It is the one place in town everyone knows. I guess you could say it was the town landmark. It was the old Anderson house up on the hill looking over the whole town. It has been there since the town was formed in 1894. The original family was Emma and William Anderson and they, like many in those days, lost young children to disease and were never the same.
Their first born was a boy, Charles, who only survived a matter of hours when he was born premature. Then their second child, a girl named Alexandra, died from pneumonia at an age of four. And their third and final child was a boy named John, who succumbed to tuberculosis at the age of seven. Each death tore them apart a little bit more so that by the time John died Emma was suffering greatly from depression and was briefly in a mental asylum to try to bring her back to reality.
William dealt better with the losses than Emma but was completely lost without her while she was institutionalized. She came home after electro-shock treatments only to find William in worse shape than she was. So, they hired a nurse to take care of both of them in the home. The night they both died in their sleep is now looked at with suspicious but then they just felt they died of broken hearts. The nurse was never seen again in town and was likely the cause of their deaths.
This was why most people avoided the house that sits there still in disrepair. They left the house to a cousin who had no interest in it and he never visited it until towards the end of his life. He left the house to his son who still owns the property but lives in a house in town.
The stories over the years about ghosts roaming the house and grounds looking for children kept most of them away. Anytime a driver got lost and drove through town for directions, they were always told to drive towards the house and take a right just past it. That is county road 16 and it will take them back to the interstate.
There is a lot going on in the world. A lot of it revolves around a tiny little germ – the corona virus. As I have mentioned before I have anxiety and this pandemic is not helping it at all. Then the depression is intensified by the thousands who have died. But I still go on.
My fibromyalgia is treating me pretty good today. It hasn’t been too bad of a week even. Really just sleep problems – can’t get to sleep, trouble waking up (that is due to medication to sleep I think), and the unexpected naps I take. The aches are always there to some degree, but I am not curled up in pain, I can sit up and write, read and I have made it up and down the stairs a few times today fairly easily. A shower did not completely wipe me out. Bottom line is, I am upright and for that I am grateful.
