Collecting ghost stories

Opinion

Discussion

December 5, 2009

Anonymous The Jacksonville Daily Progress Sat Dec 05, 2009, 01:54 PM CST

Bob Bowman’s East Texas

For years, the good people of East Texas have shared with us their stories of ghosts, haunted houses, unexplained events and other morsel of the macabre.

One lady even told us a story about a alien buried in a cemetery in Wise County — an event backed up by a story in a respected Texas newspaper.

Now, it’s time to put the ghosts into a new book.

And if you have a favorite story, here’s your chance to see it in print, whether you believe it or not.

You can call us at 936-634-7444, send us an e-mail at bobb@consolidated.net, or write us at 515 South First Street, Lufkin, Texas 75901. Our Web site is bob-bowman.com

Here are some of the ghosts of East Texas.

• In 1843, Milt Andrews built a splendid plantation mansion near Karnack. Sometime later, Andrews’ nineteen-year-old daughter, Eunice, also known as Oonie, sat alone in her upstairs bedroom when a bolt of lightning from a storm struck a chimney and raced down to a fireplace and struck Oonie. She was burned to death.

Over the years, stories rose that Oonie’s ghost never left her bedroom. Eerie noises, odd happenings, and ghostly apparitions soon became common. When the Andrews family sold the mansion to T.J. Taylor, Lady Bird Johnson’s father, in 1902, the ghost went along with the sale.

Lady Bird said she never saw the ghost, but admitted feeling a sense of apprehension and unease in the house as a child.

• At Patriot’s Hill, which stands beside the Sabine River near Hemphill, soldiers in the Civil War guarded the hill to keep Union soldiers from entering Texas. The men stayed at their posts until the war’s end, but many died from starvation and sickness.

Some people in Sabine County say the soldiers’ voices can still be heard on the hill and others claim they have seen men in Civil War uniforms silently standing guard in the woods.

Now that we’ve grabbed your attention, we’re waiting on your story.

Bob Bowman of Lufkin is the author of 42 books about East Texas. He can be reached at bob-bowman.

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