Volume 9 , Issue 43

Ghosts Provide Bad Moments, Good Stories

[The Oklahoma, dated Feb. 28, 1972, pg. 13, written by Tom Boone]
"Ghosts, whether you believe in them or not, make good stories. So, for whatever they are worth, here are four of them.

Three were told to me by women, whom I shall call Mrs. Funstrom, Miss Schermer and Mrs. Smith. Those are not their real names. All of them live in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area.

The fourth was told by Ben Buckland of Ada. That is his real name. The ghosts never identified themselves.

Story No. 1 -- At first Mrs. Funstrom thought it was teenagers who were getting into her home while she and her husband were out. She's not certain yet that it wasn't.

The first time she realized something was amiss, she said, was when she came home one day and found deep scratches on the dining room table. The scratches were in the shape of a strange design.

Then other furniture began showing similar scratches. Thinking vandals were responsible, Mr. Funstrom changed all the locks on the house.

One day Mrs. Funstrom was away from home for awhile. She had left the dog outside, she said. When she got home the dog was inside. All the doors and windows were locked.

sometimes she would leave the cat inside and find it outside when she came back a few hours later.

More and more furniture became scratched, "Everything new we got, a week or two later it would be scratched too," she said. "One time I got a new teapot. I was careful to examine it when I took it out of the box. But in two weeks it was all scratched. i hadn't even used it."

A new set of aluminum cookware and a new vaccuum cleaner were scratched shortly after they were bought.

The Funtroms kept a piggy bank for loose change. Mrs. Funstrom kept a check on how much money was in it. "I would check and find that a few dimes and nickels had been taken out," she said. "The next time I'd look, they'd be back."

Her husband told her it would be impossible for anyone to get into the house without leaving evidence. They tried setting traps.

Sometimes they would drive away, park their car and sneak back to the house to wait for someone to try to get in. No one tried. Still the scratches became more numerous -- on tables under an ash tray or a book, on a silver tray wrapped up and put away.

The incidents started in 1966 and lasted about three years. Now they have stopped, Mrs. Funstrom said.

"I don't know that I believe in spirits," Mrs. Funstrom said. "i don't believe I do.. I don't know what it was."
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