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Personal Experiences Papa's Funeral By Johnny Wilson My grandfather was Albert John Elzholz. He was a strict yet very likable man who was very respected in our community and all around Phoenix Arizona where I was born. He was often hard headed and stubborn throughout his life and until he became ill with kidney and heart problems, he had a lot of trouble showing love and how much his family meant to him. The one person who he did love unconditionally was my grandmother Pearl. She was the light of his life and he made sure that each day he told her how much he loved her. The rest of us would have to wait until near the end of his life to find out how much he loved us. He was a very large man in stature standing over 6 foot 5 inches and weighing over 300 pounds all of us kids minded our P's and Q's when "Papa" was around. Now don't get me wrong, even though he was large, intimidating, and ruled with an iron fist doesn't mean that there wasn't good times with him as well. I remember how much he loved Christmas most of all and he loved to spoil us kids rotten. A good example of his personality was when us kids would sit around on Christmas talking about how we couldn't wait for Santa Claus to pay us a visit and leave us lots of new toys. Papa would say "if he comes around here late at night I'll shoot his ass off." Later on Papa would disappear for awhile and come back dressed as Santa and deliver gifts to all of us kids. He was definately a unique individual. I was only 5 years old when Papa passed away. I remember the hell he went through having to go to dialasis 3 or 4 times a week and how he just seemed to get sicker and more withdrawn with each passing visit to the hospital. I was in the room with my mother at the hospital when he said "the angels are here to take me home" and he took one last breath and died peacefully with a smile on his face. He knew the end was near months before he passed away and his only worry was how my grandmother was going to get by without him. It was rainy on the day of his funeral. I remember walking up to the casket with my mother and grandmother to see him one last time. It was the first funeral I ever attended and I didn't really know what to make of it. It all seemed very strange to me, first everyone told me Papa was gone forever but now here he is laying in a funny looking box right in front of me. I guess I was just too young to understand death at the time. My sister who was 5 years older than me grabbed my hand and led me to the back of the church where my cousins were. This is where I had my first paranormal experience. There was a large mirror framed in gold at the back of the church in the shape of a cross. My cousins and I decided it would be fun to make faces at ourselves in the mirror, after all this whole funeral thing was kind of boring for kids our age. My younger cousin stopped making faces and looked directly toward the front of the church in the mirrors reflection and said "Papa" as she pointed her little finger toward the mirror. My older cousin said "no, Papa is gone, thats just his body up there." Then my younger cousin said "no, Papa's with Grammy" which is what all of us kids called my grandmother. My older cousin and I looked close and could not believe our eyes. In the mirror we could see Papa sitting next to Grammy with his arm around her shoulder comforting her but when we turned to look at the front row where she was sitting and crying, she was alone. We kept looking back at the mirror and everytime we looked into it, he was there with her but we could not see him when we would turn around, she was always sitting alone. I'm sure by now my youngest cousin has forgotten about this experience and my older cousin and I vowed never to tell the family about it... until now. The Old Lake Home By Johnny Wilson I have had quite a few personal experiences in my life and I remember them well. When I was 7 years old, my family moved into a rental 2 story lake home in Remer Minnesota. As we were moving in our belongings we noticed there were sleeping bags laid out on the floor and back packs full of clothes lying next to them. We though it was kind of odd to find these things in a house that was supposed to be completely vacant for over 5 years but we didn't really think much about it. We later found out that the sleeping bags and back packs belonged to a couple of native american trespassers that were looking for a place to stay warm. They broke into the house, built a fire in the fireplace, and settled in for the night in front of it. Around 3 am the neigbors heard screaming coming from the house and the unwelcomed guests ran out the door never to return. Nobody really knew what caused them to act so strangely but we all got a good laugh at the story. It didn't take long before our laughs were stifled by our own strange occurences in the home. The house had an unusual aura about it that we all noticed while moving into it. It was a large 2 story house with white wood plank siding and it had a large brick chiminey that stood out front that the bats liked flying into at dusk freaking us all out. The bat problem became the norm and we all got used to the fact that we would have to have our nightly chase down of them with brooms and fly swatters. Even though we did our best to live a normal life in that house of abnormality, there were some things that happened that never could be considered normal and leaned more towards being unexplainable. I remember lying in my bed at night listening to foot steps walk up the hard wood stairs but when they reached the top, there would be nobody there. I would hear the footsteps approach my bed and my room would turn ice cold but still, nobody was there. I would hear the footsteps leave my room and walk down the hall to my sisters room first and then continue to the end of the hallway to my brothers room and then turn around and walk all the way back and go down the stairs. It scared me because I didn't know what it was and I would often try talking to my parents about it. I had no idea at the time that my brother and sister were hearing the same things as me and they had also talked to our parents about the strange activity. My parents blamed the sounds on the house settling due to the many climate changes we have in Minnesota and if that didn't calm our nerves they would resort to the sounds being caused by bats in the attic. Then one night we were all sitting down watching tv in the living room except for my brother who was outside working on his new truck. We all heard a noise coming from one of the downstairs bedrooms that sounded like boots walking across the wood floor. I told my mom that was the same sound we heard every night walking up and down the stairs and hallway. She just looked at me in a cocearned way then we all turned and saw what looked like a half bodied person from the waist down walk right by us towards the front door. The door flew open by itself and the screen door behind it opened as well then both doors slammed shut. We all sat there stunned at what we had witnessed and we began believing at that time that the house may be haunted. Shortly afterwards my brother came in from working on his truck with a big smile on his face. He had heard the tow chain in the back of his truck rattling around but when he went to look he couldn't see who was rattling it. He figured it must have been our uncle who was living with us at the time and who was the practical joker of the family pulling a prank on him. Needless to say he was a little surprised to find out our uncle had not left the couch nor was he outside at any time while he was out there. My mother told him what we had seen walk across the floor and out the doors. After that my brother refused to do any work outside after dark. My mother told me recently that when she was home alone cleaning the house while we were at school and my dad was at work, she would often feel like she was being watched. She also said the tv would turn itself on and off, and objects would mysteriously move from where she put them and show up somewhere else. We eventually got used to the ghostly events and the spirit seemed to welcome us and even watch over us to make sure we were ok. Eventually the owner of the house sold it and we had to move out. The new owners lived there for less than 2 months before putting it back on the market. The house sat mostly vacant for over 20 years with the occasional renters moving in and quickly moving out. The old house has since been torn down and a new house now stands on the property, but I will never forget the home that changed my life and the way I look at it. It was because of that old house that my belief and curiousity in the paranormal bloomed into what it is today and led me to build the Northern Lights Paranormal Society (NLPS) |
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