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This is a tiny little free subscription ezine for friends of The Grove - it is by request only. In other words, we NEVER arbitrarily add email addresses. We also NEVER sell or share email addresses with anyone else, for any reason at any time. We hate SPAM as much as you do!
Wow - I meant to get this month's GroveZine sent out before Thanksgiving, but time just kind of crept up on me! We've been decorating The Grove for Christmas, and also helping out with various aspects of Jefferson's Candlelight Celebration. It seems like we're running behind on everything. Thanksgiving was wonderful, and Tami cooked a huge turkey for our family members that came in from out of town. The Grove smelled like a combination of stuffing, sweet potatoes, pies, and of course, turkey… heavenly! It was a wonderful day, and I'd be remiss if I didn't say that we were so thankful for our family and all of our friends. If you're ready for some Jefferson news, and some ghost stories from The Grove, let's get started! Here's what's in this issue:
Of course, I always try to keep everyone up to date with what's happening in Jefferson, and this month it's easy - Christmas is here! Jefferson is on the "Trail of Lights", which means that it's one of only a handful of cities in Texas and Louisiana that deck out like you've never seen before. Here in town you'll find everything from a faithful rendition of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol", to the Enchanted Forest which is a city park filled with nearly a hundred Christmas trees decorated by citizens and businesses from around Jefferson. The Candlelight Tour of homes is the first two weekends in December, and with the purchase of one ticket you can tour four historic homes, decorated in candlelight and natural greenery, with docents dressed in Victorian costumes. It's truly a magical time of year.
Okay, first of all, I have to come forward with head bowed and hat in hand. I'm very sorry for telling everyone to go out and buy People Magazine, and that The Grove going to be inside - by now, you probably know that we weren't. Here's the real story, though. First we got a call from the Los Angeles offices of People Magazine, and an editor interviewed me for about forty-five minutes. He said that he would send a photographer out over the weekend. The next day a reporter called and said that she'd be here on Saturday. She got here around lunchtime, and we took her through the house, and then dashed off to Lamache's for a delicious dinner. When we got back, she accompanied us on the 2:00 Saturday tour, along with the folks who showed up that weekend. Since she was taking notes the entire time, I told everyone who she was, and at that point there were several others who would be dashing out for People Magazine that next week. The reporter stayed a little longer to get some more detailed information, then headed back. She even told us that we might be the feature story in the article, since she'd gotten so much information. At that point, I basically told everyone that I'd ever met to be sure and go get the magazine. If I had anything to do with it, People was going to be a sell-out that week. On that Thursday when it came out, I drove straight to Marshall to buy it hot off the presses. When I found it, I was forever locating the story about haunted places. It was way in the back, and only about a page and a half long… and we weren't in it. I wondered what had happened, and later in the day I got an email from the reporter. Since Rosa Parks had died a few days earlier, they took the pages from the ghost article to do a feature on her. The Grove ended up on the editing floor. I can't complain too much, though. Ms. Parks was a leader in the civil rights movement, and someone who deserved the attention infinitely more than we did!
I truly believe that more things happen during the day at The Grove than at any times like "midnight" or "Halloween". As it turned out, we had quite a few things occur on Halloween weekend that may make me eat those words. We had quite a few people stop by for the tours that weekend, and as it turned out, we had some visitors from the other side as well. There were quite a few people on one of the tours that Monday, Halloween night - more than we usually take through the house, in fact. For that reason we were a little slow in moving along the tour. When we moved into the blue room (the game room, or original master bedroom for those of you who've been on the tour), several people were lagging behind in the front parlor. As I was starting to tell the story of the Lady in White, I heard a commotion up in the parlor - the folks still in there saw a ribbon of white light float through the room. No one got a photo of it, because they were all kind of in shock, but it was seen by several people who didn't know each other. Needless to say, that caused a little bit of a commotion. The second thing that happened was something that I'd never seen before. One of our guests was taking photos in the center stairwell, and ended up taking quite a few in series. When she looked at them on her digital camera, there was a small, bright purple light floating through the room. It had moved about a foot in every photo. In all my years of paranormal investigation, I've never seen anything like them. The next thing that happened was in the den - the "new room" of the house. After I told the tales of the mischievous ghost there, and of course the story of the light in that room, we were headed for the kitchen when one of our guests pulled me aside. She told me that in the middle of my talk there, something had given her a "very cold hug". She wasn't scared - it was just an interesting experience. The final thing from that weekend was something that we didn't see for a week or so. A couple who had been on the tour earlier in the weekend had taken quite a few photos, and when they were developed, they found several interesting anomalies that couldn't be explained… not even by the folks at their photo lab! They sent us copies, which we found to be very interesting. I can hardly wait until next Halloween!
For the final story this month, I have to say that I learned something new about the house this past weekend of November 26-27. Coincidentally, it was from two different people on two different days, who'd never had contact with each other. On Saturday afternoon we hosted a couple who'd been here before we purchased The Grove, back when Patrick owned it. He took them through the house, and let them return the following day. That second day when they went through the house they were standing by the front door - the house was quite, and nothing had happened to them. They were discussing that fact when there was suddenly a loud scream emanating from the back of the house, perhaps from the kitchen. Fortunately, he was rolling tape and the scream was captured. We're looking forward to hearing it! Oddly enough, on the Sunday tour, one of our guests asked, "Have you ever heard a woman screaming in the house?" While we haven't had that happen, I thought that it was an incredible coincidence that it had been reported twice in the same weekend by two different people. This time, also before we purchased The Grove, the lady was on the ghost walk and was standing out on Moseley Street with Jody (the guide) when it was over, and they were talking about the spirits in the house. Suddenly, the sound of a woman screaming came from the house, and they all turned and ran. Now, we have no idea who the screaming ghost is, but it has apparently been heard by several people - just not us! I guess that for now, the stories will just become part of the legends of The Grove.
Well, that's it for the November Grovezine, and I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Blessings to you all for the upcoming holiday season: Christmas, Hannuka, Kwanza, Ramadan, Solstice, or whatever. Just know that we're happy to have you as friends. www.thegrove-jefferson.com To repeat our words from the beginning, this is a free subscription ezine for friends of The Grove - in other words, we NEVER arbitrarily add email addresses. We also NEVER sell or share email addresses with anyone else. To subscribe, send an email to mitchel@whitington.com with the following words in the subject line: Subscribe Grove To unsubscribe, send an email to mitchel@whitington.com with the following words in the subject line: Unsubscribe Grove |
