Ghost Stories!
Oooooooooooh! It's October. In spite of the fact that I have a costume warehouse, Halloween is still one of my favorite occasions. My Dinotar has put on his jammies, and is ready to have his bunny slippers scared off. Who can help? Tell the Dinotar a true spook story!
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Shannon Cemetery
In Mason County Ky there is a small farming community called Shannon. There's not much there except farms, a Methodist church and a couple of graveyards. My father and most of his immediate family are buried in the new cemetery. I have plots there, too, and that's where my mom will go. I didn't know, until I started doing family research a couple of years ago, that more of his family is buried in the older graveyard next to the church across the road. The oldest family burial that I know of is my great great Grandfather John's first wife, Lumira. John was buried next to her, with his second wife, Sarah, on his other side. They are situated on the top of a small Indian mound near the church. It's very peculiar looking. Their's are the only three graves on the mound. Add to this the fact that, in spite of the fact that she died some 40 years earlier, Lumira's is the only stone standing.
Now, like all old cemeteries, there are a number of very spooky features to this one, besides the single stone on the Indian mound. The church is rickety, there are toppling iron fences, splitting vaults... it's fabulous. One of my very favorite things is a tombstone that has been "picked up" by a tree that was growing beside it. The stone has grown into the tree and the gnarls make a frame around the face, which is quite legible, only now about 20 inches off the ground and completely upside down. Chilling.
My brother and I were up there a couple of years ago on memorial day, and decided to go through the old cemetery for the first time. Even though it was just across the road, it was a totally new thing to us. We had no idea we had family over there. He had his camera, and was wandering around taking pictures of interesting things, and I was recording info off of our family's stones. Lumira is a mystery to everyone that has done research on our family. She died only a couple of years after she and John were married and had no children. One of Sarah's girls was named Lumira, for her. We don't know what her maiden name was or where she was from. I was standing in front of her tombstone on that little hill, pondering about all this. I wondered "Why is her stone standing when the others have fallen?". Behind me I heard a male voice, distinct and clear say "Because she died unavenged." It scared the geewillikers out of me, but I thought I must have spoken out loud and that my brother had snuck up behind me. I turned around. No one was there. My brother was about 50 yards away on the edge of the lot photographing a hedge. Now, you simply cannot tell him things like that. He starts breathing funny, his jaw sets and his eyes bug out. So I just went over and became very very interested in what he was shooting.
I haven't been able to find out anything more about Lumira, or how she died. But I will keep searching. I somehow feel it's my duty and my obligation.