Grandpa's House

This story is going to start out slow, but you need to understand the layout of the house and who my grandparents were. My grandfather hated Italians and he may have been prejudiced against other nationalities, however my nine-year-old self didn’t understand the hate that people had against each other. My mother raised me with an open mind and that we were all created equal.

My grandfather was 100% Lebanese. He came over to this country with his parents when he was eight years old for a better life. I don’t know anything about my great grandparents. I do know that grandpa ended up in a little town called Alexandria Bay in Upstate New York. My grandmother was a French Canadian. She died when I was four years old and the only thing I remember about her was she looked mean. My grandfather married his lovely bride and they lived in a beautiful house that he built himself in 1914. He was a brick and stone mason. My grandparents had 15 children and a two of them died at birth. Not sure where they were buried, but grandpa’s house was haunted.

The outside of the house was stone and brick on the bottom. It went up about five feet. The remainder of the house was wood siding painted brown and the trim an olive green. You need to understand the layout of the house. If you were standing in the front yard looking at the house there was a single door that led into the living room. On the side of the house, where most people came in, was an enclosed patio that led into the kitchen and to the right of the door was the bathroom. There was a door that led into a cellar that had a dirt floor. We were not allowed in the cellar for reasons unknown. Off the kitchen there was the living room and my grandparent’s bedroom and a set of stairs. At the very top of the stairs there was a bedroom on the left and turning right there was a hallway with another small bedroom to the left. The hall way led into two large bed rooms. There were old time pictures on the wall and it felt like the eyes in those pictures followed you.

Anyway, let’s get to the story. My grandfather had a rocking chair at the foot of the bed where grandma used to sit. One night he awoke to the chair rocking all on its own. Like any good person would do grandpa moved the chair into the living room. The house had an eerie feeling to it always. One evening I was sitting in the living room with grandpa and the chair started rocking. It was just me and grandpa. I did what any small child would do. I started screaming and crawled into his lap. He chuckled at me and told me it was only,“ Ella” (my grandmother). I looked at him like he was smoking something. I wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go. The upstairs was spooky and it was dark outside and we had a lot of Bobcats in the area. I said, “Grandpa aren’t you scared?” He told me, “no it’s only Ella saying hi.” I said, “Grandpa tell her to go away I’m scared and I don’t like it.” He sighed and said, “Ella I love you, but you must go now the child is afraid.” No sooner did grandpa tell her to go the chair stopped rocking. It scared the living daylight out of me. I always hated my grandfather’s house. He used to say old Joe Moss was buried under the corner of the house. Maybe he was the disgruntled soul haunting the house along with my grandmother.

There was another time when my sister, my cousin, and I wanted a snack. It was around 1 am and we sleeping in the bedroom at the top of the stairs. So, we decided to sneak downstairs to the kitchen and make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. My cousin Greg grabbed the peanut butter, my sister grabbed the jelly and I got the plates and knives. We set the goods on the counter. I passed out the plates and knives and my cousin Greg hand out the bread. We were talking quietly, so our parents wouldn’t hear. All of a sudden one of the knives moved off the counter and was flung at us. We let out a banshee scream and ran towards the living room and the stairs. I reached the stairs first and next thing I know my sister and cousin were grabbing me and trying to push me down, so they could get up the stairs first. We continued to scream and grapple with the stairs and none of us were getting anywhere. We woke up grandpa and our mothers. They came to the stairs and we were all talking above each other and nothing we were saying made any sense. We finally got up the stairs into the protective arms of our prospective mothers. Once we calmed down we explained what had happened. After that incident I was scared to death and didn’t want to be in the house. Unfortunately, that’s where we were all living.

One night my mother and aunt went into town for a few drinks. At this point grandpa was bedridden and his hospital bed was in the corner of the living room. The older boys were supposed to be watching the younger kids. They took off and left me, my eight-year-old sister, and my eight-year-old cousin in the house alone. The house was creepy and made all sorts of sounds that made no sense. My sister and cousin were in the kitchen again looking for food and I was sitting at the head of my grandfathers’ bed near his head. He kept saying, “don’t let me die in this house, don’t let me die in this house.” I asked him, “Why” and he told me, “Old Joe Moss is buried in the cellar.” Of course, this scared the crap out of me. Grandpa was what they called “senile” back in the day. I was young, what could I do for my grandpa? When my mother came home I told her what he said and she said, “She already knew.” Great you know this and leave children home alone with a bedridden man and you know this house is haunted.

They did honor my grandfather’s request and moved him into a nursing home, where he died a few days later. I was grandpa’s favorite and cried a lot when he died. I didn’t understand death, but I knew grandpa was never coming back.

Mom volunteered to clean grandpa’s house out after he passed away. One day my older brother, my mom, and I were up at the house. I had helped her pack and throw away things. We were all done for the day and my brother was upstairs looking around, for reasons known only to him. Anyway, I went to the bottom of the stairs and yelled up for him to come. I was standing there waiting for him and I yelled again. He finally appeared at the top of the stairs and he was on his way down when out of nowhere a shoe came flying at him. You never seen a 200 lb man move faster in your life. He got to the bottom of the stairs and as he did we ran right out the front door in the living room. That was the last time I was in my grandfather’s house.

On a side note; no one in the family wanted the house. It was sold and the next owners were doing renovation in the cellar and found human bones in the corner of the house. Was it old Joe Moss and if it was, who was he and what did he do to end up buried in the cellar? No one will ever know, because grandpa took that secret to his grave.