November 28, 2010 in Offline Interviews

Chesterville

 

Voices, footsteps, and apparitions of small children may make for interesting “ghost stories”, but for Sharon Desruisseaux’s family, they make for an even more interesting living environment.  Built in 1787, this old farmhouse has a history it’s willing to share, and the stories it’s willing to give up are just another part of the charm, in the house they call “home”.

 

Media Team Interviewer:  Tony
Interviewee:  Sharon Desruiseuax

 

MGH-Tony  – Can you tell us a little bit about the paranormal activity you’ve been experiencing in this house that brought you to contact Maine Ghost Hunters?

Sharon -  We’ve been in this house since 2003 and my daughters have been mentioning a lot of stories of seeing a little girl, and my oldest one witnessed, she  thought it was a person in the house. So I would hear those stories and really think nothing of it, it’s an old house but in the past year or so, literally, it’s almost as if the house has come alive.  We’ve done a lot of changes to it, too, but we’ve been hearing footsteps at night.  2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, the kids are sound asleep, no lights are on anywhere in the house.  When they get up they put the lights on.  We hear voices in the kitchen, and just mumblings of a conversation.  Just so much has happened in the past year.

 

 

MGH-Tony – Tell us a little bit about the first experience you had in this house.

Sharon  -  The first one, I think, we were sitting out here [in the living room], and it had to be a year ago,  it was around Halloween and such, and we were just sitting on the couch watching a movie and we heard, it was a quiet part in the movie, where was nothing going on, and we heard a conversation clear, just not what they were saying.  Just as if 2 men were talking in the middle of a conversation.  So we shut everything off and we still heard just the trail end of it.   And then after that it was almost like the house picked up and then we would hear the footsteps, as if, booted footsteps coming down the stairs.  And a child’s footsteps running [upstairs], and we wonder how the kids can sleep through that.   My boyfriend has witnessed an orb go by, a lot, and he and my daughter have thought I have been home on a couple of occasions where they would call out thinking it was me because they would hear “hey!” or something, a woman’s voice just walking around and walking by the doors and I was either in [town or at] work.  So, there’s a lot of unaccounted for, things, happening.

 

 

MGH-Tony –  Prior to the experience where you were all in the same room together had anybody else living in the home had any experiences?

 

Sharon – Definitely, Definitely.  [Friends of my daughter’s] especially, there’s a small upstairs bedroom,  and that’s where they would see a little girl walk by. or they’ve seen her in a rocking chair with a Teddy Bear.  They’ve seen a little boy in a sailor suit.  My oldest one was sleeping with a, there’s a piano there now, but there was a couch at the time and she was asleep there and would see a man looking at photographs.  And he had a baseball cap, sweatshirt on, a grizzly kind of beard, and all of this.  And she thought it was clear as day, and she put the blanket over her head thinking that she just didn’t want to talk, y’know, she just woke up.  Kind of in between that wake and sleep state.  I just hear a lot of that. 

MGH-Tony – Do you have any idea of who that man might have been?

Sharon -  There are stories.  I do know the prior owner, the husband, had a heart attack and he died in this room.  There are accounts from just places we visit, and I mention the house because it’s a well-known historical house, where they mention a person committed suicide in this living room.  I’ve heard that from 3 different sources around and about.    I just haven’t been able to verify that for sure, or know the name of the person.  

 

MGH-Tony – Prior to your experiences in this home had you ever had any paranormal experiences outside of this location?

Sharon – Not really.  Well, my first house was [in Massachusetts and it was] built in 1890 and my middle one would witness a man standing over her bed.  And it was just a comforting – almost as if he was making sure she was sleeping, kind of thing.  But myself? No, not really.  Nothing that would come to mind.  So maybe it took a little bit for me to open up to this house?  I don’t know.  

 

 

“It’s never boring in this household, as you’ve noticed.  This is a quiet day, too, so.”

- Sharon

 

 

MGH-Tony – so what brings you to Maine?

Sharon – Well, I grew up in the very small towns in Massachusetts, southeastern Mass. And I loved it, I thought I would be there forever, but they started building up more and more and more, a mall would go in, the PGA golf course, and all these things came in and it brought in the traffic, and it, just all the woods were being torn up and turned into condos and I’m a small town girl.  So I searched on the Internet, like crazy, just trying to find a place, and I finally found this house.  And the amazing thing is, when I found this house I brought it up with me and talked to a local realtor and  she had the same thing to show me, the house, so it was almost like this house was waiting for me.  I don’t know, it was just kind of really neat.  I like to think that. 

 

MGH-Tony – So how long have you been in Maine?

Sharon – Since 2003. 

 

MGH-Tony – and you’ve always lived in this home?

Sharon – In this house, yes.

 

MGH-Tony – Since you’ve had activity in the home, which you feel has been paranormal; spirits wanting to communicate with you, have you had any differences of opinion of the paranormal?  Did you have an opinion prior to your experiences of paranormal?  Did you believe in ghosts, did you think paranormal activity was real? 

Sharon – I’ve always had an open mind. But I’ve never really experienced enough to really… it’s like I would love to believe in them but I never really had anything to back anything up, but I’ve spoken to people who are very adamant, until I came here.  And that was when it just “oh, ok”.  But nothing really before.  Nothing with my own personal experience.  

 

 

MGH-Tony – And how have your experiences changed the way you feel about it?

Sharon – I definitely – it’s opened my mind up a lot.  Where you would hear people – I mean, like, I’ve never seen anything like my daughters have, or other people but, I have heard – it’s a peripheral thing.  Almost, when you’re driving down the road and you see the car in your peripheral vision.  It’s almost what the audio is when I’m hearing [it].   I’ll hear voices but I won’t hear what they’re saying.   And there’s nobody else in the house.  I guess I’ve always been [curious]. I always have to find out what’s causing this and there’s no explanations for what I’ve been encountering here.  It’s opened my mind a lot. 

Sharon -  It’s very neat living in this house. I bought it because of the age of it, too. Because there’s so many things, so much going on.  I mean, the loggers are telling me that the lot’s doomed because their equipment keeps breaking down.  
 

A lot of people would talk about paranormal activity and experiences, and I kind of felt, “wow I never experienced any of that”.

-       Sharon

MGH-Tony – Was there a recent event here that caused you to contact Maine Ghost Hunters to have us come out and take a look at your house? 

Sharon – I think it was more like quite a few that have been happening, more often than before.  Just a culmination of – the footsteps at night have become too pronounced,  where we’re just amazed the kids can sleep through it.  Like a little kid running around upstairs.  And the orb, that’s been happening more often, or like a “light” kind of thing.  And then with the shadow by the door and the kids mistaking me being home.  Just more in frequency I think is what – something’s obviously going on and there’s no explanation.  

 

MGH-Tony – When you first realized that the activity that was occurring here was something that was not normal and not physical, it was not happening because of somebody that was living in the house, what did you, what was your first response?  What did you feel you could do to help you solve what was going on? 

Sharon – I think at first we would look to each other to validate.  If we heard a sound, did you hear that.   “oh yah”.  We would validate with whoever was in the room.   We’d take note of when it was happening, because if it was happening at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, we would ask the girls “were you up at all?” Or we would check [it out for ourselves]. We would go up after [to] where we would hear the footsteps.  There’s no way they would have had time to even get in their beds as quick.  So we would do the best we could with what we had just to try and track it down on our own.   I mean, it’s nothing scary, it’s just noises and things like that. 

 

 

MGH-Tony – Can you explain to me, what you think, what’s your opinion on what’s going on here.  What do you think is causing your activity…

Sharon – I think a part of it might be because we’re making a lot of changes.  I have logging people out on the property, so there’s a lot of noises.  And that’s another story in itself, and what they just told us recently is that all their equipment keeps breaking down.   A lot of it is that, and I decided to open up the old fields that have been kind of growing in with the forests.  We’re opening them up, and also, too, they haven’t had sheep on this property for 40 years before I was here, [and] I’m kind of bringing back my antique collecting, we have the victrola [over there].  All these things are just.  Oh, and also ripping up the carpet upstairs.  You see the original floorboards.  And we started going down in the basement and seeing where the original floors were.

 

MGH-Tony – You mentioned that what you guys are experiencing here in the house is not scary.  So nobody feels threatened or in harm’s way at all here.  Everybody feels comfortable with the activity?

Sharon – Yah.  I think it’s just more of, maybe just validation of hearing the noises that other people are in the same room when we hear them.  And it’s kind of, “ok I’m not [imagining this]”, y’know.  It’s kind of comforting. It’s more residual memories is what I personally think it might be.  Just, the past is being dredged up, so they’re just letting us know they feel comfortable? I don’t know. It’s just the feeling I have.

 

MGH-Tony – Now, you have mentioned a few times there are others outside of your family who have experienced things in this house or on this property. Can you share a little bit of that with us? 

Sharon – Well the loggers outside, there’s 2 of them, and they’ve been logging the property since, I believe August is when they started.  And they said they’ve never had such bad luck, ever, in all their years of logging work.  Each piece of equipment has been breaking down. I just thought I’d mention that because they’ve been very adamant about that. 

 

"And that’s when a lot of activity would happen, too,  after a storm.  So it’s almost like, whenever it’s quiet is when [we notice things happening]."

- Sharon

 

 

MGH-Tony – What comes to your mind when you hear the words “paranormal”, or ghost, or spirit, or entity?  What do you think about when you hear those words?

Sharon – I think just being from New England, and y’know, it’s just always there.  You grow up hearing ghost stories and this and that, but I never really, I’ve always wanted to see a ghost but I never had that opportunity.  I was never lucky enough to catch that, I’ve always been curious [and]  I’m always just automatically trying to refute everything.

 

 

 

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