In the capital of the state of Frankfort, the Liberty Hall Museum is also known as the House of the Gray Lady. It was built in 1796 and belonged to one of the first senators, John Brown. The staff of the museum is unanimous - The gray-haired lady is not an invention, and they even know her name - Margaret. The only disagreement is which of the two is Margaret? The owner of the house, Margaret, suffered a terrible tragedy - three of her children died within a month. Aunt Margaret, who had arrived with a comforting visit, suddenly fell ill with pneumonia and died three days later. It is possible that the ghosts of two Margaret live in the house.
The first memories of meetings with the Gray Lady date back to the middle of the last century. The guests of the house woke up in the middle of the night and clearly felt someone's presence. Some noticed a female figure in a dress of an old style sliding above the floor. Sometimes the Lady stopped at the head of the bed, and the suddenly awakened guest could see in front of him the ashen face of an elderly woman. The gray-haired lady makes herself felt to this day. Shirley Tupper, a museum tour guide for many years, testifies: “I met her many times. Sometimes, going up the stairs, I feel with my back that it is behind."
Museum Director Carter Lovely: “In humans, ghosts are associated with something terrible, chilling. I cannot say about all the ghosts (and now I absolutely believe in them), but the ghosts living in our house are quite harmless, and the Gray-haired lady is even kind. But if she doesn't like something, she just puts her hand on my shoulder. For example, the day before the furniture was rearranged, and the hostess was not satisfied. The museum has a unique photograph from 1965 taken by a visitor. On the stairs, as in a haze, the silhouette of a woman in a long dress is visible. Expertise, including a forensic one, confirmed the absolute authenticity of the picture.
The gray-haired lady is the main, but not the only ghost in the former manor. Numerous witnesses in different years saw the same picture - the silhouette of a young man in a Confederate uniform. In 1862, a regiment of southerners stood in the city, and a love broke out between one soldier and a girl from the Brown family, which ended tragically. The youth soon died in battle; learning about this, the girl went crazy. Since then, the lovers have been trying unsuccessfully to meet, although they are in the same estate - a soldier walks from room to room, and a mad girl runs along the alleys of the old park.
Unexplained things are constantly happening in the house. For no apparent reason, doors slam, a music box randomly begins to play a melody, candelabra fall on the floor, pages of an old calendar come off, furniture moves during the night. And all this is under round-the-clock electronic surveillance.
A Frankfort resident recounts how he used to deliver fresh milk to homes when he was young. It was early morning work, and as he passed Liberty Hall, he often saw the silhouette of the Gray Lady in the upper windows of the building. When he told a natural science teacher about his "visions", he laughed. And in order to prove the superiority of science over mysticism, the teacher agreed with the administration of the building about an experiment, preferably on a full moon. Nothing much happened. On the last watch, the teacher took a nap on the sofa, woke up from the touch of an icy hand - an elderly woman in a long antique dress stood over him. The moonlight gave her gray face a bluish tint. The teacher returned home completely gray.
Phantom of the Palace Theater
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One of the architectural landmarks of Louisville is the Palace Cinema, built in 1928. Since the early thirties and to this day, viewers have noted one phenomenon - often there you can see the sliding silhouette of a young handsome man in a dapper hat of a half-forgotten Derby style and a bow tie. With someone's light hand, the theater phantom got the name Bernard, or simply Bernie.
Bernie is not a bad guy and plays harmlessly. Cut off the power, move the projection cameras, erase entire scenes from the film. He doesn't like renovations and renovations. The electrician says: “I am tearing out the old wiring in the attic, and suddenly I feel a piercing cold shower behind me. I turn around - a young man in a hat and a bow tie is above me. From the surprise I was numb, and Bernie disappeared into the attic gloom.
During the last renovation, already in the 1990s, a young man came to the theater manager and said that he was passing through Louisville and he would like to see the building in which his grandfather worked as a technician many years ago. He told his grandson many mystical stories about the theater and, in particular, about one lighting fixture. Despite his modest position, he always dressed as a dandy, especially fond of wearing a gastuk bow and a derby hat. The illuminator had a bad heart and died during the performance. The body was carried out by the theater workers and on the stairs they accidentally dropped it, the body fell on the doorman. Soon, fatal injuries began to occur one after another in the theater. An ominous pattern emerged: those who carried and dropped the dead dandy died.
At parting, the manager asked the visitor:
- Did your grandfather accidentally mention the name of this unfortunate man?
The young man answered confidently:
- Bernard … Bernie.
The ghost of a merchant house
Nobel laureate, writer and paradox lover John Steinbeck said, "I don't believe in ghosts, but I've seen them." After the death of his mother in 1934, Steinbeck wrote to a friend: “The house in Salinas is now full of ghosts. At night I see things in the house that I would never have seen."
Now I will refer to my own experience. As a teenager, I had a whole gang of cousins. It so happened that we were more friends with each other than with neighboring peers. My two cousins Yurka and Garka had a grandfather who lived in an old pre-revolutionary house. With a former stable-hayloft in the yard. There were no horses in the center of the city for a long time, and we used the ownerless barn as a "headquarters" for our teenage gatherings and not always clean affairs. Several doors led from the dark communal kitchen-hallway into the "apartments" of three or four tenants.
If it hadn't been for the hayloft, we wouldn't have gone to see grandfather. He was stern and strict, and his intelligent wife made us, shantrapa, use hated napkins, knives and forks at the table. And suddenly the old grandmother died. The grandfather did not grieve for long and literally a month later he brought another woman.
From that moment on, strange things began to happen in the eternally gloomy house. My brothers and I witnessed them. Suddenly, in the heat, a matchbox began to jump by itself, dishes move, doors slammed. Once the corner of the tablecloth slowly began to rise and, rising above the level of the table, froze. Our teeth chattered with fear, and we flew out of our grandfather's house like a bullet.
In the summer, we often spent the night in the hayloft. One day we wake up with Garka at dawn, we went down to the courtyard when we needed it, and there, apparently, invisibly cats, and everyone was looking at us. How many cats can there be together? In my entire life I have seen a maximum of three or five. There were hundreds of them in that yard! We climbed into the hayloft again and slept until morning. The nocturnal feline armada disappeared, leaving only one cat unfamiliar to us. All day she, like a dog, followed us on our heels. Neither stones nor sticks helped. The cat skillfully dodged, but continued to keep us in sight.
Many years have passed since then. Fate scattered us to all parts of the world, but when we manage to meet, we will definitely remember the mysterious grandfather's house, the hayloft and the cat's yard.
In theaters in my city of Louisville, there are two "eternal" productions - the Christmas Nutcracker and Halloween's Dracula. In my entire professional life, I have never communicated with representatives of “that” world. But suddenly there was a chance to interview Count Vlad himself.
We met up with the Dracula actor in one of the Victorian buildings in downtown. Dracula in a regular T-shirt and jeans sits in front of me. I feel uncomfortable under his heavy gaze. I mark the cross on the vampire's neck.
- Doesn't hesitate, Count?
- So I'm a Christian.
I turn on the tape recorder. What the hell is this? Start, stop, rewind work, record does not. I press all the buttons, the same result. I take out my saving notebook. The pen leaves colorless scratches on the paper. There is no one to borrow another, we are alone in the room.
Dracula, with a slight mockery, watches my attempts, throws one leg over another.
- Maybe we can just talk? Without these formalities.
I didn't plan it on purpose, but it so happened that of the ten most famous haunted houses in Kentucky, I happened to visit several. Probably the most fun at the West Liberty in Louisville, the former red light district. Glorious traditions have not been forgotten, and on the site of one of the brothels there is now a night club. Its regulars claim that the house is full of the ghosts of dead prostitutes and their clients.
Let's summarize the main thing. Ghosts, it seems, still exist, moreover, on all continents. Next, ghosts are not as scary as they are painted, and you can get along with them.
