This might not be your typical ghost story. When I was a child, my deceased great grandmother possessed me. No, not like the movie The Exorcist. My body wasn’t contorted into strange positions and I wasn’t vomiting up bile. But, some weird things did occur. I was three years old when this happened and too young to remember. These events were told to me by my mother and grandmother who witnessed it firsthand. You as the reader can decide for yourself what occurred the first time I was brought to my great grandmother’s home.
Thelma Rhames was born November 22, 1912 in rural Blountstown Florida. She had eleven children: seven boys and four girls. After her husband died in a fire, she became a single mother raising her family in the small coastal town of Port St Joe, Florida. Times were hard, but she always made it work. Her income came from working at the local fishery gutting and cleaning fish for less than a dollar an hour. She kept a garden that grew enough food to offset what they had to buy at the grocery store. Thelma handmade all her childrens clothes with scraps leftover from things like tobacco and potato sacks. Her life was full of adversity, but that never kept her spirits down. She took everything as it came to her and never thought that life was unfair. In September of 1996 after a long battle with cancer, her life would come to an end. She passed in her home with her children by her side. She knew good and well there was nothing a hospital could do for her at this point and wanted to die in her bed surrounded by the people she loved. That’s exactly what she did.
After her passing came a hectic few months. Thelma never had many possessions, but what she did have meant so much to her eleven children. The sentimental value of things like quilts, cast iron pots and pans, and silverware meant that the children often fought over who got what. Her small eight-hundred and fifty square foot home was left to my grandmother. The home became a gathering place for family reunions and get-togethers. The home was no bigger than a lot of people’s garages, but often accommodated over 30-40 people.
Growing up, the summertime meant weekend trips to Port St. Joe to stay in Thelma’s old home. The days consisted of walking down to the water with fishing gear and coolers in hand. At night my grandmother would make a nice meal and we would sit around telling stories and playing cards. I’ll never forget the time my grandmother taught me how to play poker and gamble. I was probably only about eight years old and some of the more religious members of the family thought it was a complete sin that she “was teaching that child to be a gambler.” From an outsider’s perspective my great grandmother’s home was a tiny old shack with weeds and overgrown trees filling the yard, but to my family this home represented the memory of a resilient woman and reminded us to focus on the things in life that really mattered.
The first time I was brought to Thelma’s home was in the summer of 2000. My mother, Jennifer, and my grandmother, Marie, thought it would be nice to take me to meet my extended family. The drive from Pensacola (where I was raised) and St. Joe was about three and a half hours of scenic coastline. Highway 98 was always congested around Destin and Fort Walton beach, but after that the drive was easy. Colorful beach homes and tall palm trees lined the coastline for almost the entirety of the drive. As a child I would look out the window watching the waves roll onto shore and people flying their kites on the beach. I knew we were getting close to St. Joe when we would pass the “Dixie Dandy”, which was a convenience store that sold bait & tackle, boiled peanuts and draft beer in recycled milk jugs. While I was too young to remember any of this trip, later in life these became my core memories.
As we arrived at Thelma’s home my mother and grandmother unloaded their car. The house consisted of two tiny bedrooms, one bathroom, a galley kitchen, and a large backroom. They unloaded their luggage into the rooms they would be sleeping in. My grandmother offered to sleep in Thelma’s room.
“Jennifer, you and Alec can have the guest bedroom and I’ll sleep in my mothers old room”, said my grandmother.
The fact that Thelma passed in that room made my mother sad and she found it a bit morbid. My grandmother took me into Thelma’s room and sat me on her bed while my mom went to the kitchen to make some lunch for us. My grandmother was playing with me on the bed when she said I began to look aloof. I was staring at the bed and the pictures on the wall in a way that almost made my grandmother uncomfortable. My grandmother always said I was a very observant child, but this time was different. I climbed down off the bed almost falling.
“Alec be careful you almost fell and hit your head on the floor, what are you doing?”
I pointed up the wall, “Who moved the ironing board?”
“Alec, what did you say?”, my grandmother responded.
“Who moved the ironing board?”, I said while tapping and pointing on the wall.
My grandmother called for my mother. When she entered the room, she asked me to tell my mom what I just said.
“Who moved the ironing board, who moved the ironing board?”
“How does he know what an ironing board is? He’s three years old?”
Baffled, my grandmother responded, “For years that is where my mother Thelma kept her ironing board.” “It was mounted to her wall right where he is pointing.” “She would sit there for hours ironing and stitching our clothes.”
In an attempt to answer my question my mother asked,
“Alec, do you want to go see where the ironing board is?”
I nodded my head yes and she took my hand. She led me to the backroom where the remainder of Thelma’s belongings had been moved after she died
“Here is the ironing board Alec.” “See it’s right here.”
I nodded my head up and down and this put me at ease. As we passed back through the kitchen I pulled my mothers hand and stopped and pointed again.
“Who moved the toaster oven?”
My grandmother stood on the other side of the kitchen and just laughed. In a tone of disbelief, she responded
“Jennifer, I think Thelma is speaking through your son, and she doesn’t like that people are moving her stuff.”
My mom looked at me, “Alec the toaster oven was given away I think, I’m not sure who has it now.”
My mother was startled at the weird coincidences that just happened and asked my grandmother.
“Mom why is he saying this stuff? “How the hell would he know where her ironing board was or where her toaster oven was kept?” “That stuff was moved years ago after her death right?”
“Jennifer, I told you. I think my mother is speaking to you through him. That toaster oven meant an awful lot to her. She was dirt poor and it was the one nice thing she bought herself. The ironing board is where she would iron all our laundry and stitch our quilts and clothes when I was a child. She’s probably not too happy we moved her stuff after she passed.”
“So you think your mom is whispering in Alec’s ear asking him to say those things?”
“That, or it is my mother saying those things directly through him. My mom always said she would come back and give us signs after she died.”
My grandmother was always very spiritual and into the paranormal. The idea that maybe her deceased mom was using my body as a conduit to talk through wasn’t as crazy to her as it was my mom. My mom isn’t a huge skeptic of the paranormal, but she isn’t as into it as my grandmother. My grandmother actually had an experience after her mother passed where she received a phone call from her, then it cut to static a few seconds in. But that’s a story for another time….
The rest of the day was fairly normal and I quit asking about my great grandmother’s missing belongings. My mom and grandma spent the rest of the day picking up pecans from the tree and plucking tomatoes from the garden. Then, later in the day they walked me down to the beach to see the water and play in the sand. When we got back to the house, my mom asked my grandmother to make a grocery list because she was going into town.
“I don’t need to make a list Jennifer, just get some stuff for breakfast tomorrow and make sure you get me some honey please. I like it in my coffee in the morning.”
From the other side of the room I yelled to my mom, “Momma make sure it’s Tupelo honey.”
My grandmother just laughed. “Alright, there’s no doubt in my mind that my mother is speaking through that boy. Every time I went to the Piggly Wiggly my mother reminded me to get her Tupelo honey because she didn’t like that other fake stuff.”
Today, whenever my mom, my grandmother and I are together they tell this story. My grandmother always said she was so sad I never got to meet her mom. When Thelma found out my mom was pregnant with me, she was on her deathbed battling cancer. If she could have only lived a few more months she would have been able to meet another generation of her family. Maybe this story is proof that we did meet after all. Whether she was possessing my body to say the things that I did, or I was hearing her talking from the other side is up to you to decide. Either way, what happened that hot summer day at my great grandmother’s house is definitely paranormal and unexplained.
Let me know down below what you think happened that day. Are you a skeptic, or do you have a better explanation for what could have happened.
