GREAT MYSTERY SURROUNDS LITTLE GIRL (Carter County Ghost Story) near Morehead in Rowan County, Ky.
GREAT MYSTERY SURROUNDS LITTLE GIRL
(Carter County Ghost Story)
September 30, 1920
"There has appeared among the people at Lawton, just five
miles west of this city, a great mystery and one that is
puzzling the minds of the entire populace, not only of the
village but the entire community around.
Little Irene Gearhart, Rowan County, had come to visit her
grandfather W. O. Osborn, from Friday over to Monday.
Saturday morning she told her grandmother that she was going
to the grave of her aunt, Clara Colyer, who had been dead only
a short while, and who the little girl was very fond, and her
grandmohter told her she could go with two other girls, Mandy
Gearhart and Bessie Lewis, young girls, one of which Mr. Osborn
is raising. They gathered some flowers and taken a hoe to fill
a small hole in the grave with and went to the cemetery.
Upon arriving, Little Irene went up to the grave of her aunt and
fell down at the stone and said" Aunt Clary I always loved you,"
when there came a voice from the grave plain and distinct to all
three answering, "Humph," when two little girls became frightened
and run as hard as they could to the house to give the alarm.
Irene never was frightened in the least and remained at the grave
and when the girls returned to Mr. Osborn's home they told the
story and all who heard it made light of it when Mrs. Wes Ingram
and Miss Julia Fielding decided to return to the grave with the
two girls, where Little Irene was with her aunt. They returned and
found Irene in conversation with her aunt and knowing her as they
all did they recognized at once the voice which was coming from
the grave to be that of Clara Colyer who was dead and buried there.
She sked her if she knew who it was talking to her and she told her
she did and talked just as she used to when on earth, and all present
heard and understood her as well as the little girl and recognized
her voice as well as they ever did when they were with her before death.
The little girl never had any idea that she would be answered, so
she says when she went and fell at the grave and while it came as
a great surprise to her she says it never scared (line dropped
from galley) just safe talking to her there as she used to when
she played so much upon her knee while she lived and whom she
thought so much of. She called up Mrs. W. O. Osborne, who had
been dead 15 years and talked to her and all those present heard
it and many of them recognized her voice.
About three weeks ago, she was at her home at Freestone one night
and she awoke from her sleep and came into the room where her parents
were sleeping and told them that her aunt who lived at Logan, W. Va.
Was in the room, told them how she was dressed and described her and
the parents told her to go to bed and on the following morning they
received a message that her aunt that she described as seeing in the
room the night before had died at her home in Logan. They brought the
body back ther for burial and the parents paid strict attention as
the little girl described her so was she dressed.
The little girl goes to the Industrial school on the hill
overlooking Olive Hill every year and will come here to enter
school about the first of September and is a sweet little girl
loved by all who know her and has a kind, lovable disposition,
possessing absolutely no harm.
The above report was obtained for the Herald through W. O. Osborn,
one of the most upright citizens the county has and his word is
taken as quick as any man and cannot be doubted in the least.
There is something to this far beyond our explanation as sure
as there is a God and no man should dispute it without he has
authority so to do.
There may be something and of course it is that we know nothing
about and it might be revealed to us and again it might not."
September 30, 1920
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