A suitable topic for Halloween. Harry Truman, soon after he became President, wrote a letter to his wife in which he referred to ghosts in the White House:
THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON
June 12, 1945
Dear Bess:- Just two months ago today, I was a reasonably happy and contented Vice-President. Maybe you can remember that far back too. But things have changed so much it hardly seems real.
I sit here in this old house and work on foreign affairs, read reports, and work on speeches — all the while listening to the ghosts walk up and down the hallway and even right in here in the study. The floors pop and the drapes move back and forth — I can just imagine old Andy and Teddy having an argument over Franklin. Or James Buchanan and Franklin Pierce deciding which was the more useless to the country. And when Millard Fillmore and Chester Arthur join in for place and show, the din is almost unbearable. But I still get some work done.
Hope the weather lets up and you will be able to do some work on the house. The Gibson boy should have been taken care of long ago. I’ll see what’s happened. I’m not able to do as many things for my friends now as I did when I was just a dirty organisation Democrat and a County Judge.
Guess you and Helen will have a grand time. Hope you do. We are working on Dr. Wallace. Glad everybody was in his right mind at the family party. Undoubtedly they were walking the straight and narrow for your mother. But I’m sure you had a nice time anyway.
That address mixed up is causing me some embarrassment (if that’s the way you spell that blushing word.) I addressed a letter to you at 4701 Conn. Ave. Independence Mo., and another one 219 North Delaware, Washington, D. C. Now it seems I sent one to the Rolands. The boys in the House here didn’t catch that one but they did the other two.
I’ll have Reathal attend to the chores you suggest. I haven’t seen her but twice since you left. She comes in after I go over to the office, usually goes out to lunch and doesn’t come back until I am gone again and then goes home before I get over here.
Had Charlie Ross and Rosenman to lunch yesterday. We worked on my San Francisco speech. ,that date is postponed until next week now on account of the slow wind-up and Gen. Eisenhower’s visit.
Write me when you can – I hope every day.
Lots of love.
Harry.
I would take the part referring to ghosts merely as a playful joke, except that on other occasions Truman spoke of ghosts in the White House. Truman spent a night in the Lincoln bedroom, actually the room that contained Lincoln’s office during the Civil War, and was awakened by rapping at the door. When he went to the door no one was there, and Truman assumed that Lincoln’s ghost did it. His daughter Margaret reported experiencing the same thing when she spent a night in the room. These are only two of many, many sightings of the ghost of Lincoln and other alleged ghosts that have been reported down through the years at the White House.
Harry Truman, who was shocked at the shabbiness and disrepair of the White House oversaw extensive renovations. That is your cue President Trump. The renovations apparently did not disturb the ghosts, if there are there, as the sightings have continued.
Ghosts are not bothered by renovations. When I encounter lost souls I tell them to help me or get out of my way. They must obey.
The first night in a newly bought home I was awaken by a man staring me in the face. The next day my daughter called to tell me about the man. I said: “Yes, he has a red beard”. She said: ” OH, you met him.” We named him Robert. Robert sits in the corner of the basement. Sometimes I encounter him on the stairs. That is when I tell him to help me or get out of my way. Another friend met Robert in the basement without being warned. My friend said that he exorcised Robert but Robert is still here.
“When I encounter lost souls I tell them to help me or get out of my way. They must obey.” What on earth gives you that idea? Seriously.
When I was a child our neighbors had a Doberman Pinscher. I caught him in our yard one time and told him to be off; he left. Should I conclude from that that all animals “must obey” my every command — or even just all Dobermans?
So is your assertion based on a rash generalization of personal experience (the verity of which I will accept for the sake of argument), or from a theoretical ground (which would have to be more detailed on the topic than Catholic doctrine), or from the belief that these are all just fiction anyhow, so you can tell your story any way you please?
Howard:
Some people see ghosts.
The devil too must get out of the way when people invoke the Blessed Virgin and God.
Today I called and called for my daughter to help me rid the house of a wasp, the sting of which is very serious for me.
She could not hear me. I resigned myself to lock myself in my bedroom.
As I entered I prayed : “God help me.”
I opened the door and surprisingly the wasp flew out. God answered my prayer.
Mary –
I believe your experiences. However, if spirits and demons always obeyed through the simple use of Our Lord’s name, that would contradict what I have heard the exorcists say. It would also contradict Mark 9:29 where Jesus casts out a devil that had resisted the apostles.
All in all, I am glad that “Robert” is no trouble to you.
Don:
Trump’s ballroom invokes memories of the dancing spirits in Disney’s Haunted Mansion. A future Trump ghost dancing at midnight to Sinatra’s “I Did It My Way”?