Real Ghost Story - Uncle Billy

My family on my Mother’s side has always seemed to be very superstitious and they believe in the paranormal and ghosts and such. Especially my Great Aunt Mary (God rest her soul). That must be where I got it from. I remember there were always wonderful little ghost stories that my cousins (Michelle and Tammy) and I heard from Aunt Mary that we would tell back and forth about strange happenings in our family history. Here are two such stories about my Uncle Billy, an uncle neither myself nor my cousins ever met as he was killed in the war years before we were born.


Uncle Billy’s Homecoming

My Aunt Elsa, Uncle Timmy and my cousins Michelle and Tammy lived next door to us when I was growing up in Bridgeport, CT. My Aunt Elsa’s mom and Dad (Great Aunt Mary and Great Uncle John) also lived with them. The story of the night my Great Uncle John died that my Aunt Mary told us went something like this . . .

First though, in order for you to understand the way this story unfolds I have to explain a little about the layout of the house. You walked in on the basement level to a playroom, laundry room and ½ bathroom. As you walked up the stairs you entered the kitchen and directly to your right was a living room with a stairway to the third floor. When you walked up this stairway there was a landing where they would set up my cousin Tammy’s play pen and she would play and nap in there. Off this landing were three bedrooms and a bathroom. My Uncle John and Aunt Mary’s room was one of the bedrooms off this landing.

As the story goes, my Uncle John was pretty sick and he was sleeping in the upstairs bedroom. Tammy was in her play pen on the landing and my Aunt Mary was playing cards with Michelle at the kitchen table. Directly behind my Aunt Mary’s seat in the kitchen there was a doorway out to the backyard. At some time during the card game my Aunt Mary said that she felt cold and could see what looked like a figure made of light come into the house through the doorway behind her. She watched it as it floated through the kitchen and slowly up the stairs to the third floor. A few moments later, Tammy in her play pen upstairs began giggling and singing “Billy, Billy” as if she were playing with someone (mind you, she was barely able to speak at this time and had never met her Uncle Billy who had died years earlier). Immediately following this outburst from Tammy, my Aunt Mary saw two figures descending the stairs and they left through the same door that the original figure had floated in through.

My Aunt Mary knew in her heart what had just happened. She knew from Tammy that her long dead son Billy whom she had lost in the war, had made his way home to bring his father to heaven. Sure enough, when she went up to check on Uncle John in the upstairs bedroom, he had passed on.

Uncle Billy and The Basement Bathroom

There seems to be a trend in Pennsylvania (where this story takes place) that a lot of people have bathrooms in their basement. I say this because the few times I have been to visit relatives out there they seem to have a bathroom in the basement and this is the bathroom that they always have the guests use. Not sure why, but it is the case from what I can remember. At any rate, my Aunt Elsa and cousins Michelle and Tammy were visiting one of our PA relatives (Aunt May I believe) And Michelle had to use the bathroom. So my aunt picked up Tammy (who was about 2 or 3 at the time) and walked with Michelle (who was about 5 or 6) down the stairs to the basement bathroom. As is always the case when a child has to pee, there was of course, someone already in the bathroom so they had to wait down in the basement to use the bathroom.

Tammy was a bit fidgety and wanted to be set down. After my aunt set her down, Tammy started to kind of dance around and laugh and she was pointing up in the air and saying “Billy, Billy”. My Aunt Elsa and Michelle kind of looked at her like she was wacko and Tammy nonchalantly asked “Mommy can’t you see Uncle Billy?” And on that note my aunt promptly picked up Tammy and she and Michelle ran up the stairs. (Without using the bathroom, I might add!) My aunt wasn’t quite sure what she thought was going to happen, but after Tammy’s last encounter with Billy she wasn’t about to wait around to find out.