I promised you that I will be posting my true ghost stories and that I was working on a big story.
I have decided to wait until closer to Halloween to post that story because it’s a long story. I will post a new story once a week, and end up with the long story.

I hope you will enjoy all the stories I post.

The Cemetery

There are many ways a living person have a relationship with a cemetery. One of my new members took me to a near by cemetery one day. “In this cemetery there is a plot for me.” He said, and he pointed out his parents and grandparents and a number of his friends and their families. His voice turned gentle when he showed me the location where he will be when his time comes. Even though he is still a young man, the feeling of knowing where he will end up seemed comforting to him. When his time comes he will be in good company.

I understood how he felt. My roots are back in New York. This is where my brothers, parents, grandparents, and great grandparents lay. Since I have been in Minnesota I have searched the numerous cemeteries around the area, but I have not had a sense of home from any of them. But it did not mean that I have not established a relationship with any of the near by cemeteries.

There is one cemetery near Jordan, that with out my knowing, I had become familiar with the resident spirits there to the point where they came to me for help. Let me tell you what happened…….

When I moved here 6 years ago, the first thing I said to Joe, was to show me the near by cemeteries. Joe took me to Spirit Hill. I loved the name and the antique head stones. Many times I walked around reading the head stones and taking photos. It’s here where I got my photo of an elderly spirit visiting a grave. He then took me to Calvery Cemetery. Here is a lot of German names on the headstones and I felt oh cool these are my people, for I have German blood in me. They are true German people. Stubborn to the bone. They won’t talk to me, the only evp I got from there was a woman crying “Oh God, Oh God” That I was able to hear faintly. One time, I did get a man calling out that I was able to hear, saying “Over here” when I asked if any one was there. If you go there at night they are in your face, so to speak. In an empty cemetery I felt it to be amazingly crowded. Joe then took me to Chaska. The little cemetery on 41 in town. The people here open minded. I have gotten a few good photos of spirits there. One of a little boy about 2 years old and of an older man. He looks like he may have been a conductor on a railroad or even a river boat officer, as he has a small hat on. He’s leaning up against a tree with his arm on a tombstone. He may be smoking a pipe.

Finally Joe took me to the old cemetery on 41 and Maplewood rd. This is the cemetery that has become dear to my heart.

When Joe took me there the first time I was quite impressed. The cemetery had no name to it. There was an old building that looked like a school house/church on the corner. It’s yellow paint still visible in some places. I looked inside the building. Though the building was locked I was able to pear through the windows. The inside was gutted. The flooring looked stable, though I did not enter the church. The fenced off cemetery had only about a dozen markers on it. But it was large enough to hold more people. I assumed that the markers were wooden and had rotted through time in the harsh Minnesota weather. The cemetery was in sad shape. The latest person buried there was in the 60’s. The grass was just about cut maybe once or twice a year and trees started intruding on the plots. I felt sorry for this small cemetery and did a little research to find out what I could.

It was called Augustana Cemetery also known as Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Cemetery and was built in 1866. It has about 5 families in it. Since the time Joe had shown me this cemetery, 6 years ago, I would visit it once or twice a year.

One day a storm was coming. I saw the flashing lights and heard the distant thunder. “Joe, I called out. Take me to that old cemetery. I want to try an experiment.” I was eager to see if the approaching storm would reveal anything new. As the lighting flashed all around me I rushed out of the car and took several photos of the church and a few from outside the grave yard. “How stupid are you?” I thought…”There are trees and a fence all around you…your going to get hit by lightning..” As it started to pour I hurried back to the car. As I approached the car I had an over powering feeling to take a few more photos. I have learned from experience not to ignore these feelings and I rushed down the road and took 2 more photos and returned to the car. “What I don’t do for ghost hunting.” I thought. Later when I examined my photos I captured a man with a hat in the window and in the last photo I captured a woman standing by a tombstone holding a baby. There was a child’s stone there about 2 years old. Was this the child I picked up with his or hers mother?

This year in June, I returned to the cemetery with 2 of my members Cathy I and Kim. I wanted to see if we could pick up any evps. Though I have been there numerous times, I had never brought a tape recorder there. When we arrived, I was upset to see the condition the church was in. The windows were all removed. How in such a short time did it deteriorate so badly? I had an over powering feeling something bad was going to happen. This church was over 150 years old. Could there be some way I could save it? Surly our group could buy it and restore it. I have heard of historical homes going for a dollar and with funding, they could restore the building. I would need to talk to a realtor about this as soon as I could. We placed our tape recorders in several locations around the church and explored the cemetery.

I was surprised what I found on the tape recorders.

I heard a woman’s voice on it saying “ask them for help?” It was very faint and hard to hear. Another very faint voice was “Help us”

We left the recorders on the window sill and visited the grave yard. I wanted to show Cathy and Kim the baby’s grave and where I saw the lady standing. As we walked away you can hear a man quite loudly say “Lock up your shoes.” I never heard any thing like that before and wondered why any one would say something like that. I wondered if it was an old Minnesota saying so I sent it to the other ladies when I heard it and neither of them heard anything like it before. Kim was enthralled with the saying and went in search for such a saying but could not find anything. Then one day she called me and told me she played the evp for her sister in law and her sister in law found out what it meant. It comes from old Norway. People used to lock up their shoes at night so no one would steal them. How fitting. This cemetery is Norwegian and no one but a Norwegian would have known that. We also got one more evp. Here faintly you can hear a woman saying Stephan (or something like that) where is daughter in law? Then louder you can hear her call out “Daughter in law….come in side…” Daughter in law must have been following us in the grave yard and she was calling her back.

A few weeks had passed by and I finally was going to see the realtor soon and I was planning to show him the building. As I was working on the computer when Joe came to me and said “You brought something home with you.” I thought he saw the shadowman and mumbled something like he hasn’t showed himself since I told him off. Joe said no…no this was different. He went on to tell me that he was watching a movie on his computer when he looked up and saw a misty human shape form enter into the room, stand by the door then slowly backed out. “Ohhh that’s new.” I thought. I asked him if he could tell if it was a man or woman, and he couldn’t. I also asked him if it could have been his dad visiting him. “No this was a stranger, I didn’t get any impression as to who it was.” He said. I had an uneasy feeling. Something had happened and someone was trying to tell us.

I saw the realtor and told him about the building and asked him if he could look into it for me. It was late, but I still wanted to show him the building to let me know what he thought of it. As we arrived to the cemetery my heart sunk. The building was gone! To add insult to injury the cemetery was all torn up! Tombstones were knocked off their foundations, tipped over and broken. It looked like someone took some heavy machinery and drove all over the graves. Deep groves dug deep into the ground, and the bushes were torn up. My heart sunk. Why would anyone do this to these people? This was vandalism. I just couldn’t believe it. The realtor walked around with a tape recorder and on his recorder you can hear a woman cry out “My home”

I was heart sick and angry. I was too late to save the church. But I was determined not to let this go. These people don’t have a voice that can be heard and I will speak for them.

The next day I called Carver county sheriff dept and told them of the vandalism and where the grave yard was. He told me he knew of the grave yard and mentioned that it had only about a dozen stones in it. I told him that there is a law in Minnesota about old grave yards and wanted to press charges on who had done it. He said he didn’t know about that but he also said he didn’t want to have to do paper work on something that may have been an accident. (Accident MY FOOT!) He said he will look into it. I told him once again that I am willing to press charges against who ever did it. He also asked me if I was on the cemetery board. Weeks went by and I did not hear back from the sheriff. I wondered if anything was done so I drove to the little cemetery. As I walked inside the fence I could see that someone must have gotten the message and repaired some of the stones and filled in the deep gashes in the earth. Though I can see they did not return the markers that were off the foundations at least they made an attempt.

People who read this story man ask why worry about some old grave yard? My answer is what if this was your final resting place? What if these people’s great grand children are looking for them, wanting to find their roots? Removing the head stones is like erasing the memories of these people. You must remember it is these people and people like them, who laid the foundations of this great state that you are living in today.

Protect you historic locations

Included with this story are some photos as well as the louder evps. Please go to my web site to hear evp and see the photos. Please Google Minnesota’s Beyond the Veil. The story link is on the bottom of the first page