V2 N16

Page 50 Exit Zero
August 27, 2004 August 27, 2004 Exit Zero
Page 51
GHOST WRITER
Ä Continued from Page 48
downstairs!”
“I have had previous guests
who said that they felt someone
was in that room.” The room in
question, Dr. Stevens’ reading
room, was originally part of his
bedroom. It would make sense
that a strong presence like Dr.
Stevens would be felt in his private
domain. By strong, I do not
mean negative, just a strong personality.
I felt the Doctor’s presence
more in the front of the house,
in the parlor where it seems the
whole family comes and goes.
“The Doctor passed in 1942 and
Bessie, his wife passed in 1945.
Vesta took care of her parents as
they got older,” Lenanne told me.
I tried to run a cassette tape
in the parlor and invite the ghosts,
especially the Doctor. The family
chose silence at this time, at
least via my recorder. No EVP
(Electronic Voice Phenomena) or
ghost voices were recorded on the
magnetic tape.
The ghosts had moved to
the back of the house, in the old
Doctor Albert Stevens’ presence is still felt throughout the Inn
Doctor’s office.
At this point in an investigation,
as I start to peel away
the layers of camouflaged energy,
meaning I look deeper than what
we see in our reality, I start to
encounter other entities. “I am
getting the name ‘Jackie’ or something
like that,” I told Lenanne,
as she laughed in recognition of
the name.
“You know why?” she asked
us. “Vesta had a boyfriend after
her husband had passed away
and he lived here, in this part of
the house. His name was Jack
Claypool. He was a lifetime resident
in Cape May and his mother
was a school teacher in town.”
Could Vesta’s second love
STILL be hanging around?
“When Vesta died, he was the
executor of the will, she left half of
everything to him and the rest got
split between eight cousins.”
A neighbor had told Lenanne,
after she and her husband Jimmy
had bought the place that it was
too bad that Jack had just died;
he would have loved to have told
them about it. Well, it was not
too late. It seems old Jack is still
“hanging” with the Stevens!
I invited Jack Claypool to
speak on tape from the Other Side
but he chose to take the “fifth”
also, not uttering an audible word.
At a point in our visit to the back
part of the Albert Stevens Inn, the
old side door of the Doctor’s office
opened and closed.
Lenanne added that the day
was full of strange happenings. “I
was folding clothes and I put my
tea towels up on a shelf on top
of the dryer where I put folded
wash cloths. All of a sudden, the
tea towels come down and hit me
in the head. I folded them again
them up on the shelf, again and
they came right back down and
hit me on the head!”
“Somebody was playing with
you,” I told Lenanne. “That’s the
impression I got,” she replied.
“Then the wash clothes came
down and hit me in the head! I
Continued on Page 51 F
was like ‘What’s going on?’”
According to official records,
John R. Claypool, Jack, died on
Christmas Day in 1998. He and
his mother Emily were neighbors
of the Stevens for many years.
Could Jack Claypool still be hanging
around the place?
As we talked about Jack
inheriting the house from Vesta
and the estate being sold upon his
death, it seemed old Jack wanted
to add a few thoughts to what
the previous owners did to his
beautiful home. “I am hearing this
saying ‘those lousy cats.’” I told
Lenanne. Lenanne had a good
laugh and told me the previous
owners had up to 60 cats! “There
was extensive damage done to the
house” Lenanne told me about
the years of renovation and restoration
she and her husband
had to put into the place to undo
what their feline predecessors had
done.
Jack told us that he and Vesta
were still in the house. He also
mentioned that Dr. and Mrs.
Stevens come and go as they
like. It seems that Dr Stevens has
already been back to the Other
Side and returns with his wife
to try to convince Vesta to cross
over. Vesta, it seems, enjoys life
right where she is and indicated
to me, through Jack, that she does
not want to see her old husband
on when she crosses over as she
prefers Jack now!
Vesta and Jack had originally
planned to move on. Vesta had
waited around as Jack grew older.
She was
almost 20
years his
senior.
W h e n
J a c k
died, they
stayed
just a little
while
longer,
to watch
what would happen to their precious
home. The home meant a
lot to the Stevens family. It had
been commissioned as a wedding
present from Dr. Stevens to his
bride, Bessie, in 1892 when the
property was purchased from the
Wilbrahams next door.
The beautiful Queen-Anne
style home, with its unique floating
stairway suspended from
the third floor turret, was sold
to investors upon the death of
Vesta Stevens-Olsen. Luckily, the
Labruscianos have restored the
place to its former glory and luckily
(for us) it is now a wonderful a
Bed and Breakfast to enjoy!
As the light in the hall began to
flicker behind Lenanne, I sensed
the presence of Dr. Stevens again.
I could see, in my
mind’s eye, two women
wearing white, one
older, one younger.
They were hovering
over the area of the
table. Looking at what?
He wanted
to talk
about the
war years.
He was
worried
about the
U-boat’s
during
World
War II
and that
the German’s would come onto
the peninsula and take over. He
said he took the precaution of
hiding some money in a wall of
the house!
It was not without just cause
that the Doctor should worry
about intruders. It seems in his
lifetime as a practicing physician,
he had “locals” break in looking
for drugs in his office. He took
to making sure things were well
hidden in the house.
Bringing up the incident with
the sump pump, Jack took credit
for waking up Lenanne’s cousin
Chris in the middle of the night
that November. Jack also mentioned
telling Lenanne about a
side door that was not locking
correctly. At the time they bought
the house, they did not know the
door did indeed have an old fashioned
lock, so they left it unlocked.
Apparently a previous guest, who
was clairvoyant, came to Lenanne
a few years ago and told her
about the Spirit telling him to tell
Lenanne to fix the door lock.
The ghosts also mentioned
other children being in the house.
But Vesta was the only child.
Perhaps Dr. Stevens was also a
pediatrician? There certainly was
a lot of movement in the house. I
explained to Lenanne that a person
will not usually “see” an physical
form of a ghost. What one
experiences in a “haunted” house
is a feeling of not being alone. If
you do see anything with your
eyes, it is usually a “swoosh” or
Continued on Page 52 Ê
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