Kentucky Hauntings (16 page)

March brought early flowers. Joy looked out the window and saw the first crocus of spring blooming in her yard. Lee picked it and put it in a vase for her. At first, it turned to the window for sunlight like all flowers do, but Lee turned it back toward Joy and it never turned away again.

Joy's St. Patrick's Day party was not to be. The cancer began to make noticeable changes. She was no longer strong enough to have people come around to visit.

The day of Roberta's last visit to Joy was a little different from the others. As Roberta started to leave, Joy took her hand and smiled.

“I want to thank you for all you have done for me,” she said.

“I was happy to do what I could,” Roberta told her. “I love you!”

“I love you, too,” she said.

“I'll see you later,” Roberta said to Joy, but as she left, she knew she had seen her friend for the last time.

Joy died peacefully on March 23, 2011, with just Lee by her side. It was five months later than the two months the doctors had predicted Joy would live from the time the cancer was diagnosed. If Death had been lurking around to see Joy's spirit break, he was sorely disappointed.

The day Joy died had been filled with severe storm warnings. But they were lifted, and at the exact moment of her death, a friend snapped a picture of the sky. It was filled with a bright light like a sunburst! It was as if the heavens had opened to welcome her in.

When the hearse came to take Joy away, Roberta stood in her driveway to say a silent good-bye to her friend. Suddenly, thunder shook the whole street, and lightning, in the most vivid shades of pink, purple, and gold, danced above Lee and Joy's house. The rain came down gently. As the undertakers carried Joy out of the house, the rain stopped and the sky was calm.

Joy's service was exactly as she wanted it to be. She and Lee had made a DVD together celebrating her life. It said what she wanted to say.

Later, when Lee took Joy's ashes to be scattered at sea as she had requested, small-craft warnings were posted along the coast. The captain and first mate of the boat Lee had hired told Lee they couldn't go out very far because of the choppy water. But at the moment Lee scattered Joy's ashes, the sea became calm. It remained calm all the way back to shore.

Several odd things have happened since Joy's passing that make Lee, Roberta, and Lonnie think that Joy may be coming back now and then to visit. Lee has written his own experiences, but there was one that the three of us shared.

On July 4 of the year Joy died, Lee came across the street for a short visit with Roberta and Lonnie. The three of them were sitting in the living room, talking, when all of them heard the kitchen door open and close. They heard footsteps crossing the room. Lonnie went to the kitchen and checked the door, but it was still closed and locked. No one was there. He came back and sat down, but then they all heard the footsteps again.

Together they said, “Come in, Joy!”

It would have been logical for Joy to join them since the four friends often did things together.

Joy's death left those who loved her with an uplifting feeling instead of a feeling of sadness. Death was not something that came to end her life. It was merely a vehicle to take her to the next place in eternity where she was meant to be.

May we all be so lucky when our time comes.

Thank you, Joy, for letting us be close to you in life and death! We miss you, but we will see you again someday.

I
n our early years, we had no radio, TV, or computers to entertain us. All that has changed now, but the stories we heard and shared over the years are more important than ever. They link us to our past and the people who are now gone. Technology will never replace them in our lives. We hope these stories will stir some memories for you.

We love a good story, so if you have one to share, please send it to us. You can contact us through Roberta's Web site:
robertasimpsonbrown.com
.

Ashland Paramount Art Center
is located at 1300 Winchester Avenue, Ashland, Kentucky, 41101. You might meet up with the permanent friendly ghost, a former worker named Joe. Call 606-324-3175.

The Brown Hotel
(335 West Broadway, 40202—toll free 888-387-0498) and
The Seelbach Hotel
(500 Fourth Street, 40202—call 502-585-3200) are two of Louisville's finest—and most haunted—hotels. The best way to access these for spooky experiences is to contact Mr. Ghost Walker (Robert Parker) and take his
original
Louisville ghost walks. In our opinion, these are the best-researched and best-presented tours of downtown Louisville, and they include several other haunted sites besides the hotels. Call 502-689-5117 or check Mr. Parker's Web site,
www.LouisvilleGhostWalks.com
.

For tours of Victorian homes in
Old Louisville
(America's largest Victorian neighborhood), contact David Domine at
ghostsofoldLouisville.com
. You will enjoy this tour immensely and are likely to encounter a ghost! The tour is well researched and well presented, and it covers a part of Louisville that is not visited in other tours.

Bardstown, Kentucky, has many haunted sites, but two of the best known are
Jailer's Inn
(111 West Stephen Foster Avenue, 40004; on the Web at
jailersinn.com
, or call 502-348-5551) and
Old Talbot Inn
(107 West Stephen Foster, 40002—call 502-348-3494.) We recommend that you take the Patti Starr tour of downtown Bardstown. We found it very informative and entertaining. Contact Patti at 859-576-5517 for tour information.

LaGrange, Kentucky, is a unique place where a real train comes right through the middle of town and where ghosts come out to be sighted.
The Spirits of LaGrange Tour
is conducted by talented tour guides, such as Barbara Edds, in costume and carrying lanterns. You will hear spellbinding accounts of all the ghostly happenings in LaGrange, one of the most haunted places in Kentucky. This tour is very popular, so call for reservations at 502-291-1766.

For spirits you imbibe and for spirits you may encounter from beyond, try Louisville's
Phoenix Hill Tavern.
Drop in at 644 Baxter Avenue, Louisville, Kentucky, 40204. The phone number is 502-589-4957.

Mammoth Cave
(near Park City in south central Kentucky) was described by an early guide as a “grand, gloomy, and peculiar place.” He could add now that it is also haunted. To book a tour, call 270-758-2181.

We thank our friend, Dewayne VanderEspt, who always comes to our rescue, especially when we are baffled by computers.

We thank our neighbor, Salvador Doggie, for visiting us and staying nearby to give his unconditional support while we are writing. His sweet little spirit is always a delight and an inspiration. (Thanks, Jill Baker and Lee Pennington, for sharing him.)

A special thanks to Lee Pennington for his guidance and support through the years. Without him, we would probably never have written our books.

We are especially grateful to our manuscript editor, Donna Bouvier; to Ashley Runyon, acquisitions editor; and to all the staff at the University Press of Kentucky, who helped us so much with this book.

Roberta Simpson Brown
and
Lonnie E. Brown
were both born in Russell Springs, Kentucky. Roberta had one sister, and Lonnie had three sisters and two younger brothers. Their families, along with other relatives and neighbors, got together often and joined in the Kentucky tradition of storytelling.

Lonnie first shared stories with the people close to him, who responded with sidesplitting laughter and encouraged him to write the tales he told and experienced. The result was his first book,
Stories You Won't Believe.
He later coauthored
Spooky, Kooky Poems for Kids
and
Spookiest Stories Ever: Four Seasons of Kentucky Ghosts
with his wife, Roberta. An accomplished musician and golfer, Lonnie enjoys nature, reading, and doing paranormal investigations with Roberta and their friends.

Roberta also told stories, but she preferred to write. She used storytelling in her classroom as a teacher, but she never thought about being a professional storyteller until her friends, Lee and Joy Pennington, got her involved in the Corn Island Storytelling Festival, which they founded. Her first book,
The Walking Trees and Other Scary Stories
, resulted from her work with the festival. She is also the author of seven other books and has recorded three CDs of her original stories. Roberta has appeared on programs at festivals, workshops, schools, libraries, and conferences from coast to coast. She has been on National Public Radio, the Voice of America, and the Lifetime television show
Beyond Chance.

Married since 1977, Lonnie and Roberta live in Louisville and continue to write and enjoy ghost tales, as well as actual ghosts. They like to hear from readers. Please visit Roberta's Web site,
robertasimpsonbrown.com
.