Diana & The Peabody House

During their time in the Peabody house David was attached to a ship and often went out to sea – sometimes for six months at a time.  It was while David was out to sea that things began happening in the house.  First, Diana would hear things when she was getting into bed, such as someone walking up the stairs and going into the boys’ room.  Other times she would be awoken by noises coming from the boys’ rooms.  She would hear their toys being moved around in their toy boxes and other rustling sounds.  This wouldn’t have been so significant except for the fact that her one son Bradley was sleeping with her and her other son Matthew was sleeping downstairs on the sofa (for some reason that’s where he liked to sleep at the time) so the boys’ room was empty.  She would get up, scared, and go into the empty room and the noises would stop, only to start again once she went back to her room.

On another occasion Diana and the boys were sitting downstairs in the living room watching television when all of a sudden toys started flying down the stairs.  Of all the places she had ever lived, the activity in the particular house was proving to be more profound than anything she had previously experienced.

While Diana was living in the house, experiencing these events, the owner of the house – we’ll call him Joe - had a friend stop by now and then to pick up his mail.  One day when Joe’s friend stopped by to pick up the mail he asked Diana if she had anything strange happen in the house.  She asked him what he meant by “strange” and the friend said, “You know strange, phenomenal.”  Diana said, “Why, should I?”  When he just started laughing Diana said, “Yes I have.”  This led her to believe that Joe had perhaps had some experiences of his own while he was living in the house and had relayed them to his friend. 

Meanwhile, the events at the Peabody house continued almost on a daily basis.  Before moving to Virginia and living in the Vanasse and Peabody houses, Diana and David had lived in Florida for a few years.  They had made several friends while they were there and on one occasion one of Diana’s friends had the opportunity to visit with her while she was in the Peabody house.  This friend knew all about Diana’s paranormal experiences and during the visit, she experienced one firsthand.

It was about 2:00 am and all the kids were sleeping downstairs on the floor.  The friend was also downstairs with the kids.  Diana was just about to get in bed when she heard someone running up and down the stairs.  She really didn’t think anything of it since she had heard it so many times.  The next morning the friend asked Diana if she had heard anyone going up and down the stairs and Diana said she had.  Then the friend asked if it was one of the ghosts and Diana said it was.  At this point Diana had been experiencing so much on her own since David was out at sea and I think it was a relief to have someone else hear what she had been hearing for so long. 

Still in the Peabody house, more and more things were happening and they began to involve the boys as well as Diana.  One time while she was upstairs vacuuming, Diana felt a big gust of cold air that went right through her and actually blew her hair.  She stopped the vacuum, screamed, and ran down the stairs.  She thinks that whatever or whoever was in the house didn’t like the vacuum cleaner because whenever she ran it, things would always happen.

Matthew too had a similar experience while he was upstairs vacuuming.  He was doing his room and the hallway and had to stop because a cold gust of wind went right through him.  And many times after that whenever Matthew or Bradley would come out of their rooms, they would always feel that cold gust of wind. 

Bradley had an encounter in the house that frightened him terribly.  Diana was downstairs cleaning the windows or doing something downstairs by the bottom of the steps.  She looked up to see Bradley flying down the stairs.  She never saw anyone come down a flight of stairs so fast and she said it looked like he had grown wings and had flown down.  Screaming all the way, when he got to the bottom of the stairs Diana asked him what was wrong and Bradley said, “I saw it.”  Diana said, “You saw what?” and Bradley answered, “I saw the man!”  The way he described it, it was tall and black and it was just standing right in the hallway and Bradley had run right into it.  He was petrified and he was shaking and crying and refused to go back upstairs for some time.

My sister Donna and my son Ryan also had an experience at the Peabody house while they were visiting Diana.  It was about 2:00 or 3:00 AM when Donna crawled into bed with Diana and Diana asked her what was wrong.  Donna said, “I can hear it.”  And as they lay there in bed, they could hear someone walking through the hall, into the boys’ room, back out into the hall and then towards Diana’s room.  When it reached Diana’s room it just stopped.

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