Miss Connie’s House

I first encountered Miss Connie’s house in 2007, when I visited Raymond for the first time.  My husband had purchased the house in 1999, from a lady who had taken care of Miss Connie in her later years, and I remember him telling me that his girlfriend, at the time, burst into tears when she first saw it.  The house was built in 1890, and was one of the early homes to be built in Raymond.  It is an approximately 1500 square foot farm house, made out of heart pine which is now extinct.  The inside walls are made of rough, rich, reddish brown timber.  In those day, linen was tacked onto the walls and then wall paper was pasted over the linen.  When I moved in, most of the rooms still had the original wallpaper. My step daughter pointed out that the wallpaper in one of the rooms was the same as one of the rooms in the Amityville Horror movie. And she was right! Yikes!

 The people who lived in this house, over the years, were poor, but the essence of the house was plain, strong, and simple.  The house sits on 2 ½ foot pillars.  Houses in those days were built 2 ½ feet off the ground because termites only climb 2 feet.  By the time Bill moved into the house, it was in disrepair.  In his eyes, it was still  beautiful, and he happily moved into the dining room, where he lived until I came along.  When I first came here, when people asked me where I lived, I would tell them, and they’d say, oh, yes, you live in Miss Connie’s house. 

So on to Miss Connie.  Miss Connie Ferguson, married late in life.  She was in her 40’s when she married Lloyd McNeill.  He had inherited the house from his parents, the McNeill seniors.  Lloyd was a legendary drinker, and since this took up most of his time, Miss Connie ran the store they had in the center of town.  The store served as a pharmacy, even though there was no pharmacist.  Miss Connie had an agreement with a doctor in a nearby town, and dispensed prescriptions.  This continued until a real pharmacist moved into town and took over years later.  Yikes!

After Lloyd died, Miss Connie rented out rooms in the house to make ends meet.  Being poor, she saved everything the roomers left behind and put it up in the attic. I’m not even going to mention the 53 cats she had in her final years.  It took me six months to empty the attic out.  Every week, the night before garbage day, we would go up into the attic and drag down more mattresses, box springs, chairs, old suit cases,  books, an old wooden wheel chair...  Ah yes, the wheel chair.  When that got uprooted and put by the curb, it stirred up activity from the spiritual realm and it became very obvious that there was a ghost afoot.  My husband had gone to play tennis that night and I was alone in the house, watching TV.  A book slammed down in the other part of the house.  I heard footsteps up and down the hall.  Doors were opened and closed. The old house shook, creaked, and groaned.  By the time Bill arrived back home, I was completely unnerved and very glad to see him.  I guess the former owner of the chair got upset when I threw it out.  Yikes! 

Today, things have settled down, but we still have a ghost, and I think it’s Lloyd.  Although we can’t see him, my cockatiel, Bay Lee, sees him.  She’ll be perched on the back of my chair and will do a double take as if someone just passed the room.  Other times, she peeps nervously and acts like someone is in the room with us.  I can pretty much tell where the spirit is by the direction she’s looking.  I tell her, relax, it’s just Lloyd.  He means no harm. 

Bill and I have worked pretty hard in the last five years to make this house our home.  We’ve remodeled, fixed the plumbing, and electricity.  We even painted the outside of the house.  There isn’t a corner left untouched (well, except for the kitchen).  After you work that hard on something, it becomes yours, and a little bit of history isn’t going to change that.  There are times, when I finish a project in the house, that I think of Miss Connie, and how she’d be pleased to see how we’ve taken care of this old house.  About six months ago, I found Miss Connie’s bible up in the attic, and I gave it a place in the bookcase we have in the hall.  Somehow, it just seems right to have it there.