What frightens a tenant so badly that they will abandon clients and boxes of paperwork, and not provide a forwarding address? Potential legal issues aside, some believe it is the persistence of a resident ghost. The current occupant has not had any experiences, but she is familiar with haunting stories that surround her building.
On more than one occasion, people sitting in the front room are startled by a woman peeking at them from around the corner of the doorway. She appears to be in her late 30s, barefoot, and wearing a white nightgown. Her blond hair hangs loosely around her shoulders and she is very pale. The most memorable feature of the apparition is her innocent blue eyes. She seems curious about the goings-on in the front room and, if you acknowledge her, she steps into the room only to dissipate seconds later.
On a tour of popular haunts in downtown Leesburg, an older woman interrupted the guide and said “I know who the ghost is in this house?” The guide was startled by the woman’s claim. How do you know, he asked?
“I used to live in the building across the street. That was my room up there.” She pointed to a second-floor window that looked out onto the street.
She now had the full attention of the guide and the rest of the tourists. Was she sad? They asked. Did she die tragically? Is she buried in the house?
“No, she was very happy. In fact this is the only place she was happy.”
The scripted tour was forgotten as the guest told the sad tale of the Peek-a-Boo ghost:
Ellen lived on the north side of Loudoun Street for twenty years. In the summer of 1945, when Ellen was sixteen, a quiet woman with a sad smile moved into the now-haunted house to stay with relatives. Although nearly twice her age, Ellen befriended her. One day the mysterious woman confessed to Ellen that she had a son who could not love her.
At the time, the young girl didn’t understand why the son couldn’t love this beautiful woman. The woman explained to her that her son had a disease that made it impossible for him to be touched. His mother could not hold him or kiss him. When he fell, she could not sooth his pain. When he cried, she could not wipe his tears. They did not joke and laugh together; they did not play games of tag or build snowmen. She felt completely alienated from her only child; deprived of the opportunity to be a mother.
Then she was diagnosed with cancer. Her husband didn’t want to deal with a handicapped child and a terminally ill wife, so he shipped her from their Ohio home back to her Leesburg family to die.
The woman was treated as an invalid confined to the house. Spending her days in her nightgown, she was free to roam barefoot throughout the house. Her family doted on her, enjoying what little time they had left with her.
Ellen enjoyed having a new friend. They shared sliced cucumber sandwiches and tea, giggling together like school girls. “May I braid your hair?” the woman asked. She was finally allowed to do the things moms do. She was allowed to touch and love and share.
And then the woman died and her body was returned to Ohio to be buried next to her estranged husband's family.
The woman did not suffer. The woman was not unceremoniously buried in the dirt floor basement. Contrary to any negative energy trapping the woman in an endless search for redemption or peace, her energy is re-experiencing the happiest days of her life: the summer innocence of braiding hair and cool cucumber sandwiches shared with a cherished friend from across the road.
Originally printed in "Lore of Loudoun."
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