do you believe in ghosts?

Mar 6

Daffodil Farm Ghost Stories by William E. Bray

Much of my life has been focused on the Daffodil Farm in Gordon County, Georgia. My senior year at the University of Georgia, I defined my life mission: "To try to make this a better world for the next generation as my ancestors had done." Phase 1 was to be an educational odyssey to "deprovincialize" myself, broadening myself through graduate studies at Yale and Johns Hopkins University, independent study at Oxford University and Harvard, and a variety of experiences like my "Grand Tour" of Europe seeing every major castle, cathedral and museum in 12 countries in 12 weeks, and living in a 22nd floor apartment a block from Lincoln Center in New York, while working in the Empire State Building. Phase 2 was to return to Georgia using that experience and the Daffodil Farm, as an instrument, using its 200 year-old house and 25 acres of daffodils in fields, hilltops and back in the woods, for retreats, summer classes, and weekend retreats in the arts, to broaden and expand the students's appreciation and knowledge and expressions of the arts thereby improving the cultural life of Georgia. Four generations of my family had made their home at the Daffodil Farm, and stories of each had come down in the family, especially my grandfather's first cousin, Minnie Bray, who was born, lived her whole life, and died at theDaffodil Farm. When her husband, Rev. Julius Peek Jones, had developed arthritis, she expanded her hobby of daffodils into a business to support them, shipping cut flowers to northern cities. With this history in mind, I returned in 1975 to start Phase 2 of my life and founded the Georgia Fine Arts Academy in 1980. Following years were filled with arts classes for high school art and drama students at the Daffodil Farm. Living at the farm for more than twenty years, here are a few of the ghost stories I experienced.

The First Ghost Story

After 15 years of living in the cultural centers of the Northeast including some of its major cities, it was an adjustment moving into the house at the Daffodil Farm. I was intent on working to prepare the the house and grounds for our summer arts classes and programs I had planned there. So, it was not unusual to work all day cutting grass or vines in the yards and in the glen filled with several springs leading down to the lake. I would usually work into the evening and stop when it got so dark I could not see how to work outside any longer. For several years, I had been surprised and disappointed that I had not seen or heard from any ghosts. Surely the farm would have ghosts, since the farm's history included an Indian history and Civil War history including Sherman's troops passing through the farm on their way to Atlanta. Confederate troops had even left some defensive bunkers on the hill along the northwest side of the farm.

All of that changed one afternoon. As usual, I had worked all day cleaning out bushes and cutting grass. As it began to get dark, and day had turned into dusk, I was putting away my garden tools - shovel and rake. As I headed toward the studio, from the corner of my eye, I saw to my left someone standing beside a tree, down on the other side of the stream toward the lake. I was somewhat startled, since I had been alone all day. I abruptly stopped, and turned to my left to get a better view. When I looked again, I couldn't see the person. After a few seconds, I concluded I must have imagined that. I had been working all day and was tired. Resuming my way toward the studio again I saw out the corner of my eye, someone, standing beside that tree next to the stream running down to the lake.

I concluded I could not have imagined this. There was someone there! I moved 20 feet forward, then 20 feet back, but could not see the person. I concluded they must be standing behind the tree. By this time, I could not just go ahead putting my tools away. I had to be sure. So, I laid my garden utensils down, and walked across the bridge over the stream, down alongside the on the other side, until I got down to tree. I was sure I had seen somebody. When I got to the tree, there was no one there. I walked around the tree several times.

I could not believe no one was there.

Then, it dawned on me. I had done that day what Cousin Minnie did virtually every day of her life - work in her garden, to make it more beautiful for people to see. If anyone would return and continue in spirit, what they had done throughout their lives, Minnie would be in her garden in the daytime in the glen around the springs. Then, I realized, I have been looking for her in the wrong place! I had been expecting to see her in the house, not in the garden where she had been out working every day.

Minnie & her sister Josie

While I was on he faculty of Floyd College, one of my students wanted to come to the Daffodil Farm and explore its history. He wanted to have his wedding there - in the field of daffodils when they bloomed. I had told him this was customary when Julius was living there, since he was a Baptist minister, and people enjoyed coming out to the farm to be married.

The student was sitting upstairs, in the larger bedroom, toward the barn, and he was looking through a box of pictures I had given him, for pictures of other weddings. I had gone downstairs, but heard him call out. I went back upstairs to see what was wrong. He excitedly told me, he was looking through the pictures, and two women had come through the door, dressed in 1880's long dresses, with their hair as it would have looked back then. One of them came and stood behind him, enjoying the view of the pictures, while the other faced him, as he went through them. He said they were enjoying watching him go through the pictures, and it felt so natural, it took him a few minutes to realize what he had actually been seeing. When he excitedly realized what was happening, he called for me to come up there. He was really excited, and then I realized what had happened.

I asked him to give me the box, and I looked through the pictures. I held one up to him, and said, "Is this one of the people you saw," and he said it was. "That was the one that stood behind me." Then I looked through more of the pictures, and found another one. "What about this one?" "Yes," he said, "that was the one who faced me."

Then I said, "Just as I thought. The one who faced you, was Minnie, whose picture I just showed you. And the other one was Minnie's favorite sister, Josie, who married Thomas Rogers, whose pictures I just showed you, and they lived just over the hill. Josie would have visited Minnie frequently, so undoubtedly, they wanted to come and see what you were doing with their pictures."

True to his plans, the student held his wedding at the Daffodil Farm, including the arrival of his bride in a horse drawn carriage.

One Halloween Night

I was Executive Director of the Rome Area Council for the Arts, and it had been a long hard day. I was looking forward to my thirty-minute drive home to the Daffodil Farm, where I could relax and take it easy. As I drove into the driveway, I realized, "It's Halloween! The last thing I need is having trick or treaters knocking on the door." So, I decided what I would do was turn out all the lights in the main house, so they would think nobody was home. Then, so there would not be a car there, I would drive on out to The Bulb House, on the other side of the springs, which was the house Minnie had built to cure the daffodil bulbs so she could replant them. My father had renovated The Bulb House it into a guest cottage by adding a kitchen on the side, and a bathroom on the back.

I pulled up to the Bulb House, and after going inside, I realized anyone could see the lights on from the main house, so I turned off all the lights, and moved about due to the light cast from the television set, which I left on. I sat back in a very comfortable chair, and decided I would watch television until I drifted off to sleep. Anyone driving up to the main house couldn't see it, so they would think nobody was home.

I watched television for a while, and then I was drifting off to sleep, when all of a sudden I heard a clear knock on the wall behind the bathroom at the rear of the house. It was not just a knock. It was three knocks loud and clear with space in between each one. By the third knock I was clearly awake! "What is this?" I thought. Surely there was no one here but me. Or not supposed to be. I was really comfortable and ready to go to sleep. But I was not imagining this nor asleep. There were three knocks. Not wanting to move, I thought that maybe it was branches from the low trees blowing against the Bulb House. So, I was ready to go on to sleep, when I heard it again. Knock! Knock! Knock! This time, still not wanting to be disturbed, I pulled back the curtain and looked out of he window. There was no wind. It was perfectly still, so it could not have been the wind blowing a limb against the house.

"Well, what do I do now?" I thought. Not wanting to do anything, but go on to sleep, I decided if I heard it one more time, I would go out and go to the main house to get a flashlight and then come back to investigate. Again, I settled down in my comfortable chair, but again, I heard it. Knock! Knock! Knock! And this time it was clear. It was not coming from a branch against the house. It was coming from the back wall of the bathroom on the back of the house. It seemed like it was about three feet from the floor. So, i unlocked the door went out onto the porch.

It was an incredible night. There was a full moon - "On Halloween!" - I thought. The full moon illuminated everything, almost like a street light. I slowly walked around to the side of the house. The maintenance man my father had working there to maintain the farm, had been cutting the leaves with the lawn mower, which he did every fall, to mulch the leaves. They had been thrown up against the side of the Bulb House, nearly a feet hight. As I walked around to see the back side of the bathroom wall, it was completely dark. The moon had left that area completely black, so I really couldn't see anything. But, strangely, what I could see was a lightning bug - blinking about six inches from the back wall of the Bulb House, about a foot or less from where the leaves were backed up against the house. It was about where I had heard the sound. Then I thought, "Wait a minute! It's fall, there are no lightning bugs out now!"

"Well," I thought, It's time to go get the flashlight from the main house." When I returned with the flashlight, I moved to the side of the building and cast the light where I had seen the lightning bug. What I saw amazed me. It was not a lightning bug. There extending out of the foot of dried leaves, the maintenance had left beside the house, was a live wire that had been cut by the lawn move. Sparks were flying out between the two parts of the live wire, burning down toward the dry leaves. It did not take me long to realize, that had the sparks continued, slowly burning the wire down to the dry leaves, it would have caught them on fire - possibly enveloping the Bulb House in fire and smoke, and me, while sleeping in front of the television set.

Alarmed, I raced into the Bulb House. Not knowing where the live wire was connected to house and why it was there, I disconnected fuses to everything except the light I was using, since I didn't know exactly which fuse went to the exposed wire in the back where the sparks were flying. I spent an uneasy night, hoping I had disconnected the right fuses.

The next day I told my father about it, so he could make sure the live wires were properly repaired. I will never forget his reply. My father said, "It looks like Minnie is looking after you."