Haunted Deer Lodge - ALABAMA
Alan Smithee
(Wisconsin State Journal)
SECTION: Sports
COLUMN: PAT DURKIN
WAUPACA -- ``Come on, Pat. You're a grown man. Show you're not afraid
of no ghost. Get out of bed, walk to the bathroom and tend to business.''
Still I lay there, wondering if I should leave the safety of my
blankets. I was at Alabama's Lee Haven deer hunting lodge, which just
happens to have a well-known haunted house for its headquarters.
This was a new deer hunting experience for me. I know some hunters
admit to being scared of the night woods, which I understand. For
instance, I've had bobcats and owls screech nearby in the dark. Each
time it happened, I wondered if I should discreetly check my shorts.
But haunted houses? Stop it! Even though our Southern hosts assured
us the big antebellum home was a registered haunted house, I wondered
if they were just having fun with us Yankees.
The hunt had started innocently. When arriving Jan. 20, our host,
Spence Bonjean, educated our group of the lodge's rules and hunting
regulations. After the indoctrination, Bonjean told us the house in
which we were staying was built in 1854 by slaves owned by Col. Edward
Lee, a cousin of Robert E. Lee, the famous Confederate general.
Bonjean then paused, looked serious and said matter-of-factly:
``This is one of about 130 registered haunted houses in the country.
It has two ghosts, Col. Lee and his great-granddaughter, Bessie Hudson.
Miss Bessie was killed in this house by her Dalmatians in 1952.
``Weird stuff happens here, but don't worry. The ghosts never hurt
anyone. They scare someone every now and then, but it's usually when
the person is here alone. They don't do much when a lot of people
are here.''
Fascinated, I asked, ``What do they do?'' Bonjean asked Darrell
Daigre, vice president of marketing for Mossy Oak camouflage company,
to answer. Daigre spends a lot of time at the lodge, and was there
when Mossy Oak bought the property and cleaned up the old house.
Daigre said the ghosts often turn on the radio and TV late at night,
turn lights on and off, slam doors, put flowers in vases, walk across
creaky floors and turn on Bonjean's car alarm, which never sounds
anywhere but at Lee Haven. Bonjean said he once heard Hudson's ghost
calling his name when he was on the porch. He and Daigre also recalled
an old Ouija board that couldn't be thrown away. When they were cleaning
out the house shortly after the purchase, they threw the Ouija board
into the trash five or six times and took everything to the dump.
They claimed the Ouija board was back on the kitchen table each time
they returned from hauling the junk. Finally, they had someone else
burn it.
They also recalled the time a 7-year-old boy stayed over with his
father. The boy knew nothing of ghosts. His father awoke in the middle
of the night, realized his son wasn't in bed, and heard faint crying.
He found the boy hiding in the bathroom between the toilet and the
bathtub. The boy frightfully told his father: ``That lady in there
won't talk to me!''
The boy said he had gotten up to go to the bathroom, and saw a
woman in a rocking chair in the bedroom he passed. However, when his
father checked the only bedroom in the hall, he found it had long
been nailed shut. He calmed the boy and put him back into bed. Soon
after, ``Bessie Hudson'' came into their room. They ran to their car
and raced home, never to return.
Those stories ran through my head when I went to bed an hour later.
Two times during that first of three nights in the house, I awoke
aching to answer nature's call, but I couldn't goad myself into leaving
the bed. Finally, I awoke a third time in severe discomfort. I assured
myself those Southern boys were just getting into my head with wild
yarns.
I strode purposefully down the hallway and entered the bathroom.
I looked at my watch and saw it was 3:30 a.m. Minutes later, when
I opened the bathroom door to return to bed, I heard a radio in the
unoccupied guest room to my left.
Unlike in the movies, I didn't investigate. I just went back to
bed. I told myself I was there to hunt deer, not ghosts.
Hey, at least it made me sound like no one had me blustered.
Memo: Former Madisonian Pat Durkin, Waupaca, is editor of Deer and
Deer Hunting magazine. To contact him, write: Midwest Features Inc.,
P.O. Box 259907, Madison, WI 53725-9907, or contact him by E-mail
at: Patd...@gglbbs.com
Copyright © 1999 Madison Newspapers, Inc.
NOTHING LIKE A LEGEND TO SPICE UP HUNTING HAUNT. , 01-31-1999, pp 12D.
raoultom
husband is from Waupaca: I went there with him once, and in the single
block of main street there are something like two liquor stores and
three bars. We didn't see any ghosts but that area is perfect for them,
isolated, heavily wooded, and the winters last 14 months at least.
Whirr,
Mary
Alan Smithee wrote:
>
> NOTHING LIKE A LEGEND TO SPICE UP HUNTING HAUNT
> (Wisconsin State Journal)
>
> SECTION: Sports
> COLUMN: PAT DURKIN
> WAUPACA -- ...`