Your True Tales
June 2007 - Page 5
The Ghost of Linden Street Coffee House
by Marjie
If you had told me three years ago that I'd be writing about ghosts - and not laughing - I would have, well... laughed. But here I am writing about The Ghost of Linden Street Coffee House in Lamoni, Iowa.
When my husband and I first bought Linden Street Coffee House in February 2004, no one told us about our "ghost." Our ghost is the real thing, complete with creaking floors, childlike singing, mysterious activities, and mischievous pranks. The first time I met our ghost, it was early afternoon, which is usually a quiet time at the coffee house. Now, you have to understand that the building where our coffee house is located is about 100 years old. We still have the original wood floors and some of the original interior brick walls. It's quite beautiful, but old. We really can hear the old floor creak... sometimes when we're in the basement, the only way we know a customer has come in is because we hear the floor above groaning!
So it's early afternoon. I'm the only one in the building, and I hear footsteps crossing the old dining room floor. They stop at the cash register counter ... I go to the counter ... there is no one there! I chalk up the "footsteps" to my imagination and go on with my work. Later that afternoon, another employee comes in and I say, "The weirdest thing happened to me today." (Note: I have mentioned nothing nothing to anyone about my ghost encounter.) She smiles and says, "Oh, you met our ghost!" Apparently, our ghost has introduced herself to several Linden Street Coffee House folks, and that day she was polite enough to introduce herself to me.
Since then, I've "seen" our ghost behind the cash register once. And our employees tell tales of blenders that turn on by themselves, freezer doors that open on their own, footsteps in the empty dining room, a child singing quietly in the empty hallway, and movement in our vacant back storeroom. None of us is really scared by our ghost, although late-night trips to the basement storeroom are not a favorite activity. We are currently researching the history of our building. There are charred beams in the basement, so we know a fire occurred sometime in the distant past. Our hope is that the child who visits is simply here to enjoy the great people and comfortable atmosphere of our coffee house!
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