The "Ghost Chaser's Daughter"
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Chapter 1 ~ That’s All I Know
Now that my mother – and all of her relatives – are dead, I am the keeper of the family photographs that have been handed down over the decades. I was looking at pictures of my Grandpa Jimmy the other day. He was my Grandmother’s second husband. Her first husband, Earl, died in 1925, under unusual circumstances, when my mom was thirteen months old.
There are many photographs of Grandpa Jimmy in the collection – but only one of my real grandpa, Grandfather Earl. The one photograph of Earl Seaman shows an overly serious farm boy in his mid-twenties. The photograph is unnaturally colorized photo so that he and my grandmother have bright rosy cheeks. He is standing at the open door of a two-room farm cabin. My grandmother is standing next to him with a babe in her arms - my mother, whose presence has nearly faded. A young boy is standing with them - my Uncle Richard. The presence of three shadows mar the photograph. The young farm couple is looking straight into the camera’s eye, staring out at the misfortune that is about to befall them. A month after that picture was taken, Earl Seaman drowned in Turkey Creek. My grandmother often said, “I know he didn’t want to leave us. And, that’s all I know.”
My Grandmother married Grandpa Jimmy thirty years later. He was the perfect rogue for my grandmother. With his slicked back hair, and penchant for motorcycles, it was exactly who I would have chosen for her after thirty years of widowhood. It never occurred to me back then, of course, that he looked like Clark Gable – but – I could sure tell you, now, why she found him attractive. For his part, I think he simply wanted to settle down to a ready-made family that included grandchildren. He teased us, and pushed us in the rope swing; and laughed as he chased the chickens into the hen house. He was the perfect addition to our family. Grandpa Jimmy worked the late shift and was usually home by midnight, but Ohio winters and bad driving conditions sometimes delayed his return home. On Christmas Eve in 1955, Grandma said she realized, even in her sleep, that he was late coming home. She had left the Christmas tree lights on for him, glowing out toward the highway that ran past their farm house. Snow fell softly, sweetly, creating a false sense of security.
It was still very dark, four in the morning, when the sheriff’s car arrived. A second car pulled into Grandma’s driveway behind the sheriff’s car. My grandmother heard the crunch of the snow as the two cars pulled up next to the house. She got out of bed to look down from her bedroom window, and could see her elderly neighbor, Mr. Brumfield, get out of the second car and walk over to the sheriff’s cruiser. The sheriff rolled down the window of the squad car and the two men spoke. Then the sheriff got out of his car and looked up at the house. He couldn’t have known that my grandmother stood looking down at him. He was looking up at a darkened bedroom window.
Upon seeing Mr. Brumfield, Grandma said she immediately thought of his wife, LaVada, who had been sick that winter. My grandmother was a nurse and concluded her nursing skills must be needed. She assumed that Jimmy must have stopped in to check on the Brumfield’s on his way home. Mr. Brumfield must be coming with the sheriff to get her help. With no hospital for miles, all of it seemed logical.
She told us how she’d thrown on her housecoat and ran down the stairs, across the kitchen to meet the sheriff, and her neighbor, at the back door.
“I’ll never forget the look on Clyde Brumfield’s face. He’d been crying. He mopped his face with his red bandana and looked over at the sheriff,” she relayed to us mechanically.
“Emily,” the sheriff began. “May I come in?”
“It’s Jimmy,” Mr. Brumfield blurted.
