A ghostly child in a white nightgown materializes here. (Leslie Rule)
Her father was unaware of her death until he was finally able to leave the area. When he saw a piece of fabric poking from the snow, he was curious and tugged on it. The snow fell away, and he found himself staring at poor little Ava.
Ava may still be trying to find her way back to her family.
The ghost, of course, could be any one of the small children who lost their lives that winter. Boys, too, wore nightgowns in that era and often had long hair.
Survivors of the Donner Party passed their stories along, each version shaded by their own perceptions. The passing years have surely distorted these accounts all the more. We cannot know what was in the hearts of those who walked the frozen trails.
The answers to the Donner Party mysteries are buried with the dead, their secrets unspoken on the lips of ghosts. Unless they speak up, we will never know what really transpired.
Speaking Up
On the snowy day that I visited the Donner Memorial State Park, I was accompanied by electronic voice phenomena experts Debby and Mark Constantino and ghost hunter Janice Oberding.
The Constantinos had brought along a tape recorder, and we took turns asking questions of whatever unseen beings might be present.
“Introduce yourselves first before you ask a question,” Mark advised Janice and me, explaining that they always tried to be considerate of the earthbound spirits.
After each question, we were to wait a full ten seconds to give the ghosts plenty of time to respond.
“The tape recorder is voice activated,” said Debby. “Even though we can’t hear the ghosts, we know that they are speaking when the recorder is recording.”
Sure enough, as we stood in the silence, we could see the indicator on the machine revealing that it was picking up some type of noise.
The Constantinos phoned me several days after I had returned home. They were in the middle of the time-consuming task of replaying the tapes and removing background noise. “We definitely got voices,” Mark said.
top: Ghost researcher Janice Oberding points out the path where the ghost of Tamsin Donner travels. Mark and Debby Constantino prepare to attempt contact with the desperate spirit. The Constantinos are the authors of Talking with Ghosts: A Step by Step Guide to Spirit Communication through EVP. (Leslie Rule)
above: Mark Constantino records a question and then waits for a response from earthbound spirits of the Donner Party tragedy. (Leslie Rule)
“They are very quiet, though,” said Debby. “Almost whispery.”
“Did a Frank die there?” asked Mark. “We got a voice saying, ‘Frank.’”
“Let me see,” I said, as I leafed through the photographs I had taken of the site. I found a picture of the memorial plaque on the giant rock. It listed both survivors and victims. Among those who had perished were Franklin Graves Sr., fifty-seven, and Franklin Graves Jr., five.
The other remarks they recorded included the following:
“I’m hungry.”
“Look for the bones.”
“Please move.”
And two simple words bothered us the most.
“Help us.”
They Creep Up from Below
If there were ever a portal to the spirit realm, it is in my own backyard.
Seattle.
I came into the world here on a dark and stormy night, my first cries mixed with the moans of the wind. The winter storm was so fierce it knocked out Seattle’s power. A rainy night in Seattle is not shocking news. It rains one out of four days here, so the Emerald City is often shrouded in a silver curtain of water. But it may shock some to know that the misty curtain hides a secret.
Seattle is haunted. But unlike some cities whose residents proudly trumpet their haunting, Seattleites are somewhat shy about sharing their spirit encounters. While residents of St. Augustine, Florida, New Orleans, Louisiana, and Savannah, Georgia, all claim that theirs is the “the most haunted city in America,” Seattle could give them a run for their money.
One of the most haunted spots in Seattle is Pioneer Square. Settlers built here in the 1850s—right on top of the mudflats! Everything was fine when the tide was out, but when the frigid salty waters of Puget Sound crept in, things got messy, because the sewers flushed in reverse.
The hardy Seattle citizens lived with their plumbing problems until 1889 when a pot of glue fell over and sparked a fire. The flames swept through the town, destroying sixty-six blocks.
No people died, but an estimated one million rats were incinerated. The city was rebuilt and elevated, eliminating the plumbing problems.
Beneath the new city, the underground town remained and was eventually condemned, left to the rats and ghosts.
Then in the 1960s, writer William Spiedel spearheaded a project to save the underground realm, and today tourists can follow guides through the dark and musty streets below, see remnants of early buildings, and—if they are vigilant—glimpse specters from another time.