The Unknown Voice That Called My Name

by RhapSody
(Cleveland, TN)

The Foyer When We Had A Wedding

More of the Mowery House Mystery

It’s true I was pretty frightened about the strange things going on at the Mowery house and this terrible fear I had only served to feed my latest mystery at there.

It was a beautiful, crisp winter day. A little warm for that time of the year but it was such a beautiful day I had decided to wax the hardwood floors in the foyer. Since I was from the old school where you used Johnson’s paste wax then let it dry to a haze and use the floor buffer to make it shine, this would be a bit of a chore. Anyway, the foyer has a lot of traffic and was in desperate need of a good waxing.

Since I already had a good layer of wax on the floor, I just wanted to lightly apply wax and then buff it........this all completed, I had a call come to me so I sat down in the foyer at my antique phone table to take the call. The call was from my mother and we were having a lovely chat. The children were in the living room watching one of their favorite shows on the television.

Since they were occupied with the TV, mom and I were free to chat without interruption. It was close to 7 p.m. in the evening, already dark outside, when there came a knock at my door.

I told mother I needed to go because someone was at my door. Being a mother, she insisted I keep the connection on the phone and see who was at the door. She did not like getting callers after dark and she was concerned about me having a late caller with my hubby away from the house. To satisfy her fear, not my own, I laid the phone down and went to the front door. The door was all glass but I had a sheer type of curtain to allow me to see out without someone seeing in.

To my surprise, it was a couple that went to our church. They wanted to drop by to share photos and adventures they had while on their extended vacation. I took their coats and placed them in the coat closet in the foyer and insisted they come to the kitchen where I was completing our late dinner. We usually had dinner earlier but my husband had to check on some kind of problem his evening manager was having at our business in town so I was keeping dinner warm until his return. Buddy and Sue knew we spent a lot of time in our large kitchen because they were frequent visitors of ours.

We sat down at the kitchen table and pictures and stories of their trip were so interesting, we all lost track of the time. Half an hour had passed and we all grew quiet as we listened to a strange sound that appeared to be coming from somewhere in the house. It was a little freaky because all the chatter had ceased instantly.

It was like we all heard this sound at the same time and stopped talking to listen.

I had never shared my ordeal with the closet or the stairs with anyone but my mother and my hubby but it was as if Buddy and Sue had some kind of instant awareness of something unknown.

We all strained to listen to the soft voice that bounced off the walls and the high ceilings of the old house.

You could not understand what the voice was saying but you could tell that it was a voice and not some kind of object making a sound. Buddy and Sue looked at me as if to ask, “What is that”? Since I had no answer for them, I stood up and walked into the dining room, listening to see if I could detect where the voice was coming from. It did seem louder in the dining room but I still could not understand what it was saying or where it was coming from.

Buddy and Sue followed me.......we were all listening intently.

I knew this was NOT my imagination because the both of them heard the calling too. The voice appeared to be coming from all directions at one time.

It echoed throughout the large house. We all started going from room to room to see if we could discover the cause of the sound or voice as we were beginning to realize it was a voice. Someone, a female, calling to someone. I walked out onto the front porch to see if it could be my neighbor calling to her children. It was strange, I could not hear the calling voice outside at all.

Both Buddy and Sue walked out onto the porch to see. It was so strange........the voice was coming from somewhere in the house.

By this time, we were all growing a little uneasy. "Ghost" never crossed any of our lips but I could tell thoughts of that nature came to mind from the couple. I had already assumed it was my stair or closet visitor but did not want to share this thought with someone I feared would think I had totally lost my mind. Still, I could see, they were beginning to think something out of the ordinary was happening to us too.

We walked back into the house and the voice appeared to have grown louder. A shiver ran down my spine as we could make out the voice was calling my name.

“Thhhheeeerrrrrrrreeeeeeeessssaaaaaaaaaaa”!!!!!!! “Thhhheeeerrrrrrrreeeeeeeessssaaaaaaaaaaa”!!!!!!!

Now, I was scared. Not only was this disembodied voice louder, it was now calling MY name! Buddy and Sue looked at me in disbelief and all I could do was stand there and look back at them. I still did not want to say anything about a ghost. These good Christian people would think me a real nut if I said it was a ghost.

I was lost in my thoughts about what to tell them when Sue asked me if this place was haunted.

There, it was out in the open. I did not say a word about it being haunted. It was Sue’s assumption. I gave a deep sigh of relief but just at that same moment, the voice that was calling changed.

It now sounded very strange and you could not make out what it was saying. It sounded more like some kind of machine making a noise now. How very strange!

We all looked at each other, puzzled even more now. I suggested we go into the living room to check on the children just as my husband was driving up into the circular driveway. Buddy and Sue sat on the sofa and I went to the door to meet my husband. As he walked through the door, I could tell by his expression he heard the strange noise too.

He greeted Buddy and Sue and we all proceeded to tell him about the voice and it clearly calling my name. You could tell he was not accepting this story but I could also tell he was reluctant to disbelieve Buddy and Sue.

The front door had not closed completely and I went back into the foyer to close the door. That’s when I saw it. The phone was off the hook. I rushed over to pick it up, remembering I had left mother on the line when Buddy and Sue arrived. It was making this noise, “arrrrrrrrrrrrrrr arrrrrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhh”, over and over. You know the sound, when someone has left the phone off the hook and the phone company makes this loud sound to alert you?

I quickly called mother and she told me that she was about ready to contact the police. She knew I had gone to the door and she could hear something but when I did not return, she had yelled into the phone hoping she could get me back on the line. She said she placed her hands on either side of the receiver and yelled my name as loud as she could for ten minutes or more.

I started laughing and quickly relayed what had been happening at the house over the past thirty minutes. I told her I would get back with her and went into the living room to share my findings. I could barely keep my chuckles quiet enough to tell the story to Buddy and Sue.

Apparently, whenever mother yelled into the phone, the phone was in the foyer. The foyer had hardwood floors and the ceiling was two stories high. The yelling spilled out into that foyer and echoed up through the second floor and all the little nooks and crevices throughout the house.

It had been my mother calling my name . . .laffing

We couldn’t stop laughing at our fear of this "unknown voice." It was a bit of embarrassment for us all but it turned into a wonderfully funny story to share with friends.

So much for the Mower Ghost that called my name.

At least, this time, things were explained.