The late Madame Ethel Woodlock, then, an 83-years-old grandma when she narrated this story to this writer about five years ago, had peacefully met her Creator in 2006. She was survived by her four children and ten grandchildren; all them are living in the United States.
The Woodlock family in Midland Park, New Jersey had always shrugged off the popular town legend that their home was haunted - until they had their first ghostly encounter in 1961.
The tragic past of a Victorian mansion in the US has left it haunted by the ghosts of those who met their grisly deaths there, according to a prominent artist who lived in the house for 27 years. Ethel Woodlock, a celebrated painter, claims she did not believe in ghosts when she and her family moved into the 117-year-old home in Midland Park, New Jersey.
But by the time she moved out several years now, the octogenarian grandmother was convinced that the home harbored the spirits of at least five people, and even a cat. “When we moved there in 1953, I thought people who believed in ghosts were a little crazy,” said Mrs. Woodlock. “But I have changed my mind.” I have heard and seen ghosts, there, and I know I'm not crazy. They do exist…”
Mrs. Woodlock and her family had always shrugged off the popular town legend that their home was haunted - until they have their first ghostly encounter in 1961. “I was drifting off to sleep when a loud bang shook the house,” she recalled. “At first, I thought the chimney cover had fallen, but then there was second and third explosion.”
“I ducked instinctively when suddenly I was hit by something freezing cold.” Other members of the Woodlock family heard the body-shaking explosion, but only Mrs. Woodlock was struck by the mysterious blow. The terrifying incident made Mrs. Wood-lock take more seriously the rumor that her three-story mansion was haunted, and she started to examine its past history more closely.
Her research brought to light the tragic deaths of several people in the home, including a woman murdered there at the turn of the century, a teenager who plunged to her death from a window while trying to elope in 1904, and an alcoholic who was driven to suicide in 1911.
Following their first encounter with the unknown, the Woodlocks and many of their visitors were also terrified by the sounds of footsteps, inexplicable cold spots in the home, and the apparition of an old woman in black raising her gnarled hands in the air at the head of the stairs.
But the specter of the young girl who died while fleeing to her forbidden love eventually changed Mrs. Woodlock's fear to pity. “Rose was 15 when she fell in love with one of the servants and became pregnant,” Mrs. Woodlock explained. Her aunt forbade her to marry below her class and locked Rose in a room on the third floor. She fell to her death while trying to climb out a window to elope with the father of her unborn child.”
Mrs. Woodlock was deeply shaken when, while painting a picture of the stairway where she saw the woman in black, the image of the young girl appeared on her canvass. “I didn't paint the girl in,” she insisted. “It was then that I realized she was a lost soul - the poor little girl could never find her way to heaven. I understood then that I shouldn't be frightened of ghosts, because they are the ones in trouble, not us. They need our help.”
Mrs. Woodlock sought the help of a clergy to put Rose soul to rest. They each prayed in the room from which she fell, but to no avail - the family still heard the child's footsteps echoing through their home. At the suggestion of a psychic, Mrs. Woodlock decided she could help Rose's soul find its way to heaven. “I did a painting called “Rose's Wish,” she said. “I painted Rose with her lover, and in her arms was the child she was not allowed to have.” When the painting was completed, says Mrs. Woodlock, the footsteps and all traces of Rose's ghost vanished forever from the home. But the spirits of less tragic figures continued to haunt the mansion. One of them, strangely, was a cat.”
“Once, I had a class of 60 metaphysics students visiting, and many of them said they felt a small furry animal on the corner of a bed,” Mrs. Woodlock recounted. “Even the skeptics in the group, were shocked when they saw an indentation in the quilt that was warm to the touch.” Her days in the mansion now in the past, Mrs. Woodlock says she had learned a lot from life in a haunted home. “It opened up a whole new dimension for me,” she said. “I know now that death is not final.”
