SeanPaulMurphyVille: The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 7, Clara's Tale, Pt. 2

Monday, November 25, 2019

The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 7, Clara's Tale, Pt. 2

Jeanne and Clara, circa our arrival at 21 St. Helens Avenue

My upcoming novel Chapel Street was inspired by my experiences growing up in a "haunted" house at 21 St. Helens Avenue* in the Northeast Baltimore neighborhood of Lauraville. This series of blogs will examine the actual haunting that inspired the book. This blog is a continuation of my interview with my mother Clara about her experiences at the house. You can read Part One Here.

Here's a brief clip from this part of the interview:

Below you will find the transcript of the second part of the interview. The transcription was made by my niece Emily. It has been edited for clarity.

SEAN: Was there an increase in activity after the extension?**

CLARA: There was a lot of activity after the extension. But I think the activity really was the most when John was in high school. I think that's when, you know. And it was all his friends there all the time. And that music, you know, like Black Sabbath, and you know. I think a lot of that stuff played a role in -- that was conducive to a lot of the stuff that went on.

SEAN: What was the worst thing you remember from that house?

CLARA: Well, I think being upstairs in that Hell Hole was the worst thing. Although I could never sleep -- the other bedroom, the big bedroom was really, really bad. Like I say, at nighttime, things disappearing. Sharon and Doug gave me a computer, it was one of the Mac strawberries, and I had it on the cabinet at the bottom -- at the foot of my bed, there was a cabinet against the wall. I had it on there. That was on, I guess you call it a dressing table, it had a mirror in the background. And at nighttime, I would hear it, (whistles), it would kind of like whistle and turn on by itself. And then there would be something on there writing, and I'd be like, what does that say? And I'd grab my glasses, and as soon as I would go over to look at it, it would click off. And it did that, I don't know how many times. I don't know how many times it did that.

Natalie and Clara

I think one of the scariest things, and I really wanted to leave, was when Natalie was there getting ready for school that morning and the bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang on that door. You were there.

SEAN: I was there. That was literally my last morning at the house I lived there.

CLARA: Was it?

SEAN: Yeah. And to me, that was -- you know, I think Natalie knew what door it was banging on. It was banging on the door --

CLARA: It was banging on the door --

SEAN: -- to the attic.

CLARA: -- to the attic, yes. and I was like, "Natalie?" (holds ears shut).

SEAN: Yeah, and it was, like, really loud.

CLARA: It was so loud. I was getting dressed and Natalie had taken her shower and all, she was getting ready for school. She had to be -- we used to leave early because her school started at a quarter after 7:00. And it was that bang bang bang bang. And I was like, "Natalie, please stop that noise!" And she was like, "It's not me, Grandmom! I'm in the bedroom, it's not me." I was like, "Oh, my God." I mean... You know.

SEAN: That was a rare event, that a lot of people --

CLARA: You know, Natalie --

SEAN: Because usually, I think it kind of -- it would kind of control -- you know, it was psychological in the sense that it would usually attack one person at a time, and you would never know that it really happened.

CLARA: Right.

SEAN: So you were always afraid to talk about it.

CLARA: I remember Alex used to lay there and he would watch (looks up in the air and follows something with her head) something go by. You know, you could see him looking at something. And dogs, you know, it would be like, what's he looking at?

SEAN: Alex might have been high, because I remember Mark -- when Alex was sick, Mark would smoke pot and blow it into his mouth.

CLARA: No, no, no, he wasn't high. He used to look all the time. Ginger did, too. Ginger used to follow something.

SEAN: Mmhm.

CLARA: Used to look around and follow something. You know. I was going to tell -- oh, my first day after I lost my job, I was sitting up in my bedroom in that rocking chair reading. I was the only one in the house, and I heard the bathroom water. And I went in and both faucets were turned on full, you know, full blast. I turned them off and I went in and I sat back down, and about ten minutes later, I heard the water on. And I went back in and the water was turned on full blast.

Clara, Debbie, Sr., Jon Coe

I remember after Laurie died, and after everybody left and went back to their life, Debbie Sr.*** came down and she said, "So what's going on?" I said, "Oh, nothing." She said, "Well, who's here?" And I said, "Oh, nobody's here." And with that, we heard somebody walk across the floor upstairs and go into the bathroom and close the door. And she said, "I thought you said nobody's here?" I said, "Nobody is here. You want to go up and check it out?" And she's like, "No." I said, "Well, I think we should leave," and we both got our purse and just left.

But I think it got a lot more vocal, you know --

SEAN: Mmhm.

CLARA: -- than it did. It got braver, it got ballsier as time went by. That it was like, okay, now you know I'm here, you know, after a certain point in time, and so it didn't bother trying to -- maybe it just got stronger, I don't know, that it could do stuff. I remember when they were working on the -- when the workmen were working on the new house -- on the new kitchen, I went to a meeting, I had a class that I went to, a sewing class, and I left a note on this table for them that I'm not here, I won't be here today, I won't be home until about 2:30. This is where I'm at, if you have any questions or you need me, call this number.

And then I came home and I was like, "Oh, wow, what's going on?" You know, they were like -- they asked me something. I said, "Well, I just got back." They were like, "What do you mean you just got back?" And I said, "Well, I've been gone all day." They said, "No, you haven't. We heard you upstairs with the dog. You were talking to the dog and the dog was barking." I was like, "No, I just walked in the door." You know, so...

And then they -- I heard it call my name. I heard it call other people's names, too. It got a lot worse -- it got a lot bolder, I think, as time went by, it really did.

SEAN: Now, did it always -- did it always mimic a known voice, a voice you knew?

CLARA: Yes, yes. It could mimic the voice. It didn't just -- wasn't a voice that you -- it was a voice you recognized, you know. And then your father, God only knows what...

SEAN: Someone -- now, I'll say concerning him, that it was probably around 1984, the Ouija board time, when things got really bad, we had a meeting. I definitely remember Jeanne, you, me, and Jon Coe, a decision was made not to talk to John, and Pops -- well, this was around this table, but it was in a different house.

CLARA: Right.

SEAN: And Pops was in watching TV in the living room, and we're like, should we tell him? I go, "I'll go in and ask him if he wants to sit in on this meeting." And I said, "Hey, we're talking -- we're having a meeting in there about the stuff that's been going on in the house." "What stuff?" "You know, all the stuff." And he -- he just looked at me like I was crazy.

CLARA: Yeah.

SEAN: So I assumed nothing was ever bothering him. But I recently heard from someone that he told them he could hear furniture moving in John's room. But there was more disturbing stuff than that, too, that Natalie said that she would hear him --

CLARA: Yeah, I heard him.

SEAN: -- go up into the Hell Hole and talk -- and have conversations up there with someone.

CLARA: He had conversations in the living room also, with -- he would argue with --

SEAN: This was opposed to, however, his normal alcoholic --

CLARA: Yeah.

SEAN: -- yelling at the TV type thing?

CLARA: Right, right. But you could never understand what he was saying. He was like, "No, that's not (indistinguishable yelling)," you know. Yes, no, he -- yes, no, I think at the end there, it got to him probably because he had himself so open with his alcoholism, you know. Where before, he wasn't home much.

SEAN: Yeah. So, would you --

CLARA: I mean, he wouldn't come home until, like, late at night. So he wasn't in the house like we were until he was retired, and then I think it started messing with him, too. I don't know how much he actually knew what it was or who knows. I think his mind was just all screwed up at that point. Yeah, and look at him. He had that aneurysm in that house on Christmas.**** You know, was that just an aneurysm, did the thing cause that? I don't know. You know. I know he was never right after that.

Christmas 1983
My father was not in this picture. We thought he
was one step behind us visiting the family, but he
was actually on the floor at home bleeding internally.

SEAN: Yeah. Yeah. He was sort of like a case study, in my opinion, of a skeptic in the house, whether it would affect a skeptic or whether it wouldn't affect those people that were more willing to engage.

CLARA: Yeah. I think probably he did not have as much intuition into it as some of us did.

SEAN: And I think definitely his alcoholic state opened him --

CLARA: Right.

SEAN: -- to it.

CLARA: Exactly. That's what I was trying to say, yeah, that he would be more up to it, you know.

SEAN: I consider him a victim, to a degree, of what was in the house.

CLARA: Well, I think we were all victims of what was in that house. And I'll tell you the truth, I was always afraid, because I knew it followed -- something followed me. The incubus would always follow me to Taylor's Island. I was always afraid it would follow me wherever I went. I was afraid it would follow me here.

SEAN: Do you think it followed you here?

CLARA: No. No.

SEAN: Do you think there's anything here?

CLARA: No. No, I think this house is very calm, there's nothing here that is going to hurt anybody. Yeah. No, this is a safe house. But that's why I would never go back to that house. If invited, I would never go back there, because I would be afraid it would recognize me and then would be like, oh. Maybe I snuck out without it, you know. Maybe it thought I was going to come back before I left completely. I don't know. I think I was lucky to get out the first time without it and I would not go back. Or maybe that's where it lives. I don't know. But I think whoever lives there, I think they're probably having experiences also, and probably still questioning.

SEAN: Do you think that this entity was in any way responsible for the deaths of either Laurie, Mark, or your husband?

Douglas Ernest Murphy, Sr.

CLARA: I don't think your father, no. I think he drank himself to death. I think he was just extremely depressed. See, and that's another thing. I think there was a lot of depression on his side. With Laurie and Mark, I'm really not sure. I think it may have messed with their minds. I wouldn't write it off as no, it didn't have anything to do with it. I don't think it was there at the moment of their death, if you know what I mean.

SEAN: I personally think it could have been.

CLARA: Well, maybe it could. I think it -- I think it screwed with them enough, that yeah, at least made them -- made their minds -- screwed up their mind. I think it had the possibility to do that. You know. I think Mark especially, yeah. I often wondered, had we not moved to that house, would they both be alive?

SEAN: I wondered about that too.

CLARA: You know, Mark was always a very quiet child when he was growing up. As a baby, he was probably the best baby I ever had. And, you know, I wonder all the stuff that he got into, I don't know what all drugs he took. I know he smoked pot, but I often wonder if a lot of that stuff would not have happened if we didn't live there.

SEAN: Well, I know I asked him one of those times when he was in a very lucid state, you know, when he was on his meds. After the Ouija board incident, he was no longer living at home, and I asked him, I said, "While you were living up in that room, did you experience anything supernatural?" And his response to me was, "When I was living in that room, I was so high all the time, I would never have known if it did or whether it was in my mind."

Mark, with Ginger, in the basement apartment he built

CLARA: But you know, I know when he built the basement, I know it got -- oh, man, that place. That basement. Wow. One time I -- I know he couldn't sleep in that bedroom that he built there because it was -- there was something in there. But I know the one time I went down there, it was the 4th of July and Ginger was afraid of the fireworks and I went down in there. That place was spookier than the upstairs. I mean, that place -- I couldn't stay down there. I had to leave. It just -- that basement was just terrible. I often felt bad, then, because we used to make Alex sleep in the basement. I didn't know it was that bad. The whole house was just -- that whole house was just bad.

SEAN: Yeah, well.

CLARA: The whole house was just bad. There wasn't any safe room. There wasn't any safe spot that you could be in. You couldn't go to the bathroom without thinking something was watching you. You know. And it's a shame because I always liked that -- I liked that house, the way -- you know, it was a beautiful house.

SEAN: It was a beautiful house.

CLARA: I wish you would talk to whatever we said is who claimed to have information on that house, because I would like to the know what happened in that house before we moved there. Was there something there before we moved there? And I think the fact that it was just so many teenagers, the energy, I think it really exacerbated whatever was already there.

SEAN: But here's the thing: As there were no teenagers left when Nat was, say, in college, when it was you, Nat, and John, John's in his late 20s, it was still active. It was woke up and it stayed awake.

CLARA: Well, because -- well, yeah, right. Right. I think once -- yeah, once it gained its strength, it was just a very strong entity.

SEAN: Do you think the Ouija board was the thing that triggered it?

CLARA: -- the trigger? I really don't. I think it just brought it more to the forefront of my knowledge, that it was there. I think it was always there, and I think it was messing with us before that. No, I don't think that that invited it in or anything like that. I think it was always there.

SEAN: I think you make a good point. I think it was always there. I think in some ways, at least for myself, I think it was stronger before I knew it was there. I think it was having more of an affect on me mentally before it really started to play its hands. Because once it started -- once it made itself known, then you knew something was there. It wasn't something in your mind. You weren't crazy, you know.

CLARA: Right.

SEAN: But it's funny, no matter what, when I got home --

CLARA: You couldn't sleep.

SEAN: During the active period, I would be out, and then I'd be driving home and it was getting dark, and it's like, it's going to be there. You know, because it really -- it's like you say, at night.

CLARA: Right.

SEAN: -- suddenly you're in this weird supernatural, superstition world.

CLARA: Right.

SEAN: So you're a normal, rational human being living a 20th century life during the day.

CLARA: Yeah, at a certain point in time, I know when I was working, I don't think I ever got a full night's sleep without being woken up, without feeling that thing climb in bed with you, without all of a sudden you couldn't move. I mean, every night it was something. The black shadow.

SEAN: I never saw it, I'll say that much.

CLARA: Well, it used to come out of that closet.

SEAN: Yeah.

CLARA: No matter what you did, you couldn't keep that door -- that door would open up in the middle of the night, you know. No matter what. No matter what. It always came out of there.

SEAN: Natalie said that when she was living in that room alone, she would actually lock it and it would still open.

CLARA: It would still open. You couldn't -- you couldn't lock it. I mean, it always opened. It was always something, the thing turning on, I think even lights turned on sometimes, you know, would wake you up. You -- I never had a full night's sleep in that house without being -- having something happen during the night to me or around me. You know. I mean, Mark seemed to think something was with that organ. Whether it was or not, I don't know. It was in there before that organ ever came into that house.

SEAN: Oh, yeah.

CLARA: You know, where that organ came from, I don't know. I mean, I know Mr. Kirk, but I mean, where it lived prior, I don't know. You know, where the piano lived prior to being in that house, I don't know either. You know. But no, I don't think we brought it. I think it was always there.

SEAN: I don't think it was anybody's behavior that brought it either.

CLARA: No. No. I know Jeanne blames me with the Ouija board thing, but like I say, that made me realize, yeah, it really is something here. But I don't think that that opened up any portal that wasn't already there. I think whatever was there was there, was always there, you know, came and go, would come and go by itself. Did it come and go? I don't know. There were periods of time when three months would go by and there really wasn't anything that happened, and then all of a sudden it was one thing after another after another. All the stuff that happened, it's hard to remember all of it, you know. But the furniture moving was, you know, one thing. You could hear people -- you could hear footsteps, that was another thing. You know, I mean, there was just a lot of stuff that went on there that...

SEAN: So what -- here's the question that everybody asks: Why did you stay?

CLARA: Why? Your father didn't believe in it. What was I going to do? I wasn't even making $10 an hour. What, I was going to pack up everybody and buy another house? People say that all the time, why don't you just move? Well, your father had the checkbook in his name only, so I couldn't really get any money out of it anyway. And he didn't believe in it, so... "Oh, yeah, we should move because you're scared to stay in this house." That wasn't going to happen. He didn't care. So. I could want to pick up and move. What could I do? You know.

SEAN: So what would you say are your final thoughts?

CLARA: My final thoughts. That I'm glad I'm out of there. You know, I watch a lot of stuff on television and it's like, oh, yeah, we had that. Oh, yeah. You know. I remember that. Oh, yeah, that's... I try to forget a lot of it. It's so much more peaceful now, I don't like to think about it.

And I would never go back there. I would never go back there. And like I say, I'm just glad that it did not follow me. And I know one time, you weren't serious I don't think, but you were considering buying that house when it was for sale, and definitely I would never have gone to visit you if you did because I would never go back there.

SEAN: Well, I was considering it because I felt I could cast it out if it belonged to me. That if the house was physically mine, I could cast it out of the house.

CLARA: No, I don't think you could. I think it would find a way to get itself back in there. I don't think anybody -- and I'm sure that it's there now.

SEAN: I'm sure that it's there now.

CLARA: We did not have a mass hallucination about the stuff that was happening in that house, because for many years, we didn't even talk about it to each other. We were all experiencing things on our own thinking, oh, this can't be happening. So I don't think you can get rid of it. I think somehow or other, as long as that house is there, it's going to be there. People perceive -- how much they perceive it is another story. Some people don't have any psychic ability and so maybe they wouldn't perceive it as much or there would be just quirky little things. I mean, maybe I didn't -- did I really hear that noise? Maybe it was outside, that wasn't in here.

SEAN: So do you feel bad that we didn't tell the next owner about it?

CLARA: It was up to them to ask. I kind of did. But then I thought, well, maybe they wouldn't experience it. Because they didn't have children. You know, I know when I started looking for a house afterwards, that was the first thing I asked when I went into a house. Are there any ghosts in here, do you have any psychic stuff going on in here? And if you ask, they have to tell you. And a couple places we went and the owner -- you know, there was no owner there or whatever, and I made sure to ask the real estate agent, "Make sure you find out because I'm not moving into another haunted house."

SEAN: Well, I will say that when I was at the auction for the house after the next owners were departed, I told the people, anyone who asked me, I told them that I had lived in the house, I was a resident. So they all wanted to talk about the house with me, you know, since I had lived there. And the first thing I told them was that it was haunted.

CLARA: Did you?

SEAN: Yes. Anyone who talked to me.

CLARA: And probably a lot of them didn't believe you.

SEAN: No, a lot of them were like, "Oh, wow, that's really cool."

CLARA: Yeah, yeah.

SEAN: And I'm like --

CLARA: No.

SEAN: I'm like, "No, it's not really cool. It's actually pretty bad."

CLARA: Yeah.

SEAN: You know, and --

CLARA: I always said, it's not Casper the Friendly Ghost.

SEAN: Yeah. It wasn't Joe Ghost either.

CLARA: And it wasn't Joe Ghost.

SEAN: Question: Did Laurie ever discuss anything, you know?

CLARA: Oh, I didn't talk about the red eyes. There were red eyes in that closet at night, too. When that closet door would open, a lot of times at night, you would look in and there would be red eyes in there.

SEAN: You saw them in the bedroom closet? You didn't see them up in the third floor closet

CLARA: No, I never tried -- I tried never to open that. I tried never to go near that closet. I was always looking over my shoulder, especially at night when I would be up there sewing. You know, when you went up into that room, you could hear the street sound when you first went up there, and it was like, if you were up there for a while, it was like you were in a vacuum or something. You never heard -- you couldn't hear anything outside it. It was just like you were enveloped in it. And all the outside noises and all just disappeared and it was just you and that room. And it was a pretty room. It's too bad it was...

SEAN: Too bad it was haunted as hell.

CLARA: It was a pretty house, you know. I really liked the house, I liked where it was located and everything. But on hindsight, if I knew 20 years after, later if I could go back, if I knew then what I know now, I never would have moved there.

21 St. Helens Avenue

Notes:

*21 St. Helens Avenue was the original address of the house when it was built. The street name and number changed over time, but I use the original address to protect the privacy of the current owners.

**My mother added an extension to the back of the house increasing the size of the kitchen and adding another room.

***Debbie Senior was the wife of my late uncle Brian Murphy. She had the word Senior attached to her name after I married a woman named Debbie, who is now called Debbie Junior to avoid confusion in the family.

****My father suffered a near fatal aneurysm on Christmas Day 1982. He was lucky to have survived, but he behavior changed as a result.

Additional blogs about the haunting:

The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 24, Bad News Betty

The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 25, Joe's Tale

My novel Chapel Street was inspired by the haunting. You can currently buy the Kindle and paperback at Amazon and the Nook, paperback and hardcover at Barnes & Noble.

Learn more about the book, click Here.

Listen to me read some chapters here:

Chapel Street - Prologue - My Mother
Chapel Street - Chapter 1 - RestingPlace.com
Chapel Street - Chapter 2 - Elisabetta
Chapel Street - Chapter 3 - The Upload
Chapel Street - Chapter 4 - The Kobayashi Maru

Let's stay in touch:

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SeanPaulMurphyVille

Sean Paul Murphy, Writer

Monday, November 25, 2019

The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 7, Clara's Tale, Pt. 2

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