Phantom Felines And Other Ghostly Animals - Gerina Dunwich 2006

A House Haunted by Cats
Phantom Felines

by Janice Essex

In August 1953 my mother (who was pregnant with me), father, and four sisters moved into an old thirteen-room house that had quite a history. Built in the 1890s, it had been a boarding house where many odd things had happened, including the murder of a male occupant.

As my family was moving things into one of the upstairs bedrooms, two of my sisters screamed at our mother that a stray cat ran out of the room. Everyone assumed that it had run in unnoticed while they were busy moving things in, and the incident was soon forgotten. However, through the years there were more and more incidents of fleeting glimpses of a cat.

My aunt and uncle from Oregon came to visit, and when they sat at breakfast the first morning, my aunt remarked about our cat that was upstairs all night. My mother just smiled and said it was a nuisance. Another time, during a bad time in my life, I was lying on the bed crying and I felt the cat lie down beside me.

My first husband and I were living with my mother, and one night after we had been in bed for a while he said, “Get that damn Jiggs (our physical pet cat) off my feet!” I looked and told him there was nothing there. He said “Oh, hell.” He, too, had got a glimpse of the “spirit” cat a couple of times before.

When my daughter was almost three years old, I was taking her upstairs to give her a bath. I was standing at the bottom of the stairs with her in front of me at my feet. She looked up the stairway and said, “Oh, Mommy, there’s the kitty.” I thought it was strange, since babies don’t understand about spirits and ghosts. She also said it like it wasn’t uncommon for her to see “the kitty.”

I have tried to justify these happenings by attributing them to something natural or imagination, but I know what I’ve seen and can’t really rationalize what they were.

The old house has since been torn down. I am now remarried and living in another state, but all this is as fresh in my mind as if it happened yesterday.