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Authors: Debi Chestnut
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was there protecting her baby, even though the baby was long dead. One should never underestimate a mother’s love and devotion to her child.
After this discovery, there was a half-hearted attempt to restore the old place, but according to the Historical Society, the home was suffering from too many structural problems to be saved. Some people admitted there’d been a lot of strange things going on at the old homestead that no one could, or would, explain.
When I went to Iowa to visit a friend of mine she told me about this house, and I had to investigate. While my friend was at work, I raced out to the house.
The first time I went into the house, I saw an old wicker rocking chair at the top of the stairway. It took me a couple of minutes to realize that it was slowly rocking back and forth. There wasn’t even a breath of wind outside, so I knew the rocking wasn’t due to natural causes. As I watched, I saw the spirit of a young woman appear in the rocking chair, and she appeared to be holding a baby, who was tightly wrapped in a white blanket. I couldn’t see the face of the baby, but could distinctly make out the top of the baby’s head. I could also hear the woman softly crying as she slowly rocked back and forth, hence the name, Weeping Woman.
I slowly made my way to the staircase, trying not to startle her. I tested each step under my foot and worked my way slowly up the staircase. I stopped mid-way up the stairs, because the woman rose from the chair and moved across the open loft toward the center bedroom at the far end of the second floor.
I slowly climbed the rest of the way up to the loft, to follow the phantom woman. In retrospect, I should have taken time to inspect the floor of the loft before I ventured farther, but a sagging loft floor was the last thing on my mind. Halfway across the loft, I felt the floorboards give way under me and I fell through the floor.
Somehow, I landed on the old sofa in the living room of the first floor and once I got my bearings, I looked up toward the gaping hole in the floor above me. I gingerly got up off the sofa and, once I was sure I wasn’t too seriously hurt, I scampered back up the stairs, but I couldn’t see any sign of the ghostly woman and her baby.
It took a bit of research, but I found the woman who now owns the land the old house sits on. When I sat down to talk to her a couple of days later, the first question she asked was as if I’d seen the Weeping Woman. I nodded yes, and asked who she was.
The woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, told me that sometime around the end of the Civil War, a young couple lived in a house that once stood close to the existing structure. While the husband was away fighting the war, the young, pregnant woman was left alone. Just days after the birth of the baby, the young mother received news that her husband had been killed in battle. Now either she smothered the baby, or the baby died of an illness, but according to the story, the baby died and the young mother threw herself out the second story window, with the baby in her arms.
According to legend, the woman didn’t die right away, but laid outside the home for a couple of days before her grief and injuries took her life. The woman told me that historical documents exist which verify that the family lived in the house around the time the Civil War ended, but I couldn’t verify the circumstances surrounding the death of the woman that lived there during that time.
Another story related to me by the landowner, which is only loosely tied to the house, is about the time the building was being used as a stagecoach stop, and there was a stagecoach coming in from the west.
The stagecoach was ambushed by bandits and all of the passengers aboard were murdered. The stagecoach was found in the clearing across the road from the station the next morning, overturned and in flames.
The bodies of the passengers were found a short distance away, all neatly buried in a ditch.
After this discovery, there was a half-hearted attempt to restore the old place, but according to the Historical Society, the home was suffering from too many structural problems to be saved. Some people admitted there’d been a lot of strange things going on at the old homestead that no one could, or would, explain.
When I went to Iowa to visit a friend of mine she told me about this house, and I had to investigate. While my friend was at work, I raced out to the house.
The first time I went into the house, I saw an old wicker rocking chair at the top of the stairway. It took me a couple of minutes to realize that it was slowly rocking back and forth. There wasn’t even a breath of wind outside, so I knew the rocking wasn’t due to natural causes. As I watched, I saw the spirit of a young woman appear in the rocking chair, and she appeared to be holding a baby, who was tightly wrapped in a white blanket. I couldn’t see the face of the baby, but could distinctly make out the top of the baby’s head. I could also hear the woman softly crying as she slowly rocked back and forth, hence the name, Weeping Woman.
I slowly made my way to the staircase, trying not to startle her. I tested each step under my foot and worked my way slowly up the staircase. I stopped mid-way up the stairs, because the woman rose from the chair and moved across the open loft toward the center bedroom at the far end of the second floor.
I slowly climbed the rest of the way up to the loft, to follow the phantom woman. In retrospect, I should have taken time to inspect the floor of the loft before I ventured farther, but a sagging loft floor was the last thing on my mind. Halfway across the loft, I felt the floorboards give way under me and I fell through the floor.
Somehow, I landed on the old sofa in the living room of the first floor and once I got my bearings, I looked up toward the gaping hole in the floor above me. I gingerly got up off the sofa and, once I was sure I wasn’t too seriously hurt, I scampered back up the stairs, but I couldn’t see any sign of the ghostly woman and her baby.
It took a bit of research, but I found the woman who now owns the land the old house sits on. When I sat down to talk to her a couple of days later, the first question she asked was as if I’d seen the Weeping Woman. I nodded yes, and asked who she was.
The woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, told me that sometime around the end of the Civil War, a young couple lived in a house that once stood close to the existing structure. While the husband was away fighting the war, the young, pregnant woman was left alone. Just days after the birth of the baby, the young mother received news that her husband had been killed in battle. Now either she smothered the baby, or the baby died of an illness, but according to the story, the baby died and the young mother threw herself out the second story window, with the baby in her arms.
According to legend, the woman didn’t die right away, but laid outside the home for a couple of days before her grief and injuries took her life. The woman told me that historical documents exist which verify that the family lived in the house around the time the Civil War ended, but I couldn’t verify the circumstances surrounding the death of the woman that lived there during that time.
Another story related to me by the landowner, which is only loosely tied to the house, is about the time the building was being used as a stagecoach stop, and there was a stagecoach coming in from the west.
The stagecoach was ambushed by bandits and all of the passengers aboard were murdered. The stagecoach was found in the clearing across the road from the station the next morning, overturned and in flames.
The bodies of the passengers were found a short distance away, all neatly buried in a ditch.
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