You know. We had the bathroom things, kitchen,
sink, faucet, they had thewashing machine, you know, different
things. So a lot of thingsrevolved around watch I'm to do with water?

(26:19):
And I don't know if there wasany correlation between it or you know,
you know, but it's just kindof an interesting that, you know,
it was kind of water related.Yeah, that is that is interesting.
Yeah, around water, and there'ssome there's some paranormal theories around that
with water running under structures and things, but I've never that. Yeah,
that is interesting. Another thing Inever heard of, and I'm sure people's

(26:41):
other people have this, I've justnever heard stories is with the cat,
you know, being headed by whatappears to be a ghost. Yeah,
that's interesting. But also one ofthe things that we talked about in the
paranormal lot is like cold spots,and you had a lot of interaction with
cold spots on the stairs and otherparts of the house as well. Yeah,
the cold spot. Never noticed itwas on the stairs and we'd lived

(27:04):
there probably oh maybe you know,eight ten months, maybe a year.
One day, I just walking upstairsafter work and went through, you know,
felt like a little cooler part,you know, like a little cooler
part of the stairway, and Ithought, well, maybe windows open,
it's just degrease. But it wasninety degrees out and the window it was

(27:26):
open, but it wasn't blowing anycool air. So the cold spot was
there. And of course, youknow, the girls when they found out
about it, you know, hey, how come this spot, Dad,
this spot feels a little colder here. Yeah, I know, there's there's
just some air coming up from thebasement and it's blowing through a crack in

(27:47):
the step. So okay, yousee explain that away. But there wasn't
any There wasn't any crack under thestairs. We investigated that a lot,
and he could actually and the areawas measurable, you know, we measured
that, Marene and I did.But you know, it was so common

(28:07):
to have it, and it wasalways there. Once it was once we
found it was there, it wasalways there. So when we were walking
upstairs, even Ray, you know, so she's eight or nine then and
she's going she walking to the coldspot because she's walking through it. You
know. So that's how commonplace itwas. It wasn't scary or anything.

(28:27):
It was just something that was there. Marine thought it was a portal.
You know that this is a portalgoing between you know, dimensions are the
afterlife and stuff like that. It'slike, okay, well maybe you'll let
me stick my head in there andsee what's going on inside the portal.
You know, that never did right, right, I don't know. That's

(28:49):
that's an interesting theory because especially thinkingabout okay, this activity comes and goes,
you know, for months nothing andthen for months have a lot of
you know, yeah, that's interesting, like where did they go? Are
they building up energy? Like youknow what? Why is it like that?
And a lot of locations are likethat. Yeah, or maybe they

(29:10):
were there and just had nothing tosay about it. Yeah, they're just
walking TV with us or whatever.But yeah, and then the closet was
there was a lot of activity inour closet. So there were two bedrooms
upstairs and then a great big landingwhen you get to the top of the
stairs, and that landing was probablyeight by ten or ten by ten.
It was a big landing, andthen a bedroom door on each side of

(29:33):
it, and the closet would wraparound and went into between the two bedrooms.
You could walk right through there.It was quite long, and we
started having noises in the closet,clinking hangers and little rustling of clothes and
you know, stuff like that.They started off pretty slow. Woke and

(29:55):
marine up one night, but Iactually, you know, got out of
it bed and turned the closet lighton to see it, right, because
it went to razor room when she'swalking through the closet or whatever, you
know, in the middle of thenight. But there were some hangars that
were moving back and forth with clotheson them, and then some you know,
you got metal hangers that had clothesand some not. So they were

(30:18):
moving and clinking a little bit andthen they just stopped and that happened.
Once that started. That was probablythe most frequent thing that happened in the
house, was something going through thecloset or something coming out of the closet,
you know, noisy, you know, walking through and with the cat.

(30:38):
I thought at first the cat wasin there, just you know how
cats are, But the cat wasalways on the bed. But yeah,
that was the most frequent area forany type of noises. There, things
that you couldn't explain was in thatcloset. Yeah, and that's a it's
interesting to have a closet like thatgoing through one room to another because I

(31:00):
think in the book you say it'slike fourteen feet long. Yeah, about
fourteen feet long. Yeah, Yeah, that's an interesting feature in the house.
Yeah. What what did your exwife, your your daughter's mother think
about all that activity? Because I'msure they went to her and talked to
her about it. I me,you know, I never really talked to
her too much about it until after, you know, the book was published.

(31:22):
I gave her a copy and sheread it and she remembered the girls
saying some things about it. Butagain, it wasn't you know. So
somebody says something like, hey,mom, I heard footsteps upstairs the other
night. Oh yeah, what happened. Nothing, I just heard some footsteps,
and then they don't tell her anythingfor six months because there is nothing

(31:47):
happened, you know, that kindof thing. Of course, after you
know, the Ray incident and forthe end there, then she knew all
about that. But it was Idon't think it was ever. Lin never
disgusted with me until after after thefact, you know. But as it
was going on, I mean,we were forging everything. It wasn't any

(32:07):
type of bad blood. So wegot along, okay. But it was
Lynn's grandpa and grandma, So itwas a girl's great grandpa and grandma.
They after Lynn and I separated,they would watch the girls the babystays.
I drop them off. And theylived in a big farmhouse too, which
is great. So one day,quite a long time after we lived there,

(32:35):
I think Ray was ten then,so they were sitting around eating dinner
and mentioned something about it would comeoff occasionally, you know, about somebody
heard something and Ray said, yeah, Grandma said the house is probably haunted.
If there was a ghost there,the best thing to do is just

(32:57):
leave alone. And we had neverheard anything from the grandparents about the house
being haunted, you know, Imean, they were always concerned for the
girls and blah blah blah, butnever mentioned anything to us. We were
floored by that, and so itkind of, you know, it kind
of helped the girls like, Okay, well, I guess because Grandpa and

(33:20):
Grandma once lived in a haunted houseand pans would rattle and little things would
happen, you know, stuff likethat. So that's why Grandma said,
yeah, there might be a ghostthere, but don't worry. It's not
going to hurt you. It's justit's living there with you, you know,
won't hurt it. Don't worry aboutit. Yes, I think that
that actually helped them, you know, and when they actually when she when

(33:43):
Grandma actually told the girls that,it could have been a year or two
before they actually told us, Sothat might have helped, you know,
relax them a little bit, like, oh, well, I guess haunted
houses are ghosts in houses are anormal thing, and don't you know.
Yeah, and with all the noisesand doors moving and things like that,

(34:04):
and the laundry stuff. Did youever see any apparitions in the house.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,we heard one time. The it was
after dinner. Ray had found acouple of toys up on her pillow,
an old toy fire truck which Istill have and a rubber ball on her
pillow when she got home from school. So she brought it down at dinner's

(34:29):
playing with it. She said,she just found them on her pillow,
And I thought, well, maybeshe got them from ground or Sherry put
them there, but didn't she justfound them. Well that later that day
was you know, after so itwas evening, so the girls were outside
with the cat running around and canhear them, you know outside, and
we heard footsteps upstairs, but theywere moving quite fast. It wasn't just

(34:54):
like a slow walk. It waslike a you know, fast walk.
Yeah. Well, I realized thatthe girls flashed by the front window.
I could see him go by thefront window and then around the side of
the house. Then those footsteps wentfrom the front window, which is in
my bedroom quite quickly, across thelanding and into Ray's room. And it

(35:19):
did that a couple of times,and then I realized, whatever is up
there is following them. So itwas looking from one window, and the
girls had run around the house.It looks out the other window, goes
in the raised bedroom, looks outthat window. The girls come back around
the house. It goes back intomy bedroom, looks out the front windows.
So fall I thought, oh mygod, that whatever's up there is
following them. So Marine and Iheaded for the stairs, and as soon

(35:43):
as we got there, I sawlike a it was a flash. It
was like a one second flash,but this kid running by, and I
could see and you know, yourmind just trying to process this ass as
it can, but I saw thekid. I saw his leg and a
little black shoe going from the landinginto uh in the raised bedroom. Marine

(36:08):
actually she was there and she sawshe was behind us. She had a
better view, but she saw aboy. He actually saw him. So
we went flying upstairs thinking there's somekid in the house. You know,
we both saw it. There's akid in this house. So we looked
and looked and looked everywhere, underbeds and in the closet, him everywhere.

(36:31):
Actually tried to scare him out ofthe closet but didn't work too well.
Marine scared the crap out of me. But but there you go.
So it's like, okay, nowwe need to come to grips with with
this. We thought about moving andlike Marine said, I don't think it's

(36:51):
trying to scare the girls. Ifit did, if it wanted to,
why didn't Why didn't he appeared tothem, you know, that kind of
thing. She said. It waskind of made sense at the time,
but I thought, my gosh,if it ever does now, Sherry might
not care, but Ray's going tothen I felt a little uncomfortable from that

(37:13):
point, honest, Like, Okay, hearing footsteps is one thing. Seeing
something is totally different, you know. So it's in my room, it's
in Ray's room, it's in theupstairs, and we hear it, you
know, quite frequently, and sonow I know what we're hearing. So
but I asked myself this question,why would if it's walking around the house,

(37:37):
how could it physically make noise onthe floor unless it was actually there,
you know, And how does itdisappear? Well I have no answer
to that, you know. So, but it's always intrigued me, like
is it always something always walking aroundupstairs. It is he always there,
but we only hear it when hewants us to hear it or some other

(38:02):
reason, you know. So isit maybe it was there all the time,
but we couldn't hear it all thetime. I don't know. I
have no idea. Nobody and thelittle kid didn't explain it to him to
sit down and go, hey,this is why you can hear you sometimes,
you know, which would make greatyou know. So that was interesting.
It's like maybe he's just always alwaysthere, but just sometimes we hear

(38:22):
them. You know. Yeah,did you ever since you're renting the house,
did you ever talk to the ownersand ask them about the panormal activity?
Well, you know, so we'rein a small town and we're renting
the house, and I didn't reallywant to, Like when we got the
babysitter, when Heather, I didn'twant her saying anything about it. And

(38:44):
the reason is we're renting the house. If the word got around that we
think the house is haunted and wemoved out, will they be able to
rent it? That was one thatwas my big thing, like, you
know, I don't want this toget around that we live in this haunted
house. That's why I didn't want, you know, the babysitter to get

(39:05):
freaked out because if she told theother high school kids, and I wouldn't
have a babysitter. And no one'sgoing to babysit in a haunted house.
So I wanted to keep that underwraps, you know. But my main
concern was, you know, notnot affecting the rental value of the house,
you know, that kind of thing. But then again, they were
renting it for less than market valueto begin with. And the babysitter that

(39:31):
we you know, we had,Heather, you know, she had heard
from her dad that people moved inand out there frequently because the house was
haunted, which you know, that'sthe first we heard of it. We
lived, you know, twelve milesaway in a different small town. They
didn't know anything about you know,that area too well. But you know,

(39:52):
we never heard anything about Nobody said, hey, there's a haunted house
there, so we didn't know.So is that a reason maybe they couldn't,
you know, maybe they couldn't rendit. Maybe other people knew,
but I mean Heather knew and sheyou know, went to Grand Led schools,
so she had heard that the housewas haunted. And she actually brought

(40:15):
that up, you know, thatshe heard the house was haunted, and
uh, you know, I said, well, you know, we charge
more if you have to watch ghosttoo, you know, that kind of
thing. Just trying to be assmart alec. Yeah, but you know,
so anyway, no, we didn'treally discuss it a little week after

(40:35):
we saw the boy when Marina andI they just lived a quarter mile down
the road, so we'd walk overthere and pay rent the landlord. And
so I did ask him. Isaid, hey, have you you know
of any kids that you know diedin this house? And they said why?

(40:57):
And I said, well, youknow, Ray found some toys on
it, you know, and fromlike little boy toys. And then they
said, well, why would itmatter if they were dead? You know?
Well actually I told him, Isaid, you know, if anybody's
lost any you know children in thehouse, and and Cap said you mean
missing or dead? And I said, no dead. So but that's as

(41:21):
far as we got. And wedid. We did tell them later why,
and he I think he knew hewould ask me actually painting around or
just coming down or we're chatting orsomething, you know, Hey, you
know, notice any hear any noisesin your house? You know that kind
of thing. Yeah, and whichwas in you know, we had an

(41:43):
animal, we had some animal problemsin the attic. So after that,
I say, hey, you've beenhearing any noises, which is always interesting,
And I go, no, why, I'm just curious. You know.
He never said anything like he's goingto say something like, oh,
by the way, the house ishanded, you know, keep an eye
before. So we never did haveany real long conversations about it. And

(42:05):
when we did, they said,now, we've lived there a long time
too. We never noticed anything.Now, whether they did or not,
maybe they didn't want to say again, because who wants to rent a haunted
house if it was. Yeah,and back in the eighties, I mean,
you know, it's a completely differenttime with pop culture and stuff,
and you know, nowadays it's likewe're talking now, it's a lot more

(42:25):
out in the open and a lotmore people were, you know, talk
about ghosts and hauntings and paranormal things. So sure, well back then there
isn't there was no internet, right, you know, and which you know,
think about that. I mean,you and I wouldn't be talking if
it was nineteen eighty five because youwouldn't know anything about it, right,
So, yeah, there was nointernet, There wasn't anything to research.

(42:46):
It was you know, so hehad newspapers, he had radio, TV
magazines, but you know, theremight be a leading story here or there
about some hauntings somewhere, but itwasn't out in the open. It wasn't
prolific, you know. So itwasn't and it wasn't easy to find,

(43:07):
you know, so we couldn't research. You know, we didn't know who
used to live there, so wecouldn't you know, research that find them
online and you know, go knockon their door, you know that kind
of thing. So, yeah,it was you know, it's completely different
time as you know, before theinternet, really the lines of communication was
telephone, you know, TV andnewspapers. Yeah, you know, it's

(43:31):
really hard to find. I meanobviously there were books you know about haunted
houses and so forth, but notspecifically about the house that you're living in.
Yeah, and that's why I wascurious if you'd ever talked to the
owners, because I for me,my curiosity be you know, like yours
was, you know, who's who'shaunting the house? Who's this little boy?
You know, what's the story here, right, Yeah, And I

(43:53):
was adamant that nobody said anything andMaureen, which would say something to her
sister and mother and stuff like that. But I didn't want to discussing with
the girls or the babysitter with Heather. But you know, of course those
two talk about things anyway behind myback because they knew I was you know,
not you know, maliciously, butI just you know, they both

(44:16):
believed the house was haunted, andthey know they knew that I didn't believe
it was wanted. A lot ofthat was because I didn't want the girls
to find out, you know,I didn't want them I didn't believe we
were in any danger, and weweren't in any danger. I mean,

(44:37):
it wasn't anything you know, maliciousgoing on. So you know, hey,
I don't want to basically, Idon't want to have to find another
place to move, so don't scarethe girls. And so now they don't
want to live here anymore, youknow. So that was my whole thing.
Nobody's in danger here, Yeah,just some noises until we saw the

(44:59):
boy and then things changed from there. And that's the only reason we mentioned
anything to landlords. About it,or I did to see, you know,
if somebody died and I and theydid. Two boys. They heard
that two boys in the early nineteenhundreds died of the influenza. They lived

(45:19):
in the house, which is probablytrue. Back then, people were dying
all the time from the flu youknow. So all right, well now
I've got my answer. You know, that was my whole thing. I'm
done. I had my hand.I don't need to go any farther,
I mean, need to find outtheir names or anything like that. I
didn't go look in the you know, archives of the newspapers to find out
anything. But that's all I needed. Okay, So maybe that's what it

(45:42):
is. Maybe it's the boys orboth of them, who knows, that
are still there off and on,you know, so hey, who knows.
Maybe they can come and go asthey please. Maybe it was a
quortal in the stairway. Maybe theycan go wherever and they can come back
you know later, Hey, let'sgo see what's going on in the at

(46:02):
the old house kind of thing.Yeah, they found out there's two kids
there now, so they're coming backeven more. And I didn't really want
to say anything, but I lateron I thought you know, maybe it
did have something to do with that. You know, maybe hey, there's
kids here. Maybe that's why theywanted us to move in, because now
it's going to have two kids there. Maybe that's why this little apparition wanted

(46:24):
us to live there, because itknew that we had two kids, and
you know, it's a little kidand you know that kind of thing.
So maybe there was some interaction there. Maybe that's part of the reason.
I don't Again, I don't know, but I thought about that afterward.
I thought, well, maybe itknew that we had two kids. Yeah,

(46:45):
it's a fascinating, amazing story.Do you know what? Do you
know what ever happened to the house. It's They did eventually sell it,
but they were keeping it for becausethey had lived there when they first got
married, and they lived there inthe fifties and the family bought the farm

(47:06):
next door and they got the house. Then they wanted to when the parents
died, the landlords moved into theirbig old farmhouse. They wanted to keep
that house for they had three sons. If one of the sons wanted to
move into that's why they didn't wantto sell it. Yeah, it wasn't
you know. I mean they hadto be a pain. They weren't making
a lot of money on it,and there's an old house and a lot

(47:28):
of repairs. But over the years. But that's the reason. It must
be the kids. They didn't wantto move there, so they eventually sold
it. No, when Sherry gotout of high school and was working at
the school with Heather, who usedto be your baby's there, one of

(47:52):
the boys she was talking to,you know, came up to her and
said, you know, we're goingto have to move. And she goes,
oh, that's too bad. Butyour dad get transferred. No,
she didn't know where he lived,and she said, so, you know,
so where do you live now?And when he told her here were

(48:12):
the address, Well that's where wasthe house, and said, well,
how come you're moving? Well,my mom hears the voices and sees faces
and she's afraid. Wow. Hegoes, oh interesting, and didn't push
it. Of course, I mean, he's a fourth grade kid, he's
not going to push it. Henever went over there. So it had

(48:32):
change has changed hands over the years. The garage of back is now gone.
They remodeled it and so forth andso on. Actually, the people
that live there. Now. Ithought about mailing them a copy of the
book, and then I thought,you know what, I probably shouldn't do
that again because they go, oh, my gosh, this is a haunted

(48:57):
house. Maybe they didn't. Maybemaybe it is, it's not, maybe
nothing's happening there at all. Butthen again, okay, if you at
tax that to that physical address,what would that do? You know?
So now it's out there and peoplego, because obviously in the book addressesn't
correct, you'll never find this houseif you want to, I don't think.

(49:17):
But now it's attached to that house, and then rumor gets around and
then they try to sell it.I'm not buying that it's haunted. I
read the book, you know,So that's really the main reason. Though.
If I bumped into him on thestreet somewhere happened to I might strike
up a conversation. Hey, weused to live there, you did,

(49:38):
Yeah, yeah, we used tohear footsteps, you guys hear any footsteps?
So yes, no, who knows, but it'd be interesting. I
think it'd be interesting. But againI'm not I'm not going to initiate that.
You know. If somebody figured itout and got a hold of me
and said, hey, I knowthat house. I live there. Then
then i'd have an open dialogue,but I don't want to initiate it.

(50:01):
My daughter lives, you know,two miles down the road from there now.
So but actually one time it wasfor sale, marine stopped in and
looked at it and you know,hey, it's remodeled. And she never
said to the realtor. I don'tknow if the owners were there, but
she never said I used to livehere. She just stopped him to look

(50:24):
at you know. So we're nottrying to, you know, to initiate
anything or get anything going. I'mnot too sure why, but I think
I think it's just because I don'twant, you know, to and have
anything attacked that house and affect somebodyelse's value. Like if I lived in
a house and somebody said, hey, you know that house was haunted and

(50:46):
everybody knows about it, well,how heck am I going to sell it?
Now? I'd be calling you andsaying, come over and investigate my
house farm, you know so?And would that happen if it got when
they have knocks on the door,Hey, here's a book about your house.
You know, ken, we youknow that kind of thing. So

(51:06):
I'd rather just keep it quiet.Like I said in the book, I
like to be invisible. I don'twant the I r rest and know who
I am anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah, well I really I really
really enjoyed the book and the story, and and like I said, I
love all the detail that you putin it, so you kind of get
to know you and Marine and yourand your two girls quite a bit,
and even the even the two ladyand the gentleman that rented the house to

(51:29):
you kind of described them really well. Yeah, and I love how you
ended the book with a picture ofbuck Wheat the cat. Yeah, Buckwheat
the cat. Well you know thatpicture in that picture. So Marine was
going it was around Easter time andshe was going to the store and at
that time he had one ten instematiccameras or whatever they were. Yeah,

(51:51):
she was going to take the filmin. Well, she noticed there was
one more picture on the camera.So she happened to step out back and
there's buckweed the table with some snowand the crocus in the pot. She
thought that was a pretty interesting pick, you know, pretty interesting scene.
So she snapped the picture of it, and then after it was developed,

(52:12):
we were looking at the pictures.We were looking at them and suddenly we
said, there's a face in thatwindow. Oh I see it now I'm
looking at the kindle copy. That'sthe lawny room. Yeah yeah, kid,
face, Yeah, there's the there'sa face in that window. When
me see it and everybody I showedthat picture too, Some people see it

(52:36):
and then some people go, ohmy god. You know, so you
know, whether it is or not, I don't know. You blow it
up. It looks it's blurry.It's from a one you know, it's
a one ten picture that's scanned onmy computer. So it's a second generation
picture. It's better in the originalone, but you know, it's just
a small picture. But yeah,so that's the picture she took, and

(53:00):
there's the face. That's the lawn, that's the lawndry room, and then
there's the table, and then tothe right of the picnic table, there's
that's the kitchen window that looks outside. So yeah, you're looking into the
laundry room windows there. Yeah,that that bottom lest Paine in the window.
Yeah it looks like a face.Yeah yeah, So we just happened
to notice that. So so thereyou go. I mean there's that proof

(53:22):
positive path. It could be mydirty underwear stacked on the dryer, but
that's what it looks like, youknow. So yeah, so just another
little bit of you know, ahamoment there right right. Yeah, it's
interesting to catch that that after youyou know, saw a kid spirit in
the house. So yeah, andthere it was, and that was that

(53:44):
was not long before we moved,you know that picture. So yeah,
so everybody go out. I recommendthis, highly recommend this book. I
really really enjoyed it. Ghost TheoriesRaising a Family in a Haunted House,
Kent, thank you so much forcoming on talking. I've really enjoyed the
conversation. I love these stories.And it's also nice to hear stories about

(54:04):
a haunted house that nothing evil ormalicious or anything happened, right right,
And like I said, it wasnot like we had a soundtrack where you
know, music where it's something that'sgoing to yeah, it's going to happen.
You know, it's just the house. You know, it's just a
family living in the house that actuallyhad some funny noises in it. Yeah,

(54:27):
all right, Ken, thank youagain, Eric, thank you so
much. I appreciate it. Thankyou for reading the book. I'm glad
you enjoyed it. Yeah, yeah, my pleasure. All right, everybody,
y'all stay safe out there. We'llsee you next time. Have a
good day. Thank you for listeningto The Unseen Paranormal. Join me next
Wednesday with a brand new guest,and please rate, review, share,

(54:47):
subscribe on Apple, Spotify, orwherever you're listening right now. This helps
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Until next time, remember some ofthe scariest things burn see you.
We have come over Judy that Ican't be you bet you pass you on

(55:23):
the side as a kid SidD