When you are a child, there is a belief that your family is the same as your friends’ families around you. At a young age, I discovered that my family was unique. None of my friends had what we had – a ghost.
Our ghost was my great aunt Josette. She lived with my grandparents Elmore and Blanche. Josette was my grandmother’s oldest sister who died in the 1940s. She loved to play tricks on my grandfather, Elmore. Josette would hide his Camel cigarettes, his newspaper, change the tv stations (Josette pioneered remote control), and turned off the lights when Elmore wanted to read.
A lot of the time, Josette was visible to us as she sat in a rocking chair talking with my grandmother. I never could hear her, but my grandmother Blanche could. They would converse for hours. Both sisters rocking away while my sister, Christy, and I would play with our toys on the living room floor.
When my grandmother Blanche died in 1999, Christy and I went to clean out her home. On our last trip as we emptied out the closet in the front bedroom, we discovered it was packed with boxes of clothes labeled ‘Josette’. There was a complete wardrobe of small sized, vintage clothes.
At that time, I was a teacher/counselor at a small school in East Texas. As part of my day, I taught history, government, and theater arts. I knew that these boxes of clothes would be great for the theater class so Christy and I loaded a dozen boxes marked ‘Josette’ into my truck. When we finished cleaning the house, my sister, Christy, suddenly turned to me as we did a final goodbye walkthrough. She asked, “Mark what are we going to do about Josette?”
To be honest, I had not given any thought to Josette after Blanche died. It was now evening. I was tired, emotionally drained, and dreading a 2 ½ hour drive home. I told Christy to do what she wanted. It was a big mistake. Christy stood in the open front doorway; the house was completely empty as her voice bounced off the walls. “Josette, Josette, it’s Mark and Christy. Blanche is gone Josette; Blanche is not coming back. This is Mark and Christy. We are leaving too. We are never coming back. All of your things, all of your clothes are in Mark’s truck. If you want to go with your things, go get in Marks truck right now. Josette, Josette, now go get into Mark’s truck.” Christy turned around to me with a laughing smile. She closed and locked the door. This was Saturday evening.
My classroom was directly behind the school auditorium. A small closet connected the two. The school was built in 1931 with heavy solid wooden doors that were padlocked shut. On Sunday afternoon my son, Ricky, and I unloaded the Josette boxes into that closet. The next day, Monday, I had three student activities going on in the fifth period theater arts class. One group of actors was seated on the floor at the front of the room learning lines for our next play, Snow White. The other two groups were in the two back corners working on scenery and costumes.
Suddenly the padlock securing the closet door snapped open. Then the padlock rose off the hasp, falling to the floor. This got the attention of the students at the front of the room. Then the closet door opened slowly as we watched. The kids at the front then felt extremely cold air go through their group. Next, the hallway classroom door opened without anyone there. The door stayed opened for two to three minutes. No one said a word. Then the door slammed shut. The cold air went back through the front group. Next, the door to the outside opened and stayed open. This door was an extremely heavy metal door that automatically slammed shut if not held open. Now the entire front group decided to relocate to my desk at the back of the room. After several minutes, the door slammed shut. Suddenly I realized Josette had taken Christy’s advice. I called out, “Josette, stop this. You are scaring the children.” The closet door slammed shut with a bang.
For the next seven years, Josette was present at the high school. Often we would see her reflection on the glass doors of the trophy cases as she walked in the halls. Students who came in to the school at night to get a book out of their locker would sometimes see her as close as 3 feet from them. As word got out, students avoided the school at night. Josette was better than a burglar alarm.
Josette was a teacher in the 1920s through the 1940s. She loved school. She was always in a long dress carrying two textbooks, her hair in a tight bun on top of her head with a pencil stuck in her hair. If you saw her, and many did, you could always see through her, but sightings of Josette in daylight hours were limited.
However, Josette was often in my counselor office continuing the pranks she had played on my grandfather Elmore. Many times, over the years my student assistants would be typing on the computer, look away from the screen, and when they looked back to continue typing the notes that were next to them, the notes had suddenly disappeared. It was frustrating but over time we learned to look in the inner office to find the missing papers.
One day as one of the students, Paula, was typing, Josette took her papers. As Erin was complaining about Josette and searching through the office, a new campus policeman walked in. He whipped out his pocket pad to take notes about the stolen papers. He wanted to know what class Josette was in. Gradually he discovered Josette was not a student, nor even a living person. I walked into the office as the officer was giving Erin a lecture that there were no such things as ghosts. He then turned to me to tell her that was so. My reply to Erin was, “Let’s unlock the inner office to see what Josette has done with your papers. Of course, the papers were in the top right desk drawer. The officer, a seasoned deputy sheriff, was not convinced. Not yet!
The next morning the officer opened the school and bent down to turn off the motion alarm. When he straightened up Josette was standing right next to him – shaking her head no, no, no, and pointing her finger in his face fully visible. After a moment, Josette turned, walking back to my office. The shaken officer followed her down the hall. When Josette walked through the closed locked door of my office, he could no longer see her. When I got to school, the officer was waiting outside for me really shaken up. He was trembling and crying.
Ghosts. Remember when the disciples witnessed Jesus walking on the water and were afraid. What did Jesus ask them? “Did you think I was a ghost?”
By the way, I still get reports of Josette sightings at that school for the last 24 years. Students have made Josette into a legend. Ghosts…don’t you wish your family had one?
