Some old stories can haunt us for generations. Some old structures can house a ghostly presence evident to some, if not all. There is at least one ghost in the Little Kanawha Hotel. One of the reasons we renamed it the Apple Pi Inn is to make our resident ghost feel more at home.
Our ghostly presence seems to be a young woman who’s waiting for someone. She’s has been seen, sensed standing at the head of the stairs or looking out the window in Room 2. There are those who swear to having heard her softly sighing or singing. I’ve not had the privilege of an introduction, but I love a mystery.
There’s also a haunting story that reminds me of our ghost. It’s from our great grandmother, Mary Rebecca, who fell in love with a red-headed soldier who went to fight for the Union and the new state of West Virginia.
She waited for him for three years, watching every day for news or a letter. She waited, like our sad ghost waits, sometimes singing, often sighing. After three years without a word, she gave in and agreed to marry the older widower her father preferred. On her wedding day, after the ceremony, her father gave her all the red-headed soldier’s letters that he’d hidden from her for three long years.
Our grandmother, Flora, Mary Rebecca’s third daughter, lived the last five years of her 106 years in this old inn. Her mother’s bed now rests in the room where she died.
Grandma Flora told us the story about her mother, and red-headed soldier that she loved and waited for so faithfully. She said her ma told her that she took the letters that her father had hidden, went to the outhouse to read and cry over the words she’d never received. She then put them in the fireplace and picked up what was left of her heart and went on.
That’s what so many women had to do, and their stories haunt the places that hold their memories. The Pioneer Day is hosted by the little county seat in hopes that life will go on so that the entire town won’t become a village of ghosts. This year we decided to put our ghost and the Mary Rebecca’s heart-breaking story together. We invited a lively lovely ghost to welcome all visitors to the Inn on Pioneer Day with a song and a story. It was a haunting kind of hospitality.
If you’re in this neck of the woods, come by. She’s waiting for company.