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STATE
NAME OF WORKER
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
Forms to be Filled out for Each Interview
FORM l',.
Circumstarces of IntervicAN
NEW YORK
DOROTHY WEST
NEW YORK CITY
Novether 18. 1958
INTEVIEW TITU IRS. LAURA M. GHOST STORY
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
1. Date and time of interview
November 16 and 17, 1938. 3.5 on the 16ths 3*4 pm on the 17th.
2. Place of interview
Informant's home.
3. Name and address of iAformant
Mrs, Laura N.
300 West 114th Street
4. Name and addres5 of person, if inv, vqe put you in
touch with informant.
None. Known to interviewer.
5. Name and aadres of person, any, accowpanying you
None.
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
(see previous interview)
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, for any of the forms, each
bearing the proper heading and the number to which the material refers.)
FOLKLORE
Personal History of informant NE' YORK
STATE
NAME OF YOIIKER
ADnRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
1. Ancestry
NM YORK
DOROTHY WEST
NEW YORK CITY
November 18. 1938
INTERVIEW YgITH IIRS. LORA, N.
2. Place and dote of birth
GHOST STORY
South Carolina. approximately 50 years ago
3. Family
Lives apart from other relatives in city.
4. Places lived in, with dates
South Carolina over 30 years; Ohio for ten years; remainder of
life spent in Now York City.
5. Education, with dates
School, high and normal
6. Occupations and accomplishments, with dates
Houseivire
7. Special skills and interests
8. Community and religious activities
Active member of the Presbyterian church.
9. Description of informant
Smalls plump, fair woman.
10. Other Points gained in interview
STATF
NEW YORK
FORM C
VAE OF ":0-hE!' DOROMY NEST
ADDIRESS NE4 YORK CITY
DATE NOtiElfth,R 18* 1938
SUf1JECT INTERVIEWViIZ: MS LAURA M GHOST STORY
I went to see Mrs. Laura M., with Whom I once roomed* and during a conversation
that somehow got arou d to :hosts„ I expressed the opinion that I hoped moz, luck
vould continue and that I would never see or hear anything that might be described
as a ghost. Mrs. ;A. looked at me curiously, as if she might say something,*
on the subject* but apparently changed her mind. A neighbor who was visiting
Mts. 1. and was on the verge of going, was persuaded by the sudden tern in the
conversation to tell about a strange thing that had happened to her.
In the apartment in willoh she had lived before moving to her present address,
Mrs. Lad had a strange experience upon moving to her former address. She
had plaoedher baby's play -pen in a certain corner in her living room. Soon after
she had settled in the apartment, she noticed that the baby began to cry a lot;
to
unnaturally, as if in terror. She mould g2/the play -pen, and none of the
physical things which irritate a baby to ;,he point of crying would be apparent.
The bab, was in good health and there was nothing to cause the constant terrified
screening. Mrs. fou d it very diffioult to understand the change in the
baby's disposition as it had formerly been ax even-tempered onild. One day she
mentioned the baby's behavio r LA) her next...door neighbor. This friend listened,
and then with some reluctance, asked where the babyle play -pen was. Mrs.
told her. The neighbor then explained that a baby's crib had stood in that
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identical spot. The mother of this child had died, and the family had immediately
mod away. Mrs. had almost immediately moved in. The neighbor's explanation was
that the dead woman, the baby's mother, was coming back to see her oaild, not knowing that
it had been taken away, and that it was this strange spirit form that was frightening Mts. Is
child. She advised Mrs, to move her baby's play -pen to another corner of the room.
She did and the baby did not cry anymore.
Mrs.
sat down again, and Mrs. M. looked at me in a strained way. Then she blurted
out, "I've had a similar experience."
"Not long after we moved (she was then living with a brother) to 117th Street, I had a funny
thing happen to me. It was a seven room apartment, and I had one of the rooms on the street
fixed up as a sewing room. The sewing room, bathroom and kitchenware on one aide of the
hall, the storage room (a small room which she used for trunks and saitoases) and two bed-
rooms were on the other side. Ea living roam was at the end of the hall and there was a
bedroom off from that. aell, one day I was sitting in the sewiaa room when I heard a
rustle in the hall. It sounded like the swish of a taffeta skirt. I looked up at the door
and saw the figure of a woman as past. She had on a black taffeta dress and I didn't see
any head. I called out, who's therein Of course, nobody answered. I jumped up and
looked down the hall.
Jest as the figure reached the door of the living room, it dis-
appeared. I went in and looked around, but I didn't see anyt. iaa. I went back to the
sawing room and picked up my work. I just shrugged ma shoulders and said I was seeing things.
Nothing else happened like that for a long dine. Then one day, H a friend) was sitting
in the martin, roam with me, and I heard the rustle again. I looked up and saw the figure
again. H saw it, too. You know how she is, (lire. looked at me) and she said,
"Good God, Li ahat' s that?" I laughed and said, "hat' s what?" She told me what she
had seen. I told her that it was jdst her iaaeination, that she had seen a reflection from
tee street. She insisted that she had seen the uoadless Azure of a woman. She was
nervoas for about ten minutes, then she geieted dawn, but she kept insisting that she had
seen somethina.
She said that it must have been somebody who had died in the house, Ltd
Page 3.
was miming back to look for something. Well, I knew that I had seen somethings
so I said to myself that it must have been a good spirit since it hadn't bothered
me, so I didn't worry about it my more while I was in that house.
Then a voman who lived across the street *me over and saids "You've stayed in
this house longer than the last three Deailies," I asked her what she meant,
and she said that she had lived in the house when it was first opened to Negroes,
but that she had lived in an upstairs apartment. The first family that had my old
apartment in that house (it was on Lhe tap first floor) had stayed there a long
time, and so had the people who had lived in there after that. Then she had
moved downstairs into the apartment I then had.
She had put her bed in a certain place in one of he bedrooms and she Dalt like
she was choking to death in the middle of the night. She dicln't know what to do
at firets but finally she had moved her bed to another position. After that she
didn't have that choking sensation. But other little thins happened, and she moved
out.
She said that the next two families had moved in and stayed a month or mo and had
then moved out. I'd been in that apartment al -dent a year and a half when she told me
that. She asked me if I had had any experiences in that roam. I told her that I
hadn't heard my brother speak o anything fenny happening. She just shook her head
and said it was (peer.
I used to hear sounds lihe steps very often, At first I thought it was my brother
com,ng in from work. He didn't get in then until one -thirty or two in the
morning. I used to call out but there'd be no answers so I just thou6ht I was
mistaken and I'd go back .to sleep, One --,ight in particular I remember hearing the
steps very distinctly. I thought mayJe he'd had an accident, so I got up and
went to the door of my bedroom and called out. There wasn't a soul there, so I
vent back to bed,
Then you remember (she turned to me) you used to hear little noises which you
Page 4.
thought were mime. Well, son of them were and 450100 of themeweren't. I
didn't want to frighten you, so I just let you think that everysound you heard
was a mouse scampering aroued."
(I remilser hearing noises in the closet of the bedroom *doh I had, heavier
than the sound a eats* nekes, but I finally decided that it was Mrs. Memoving
arou d in her bedroom next door.)
"When you used to ask me -seat I was doine ip so late at night, (I heard the
noises as late as three osolock in the morning) I gave you same kind of answer
because I was alwwys asleep at the hour you mentioned. Before you moved up
with me, I had the bedroom you had. I used to hear noises in thaL closet,
too. One night the door kept swineinee end I got up and abut ie. The latch
clicked and I got back in bed. Before I could e t the cover up over ma again, the
door was open and swinging a little again. Now, I know that door latch was
caught. But I went on to sleep. There wasn't anything I could do.
Mlle I slept in that room, I had another experience. One sight I got in bed
and after awhile I felt swathing that felt like somebody trying to stand up under
the bed. It was pushing right in tile center of the bed. I reached up and tarned
the light on and looked under the bed. :here wasn't a thing there, so I turned off
the light, and in a little while the pushing stopped„,nd I wene to sleep.
/fter you moved up there, I shifted thebedroome. I took the room my brother
had had, the room where the woman across the street had felt like she was choking
in, and my brother took the next room. I didn'l ever feel anything choking me.
but I did feel that pushing aeein. Again I got up and tarned on the light, but
there *ain't anything there. I never felt i, again.
Then once after you moved up, too, I was 001:Lint; dawn the hall- you were in the
bathroom and it felt like somebody come alone behind me and blew my hair up.
It felt like a breese thaL a human being makes, not like the wind. Like this e
(she pursed her lips and blew as one blows up a balloon). I brushed my hair down
but it wouldn't stay. (Mrs. M. has wary light, thin hair). All of it in the
Pass 6.
back stood straight out from my scalp* I kept brushing it dawn but it wouldn't
stay. After I had brushed it down about a dozen times, it riturned to normal,
There., ain't any draft, and the front door wasn't open to let air blow down the hail.
And what little air comes in the cracks wouldn't have been strongenough where I
was standing in front of the living roam almost to blow my hair up like that.
I never believed in anything like ghosts or thins liko that. I don't know how
I feel now exoept that I do think whatever it was meant no harm to me, so that's
probably why I didn't get frightened."
I asked her if she moved bemuse of those experiences*
"Goodness, no, After you moved, and my brother moved, I just didn't need a seven
roam flat."
STATE
NANT OF WO:ADI.
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
FORM i)
Tr.1:17 of .17-4ervioo `,..r;00
NEW YORK
DOROTHY WEST
NEN YORK CITY
WOVEMUM 18, 1938
INTERVTEM 'aril MRS. TAMAU. GLIOVI TORY.
FOLKLOOF
NE" WRK
Mrs, L. ais nano of the truits of preolialitir viiish one ordinarily expiate
to find in a person, wto relates promo' exporiesoos of the kind Joon in
this interview, Elm is phlegmatic, uniroginati prootimelo and apparently
a materialist except for the variatiusis imposod upon her bytho set of *vont*
Whioh she has described. She is a staunch ohumhwzooro but shows and eaprossos
no pr000cupation with the supernatural. Sho has a high school isdoestdon and has
none of ths attitudes Ward the supernatural that is often found anon& ignorent
and u,odometed persons. No doubt her stoieismsomusod her to +totes she did
under the circumstances which she dosoribed. The following illustrates the
stolidness ol her natures
Following a widospread discussion of the recent "Invasion from Mars*. she
impressed himself as boliovint; the behavior of those who wore frightoriod
as 4stuple andwrldloulcus". "I didn't hear it," she sai4. 'but if I had,
I wouldn't have boon frightoned. And even if it bad been trues t wouldn't
haw run out or the house. I would hew just weed4 If a aotastrephe is
owing, it's cooing."
As was said in the previous interview wit. t, Mrs. U.s her roligious affiliation
is with the Presbyterian Churob.