Free The Sallie House Haunting: A True Story by Debra Pickman

paper wrote, “Hi, Sallie. How old are you?” I placed the crayons and the clipboard on the floor in the northeast corner of the nursery. “Sallie, here are your crayons and paper. Maybe you could draw me a picture.” Then I told her “good night” and left the room.
    We took the film to be developed, anxious to see the images Tony had photographed when George saw the bear spin around. Two days later, I brought them home. Tony and I looked through them and were amazed to find that the camera seemed to have picked up something odd in that particular shot.
    You could barely make out what object was in the center of the viewfinder, because it was very blurred. However, it was blurred only in the center and along the lower edge of the picture; everything on the other outer edges was clear and in perfect focus. Looking at it, it was easy to see that the fuzzy area resembled a person’s head and shoulders. It was as if someone’s unseen or transparent head was very close to the camera when the picture was taken, and consequently that area in the picture was out of focus.
    We tried to come up with logical explanations for the strange photo. My first thought concerned Tony’s unsteadiness when taking pictures. In the past, it had often left us with many blurred photos. However, in this specific instance instead of the whole photo being blurred, only the center was blurry. There wasn’t anything wrong with the camera lens, because the photos before and after showed no anomalies.
    After exhausting all logical possibilities, we decided that the blur must have been Sallie. When Tony spoke the words, “Smile and say cheese,” just before he snapped the shutter, she had been standing right in front of the camera.
    Maybe Sallie enjoyed the attention of having her picture taken. Excited about the possibility of getting a better picture of her, should she pose for us again, I remembered some of the many things I had read about ghosts—in particular, ghost photography. Apparently, they showed up better when infrared or Polaroid film was used. Tony and I racked our brains trying to think of who might have a Polaroid camera that we could borrow for use during Barbara’s visit the next day.

seven

    The next day was July 28, and I noticed nothing out of the ordinary that morning. Shortly after Tony left for work, George stopped by with a college friend who was quite interested in ghostly subjects. George told me he had spoken to a few people since his last visit and had gotten some vague information about a little boy who’d died in front of the house some time ago. No one he’d talked to had mentioned anything about a little girl.
    His friend asked me about the history of the house and the previous tenants. Although I didn’t have any answers, I mentioned my plan to do some research that afternoon to see what I could find out. He offered to assist and I took him up on the offer. He was familiar with the research facilities at the library and I was not. We agreed to meet after lunch.
    I arrived at the library shortly before 10:00 a.m., thinking I might get a head start on George’s friend, but he was sitting at the large table in the center of the research room and had already pulled out several layers of books, printouts, ledgers, and other reference material. I sat down across from him, surprised by his enthusiasm, and asked, “Okay, where do I start?” He gave me a summary of historical properties called the Kansas Historic Resources Inventory Reconnaissance Form.
    The records had interesting information on many old homes in the area. The legal description of 508 North 2nd Street was referred to as the North 8 1/2’ of lot 9 and all of lot 10 of block 70 in Old Atchison. The house had been purchased by Kate Finney; she’d built a home on that land in 1872. The Finneys were a fairly prominent family who owned several other lots of land within and around block 70, including lots 8 through 12. The records also established