The old Strum place sat on a hill, 5 miles south of Cornelius, Oregon. Known as the Old Storm Place, it was built by an old German and
his family from the old country. It had clapboard siding, painted white, lots of windows. It had a huge barn on the place that sat
below the house amid huge cedar, firs and pine trees that sighed in the wind like the pines in a Curwood novel.
I first saw the old house in the last part of 1937. The depression was still rampant in the land and so many were out of work, but if
you could get out of town and back to the land, there were always nuts, fruit, and berries to work in and put up for the winter at a
minimal cost. There was always empty houses or woodcutters shacks, empty because people had left to go elsewhere, or some farmer had
bought or leased land, and didn't need the house that went with it. Most were not in to bad a shape, usually a stove had been left
along with a rough hewn table, some benches, and orange crates for cupboards, nailed to the walls, one made out pretty well.
No one seemed to be on window breaking binges, so the windows were usually intact. With flour sack curtains, a good floor scrubbing,
fire in the stove, and a pot of beans cooking, they were a haven to crawl into, and it felt like "home". Most everyone took care of
the property and left it as neat, or more so than when they moved in. Sure beat a hole-in-the-wall apartment, or a tar paper, or
corrugated shack near the dumps. This district, I believe, was called the Iowa Hill District, strictly a German Lutheran Community.
We sure needed a place to stay, we had a baby girl and my husband could cut wood if we could find a place to stay. We moved into the
old Storm place, after getting permission from Alex Eischen, who owned another farm about a mile and a half away and farmed this place.
We asked about the amount of rent he wanted, but to our amazement he could hardly keep a grin off his face or the twinkle from his
eyes, like he had some secret, and he said he didn't want any rent, as we wouldn't be there very long anyway. He said sure we could
live there, if we could stand it. Up the road the other way lived a bachelor, a thickset German, who only laughed when we told him we
were moving in, and he wanted to know how long we were staying!!! We couldn't figure out what the joke was, but shrugged it all off
and moved in. Everyone we saw would say incredulously, "You're moving into the old Storm House?", and look at us as if we were either
to young, or to foolish to catch on. We met many with just open stares, embarrassed grins, or just a shake of the head. Evidently the
house was well known!!
There was my husband and I, our little girl and a cousin, or brother who stayed with us, often by turns, who would come to help cut
wood awhile. They used one of the old dragsaws, you now see in museums, and were paid $2.50 a cord, cut, delivered and stacked. This
was divided two and sometimes three ways, but you could keep a few chickens, and the neighbors gave us milk for milking his cow when
he had to be gone. The place looked like a castle as we sure needed a place to stay with a baby and down to our last "nickel", you
might say. My husband's cousin had an old car put together sometimes with baling wire, so we had transportation. Our water came from
an old pump by the side of the house, which we had to carry in for drinking, washing, scrubbing floors, cooking, canning, and baths.
And of course had to be heated on the cook stove. The well was a deep one and echoed many sounds, like footsteps walking, that never
appeared. We dismissed many sounds as just being the well what it was. We did begin to hear no one who ever lived there stayed very
long. A cousin of my husband and her family stayed a short time before moving to the North Plains area. Their names were John and Leta
Epler. They never would talk about the place, but did say no one member of the family stayed alone, and one time Leta was bitten by a
rat as she laid in the bed with a small baby. They used the bedroom off the front room. While we were there, we hardly ever used the
front door, or even the front part of the house, as the back door seemed more convenient to the kitchen, woodshed and all. We begin
to hear stories, mostly from our bachelor German neighbor, that the Strums had been bootleggers, a man was killed on the stairway
leading upstairs, and that there were trap doors in some of the rooms. The bloodstains were still visible on the steps, four or five
steps up and also where the blood spilled on the floor. We did find three trap doors that led to nice dug-out spaces below the floors.
We kept being told after we moved, no one would live there ever, but we were young and brave, and who believed in ghosts anyway???
And who worries when you're young. We moved in with little or no furniture, using what we could find, and besides we decided after
being around, the other part of the house wasn't needed, and it wasn't a very "friendly" part anyway. For awhile everything went along
all right, being early summer, we were out of doors a lot, but as it got on towards fall, we begin to notice odd noises. The first
seemed to be these resounding footsteps that could be heard on the northside of the house where the pump sat. I would run out to meet
whoever was there, glad for any company as the farms were a long way apart in those days, and no one would be there. Since the
farms were two to three miles apart, we couldn't see how the footsteps could echo so. No one seemed to be walking much anyway.
The next incident was the sound of someone chopping wood in the woodshed, usually in the afternoons. It would be the sound of measured
chopping and I would dash out, thinking my husband had come home early. If the dragsaw was broken down, often his cousin would go to
town for parts and my husband would come home and cut wood for the wood range and heater stove in the dining room. When I'd get to the
woodshed, the chopping would stop, and start up again when I got back to the house. So I'd think he'd just stepped out side for a
minute, and go running out again when the chopping started up again. This would go on and on until it seemed I would wear my legs
out. This would go on for days, lasting an hour or so every afternoon, and then maybe go weeks before it would start up again,
always in the afternoons only. This went on as long as we lived there. We never did figure out an explanation for this.
There were the sound of men's footsteps that went to the stairs where the bloodspots were, stopped, and walked on into the living
room, we used as our front room. This would go on for some time, and then quite awhile would pass before he would be back again. He
seemed to end his walk at the trap door in the room. That trap door was very "active" all the time we lived there. I often wondered
if someone was buried there. Every afternoon, without fail, about three o'clock in the afternoon, no matter what you were doing,
your head would automatically jerk towards the corner of that trap door. It was a forced reaction and you couldn't keep from doing it.
It became so routine, we just accepted it. We never told anyone about this, as we like to see if it affected everyone the same way.
It would and they would get a funny look on their face and say they had to be going. No one ever didn't jerk and stare at the trap
door. The trap door was cut in such a way, that if you didn't know about it, you didn't see it, and we didn't bother to tell anyone
about it. We were having a good time with it and thought it was fun. After we moved a few people asked us about it and being young
and full of mischief, sometimes we told them, "No, we didn't notice anything".
About once a month when there was a full moon shinning over the fields and trees, different footsteps walked from the back door
through the kitchen, living room and on into the south bedroom, where they seemed to stand and look out the window. These were the
steps of a young girl who seemed to be barefoot. Like the sound of bare feet sticking to the floor and then moving on across the
room. Was she waiting for a lover who never returned or was killed? The men used to follow the steps, one by one and they didn't
stop until they got to the window. She's the only one we ever saw, like apparition, barefoot and dressed in a long black cape. we
saw her twice. One night one of my husband's cousins was coming to spend the night. Ruby was to stop at a sisters place down below
the hill from us, have supper and visit and then come up to spend the night. It got later and later and she hadn't arrived so we
went to bed, having told her to just come in and go to bed when she got back. Sometime after midnight, the back door opened softly,
thinking it was Ruby, I didn't get up. The bedroom was long with a cot at the far end. As she seemed to stop, or pause at the doorway,
I whispered, "Come in, Ruby, and crawl in!"
There wasn't any electricity and the moonlight was shining in the window so I didn't light the lamp. She stood in the doorway in her
long black coat or cape, so I whispered again louder, two or three times. Still there was no movement and I was getting chills up my
back. I woke my husband saying, "There's someone standing there and they won't answer." He saw "her" standing there and swung at her
with his fist, she disappeared. Ruby never did come, she had played cards and talked until so late, she just made a bed on the floor
and slept there. We never told the rest about the barefoot girl. Many footsteps walked to the one trap door, but the other main one
never seemed to have any disturbances. We dried walnuts upstairs in the unfinished part and the rats did roll walnuts across the floor
to the edge and they rolled down between the wall. We know this accounted for some noises we heard, at least the ones upstairs.
Some evenings when we lit the kerosene lamp, a strange wind would come in the house and blow the lamp out. We'd go outside to see if
it were windy and the air would be strangely still. Go back in light the lamp, and the wind would blow it out time and time again.
This would happen for up to an hour at a time, and then back to normal.
My little girl who was a little over two by this time would be playing with her toys or dolls and would stop her play and jerk around
and look intently at "something". I'd watch her so she didn't know it and she would just look for awhile and then go back to playing.
At the time we'd laugh and say "Oscar's" back, with absolutely no fear. We liked it there with our ghosts. Now I wouldn't stay in that
place. One afternoon Mr Eischen said he'd be up to pick up some of the old prune dryers in the prune drying shed on the place. We told
him we'd help load them. We were late getting back from milking and it was one of the evenings when the "wind" kept blowing out the
lamps. Hearing pounding in the shed, my brother-in-law said he'd go help Mr. Eischen with the dryers, as it was getting pretty dark.
When he got there, there wasn't anyone there. When he got back to the house, you could hear the trays being lifted, pounding and
footsteps. Each time they went down, the noise stopped and no one there. Come back to the house and it all started again. This and
the lamps blowing out went on for about an hour. All at once, the wind and noises were gone and everything was normal. The next day
we asked Mr. Eischen if he'd come to get the dryer trays and he said no, he had found enough at his place and didn't need them.
Again we didn't tell anyone of this. It was one time I was uneasy there. One time we had party with food and drinks and company.
It wasn't long until the guests all came and told us they were leaving, if we wanted to stay in such a weird place, go ahead, but they
were leaving. We asked them what was the matter, no one would say anything. We were surprised as we had told our "occupants" to behave
themselves as we were having company, but the party broke up early and their parting shot was "If we ever moved, invite them again,
but not to that place ever. " We were surprised as we never told anything to anyone, partly because we were afraid they'd think we
were ready for the funny farm and partly because we enjoyed our secrets. Being young and dumb, we thought it was hilarious and drank
to "Oscar" and all the other shady men who lived there with us.
I never heard of a Mrs. Strum, but there were signs of a garden plot, a grape patch and clothesline. The barn was the only place I was
afraid of. It was a beautiful big barn and I loved barns. Since I had read and heard about Hobo's or other homeless people scaring
intruders away from the place they wanted to occupy, I went to look and see if this was the case with the barn. On a calm sunny day
if I entered the barn, gates and partitions would slam shut with such force they would almost hit me. It was such force it would
scare the living daylights out of me. There were no spring hinges, or anything like that that would make them do this.
No matter when I went down there, this would happen. The pines were so sad sounding, they signed and sobbed in the breeze. Since the
men were away a lot, I put up with the ghosts more than they did. I did stay alone a few times at night, but wasn't afraid, except at
the barn.
The summer of 1939 I had a baby boy and there seemed to be less ghostly goings-on. Maybe we were just happy with the baby and I was so
busy with both children and lots of washing, to do on the wash board, and did it mainly outside during the summer. Toward fall my
husband went to work for Arnold Gnos and since he had a woodcutters cabin on the place he came up the hill and insisted we get out
of the Storm place. He seemed really concerned. Again no explanation and we gave none. As we drove away I looked back and thought
I saw a movement at the window. One day a neighbor came by on horseback and said he was going to go look around the old Storm place
and asked if we'd lived there. He came back in a couple of hours, hair unruly and visibly shaken. He asked if we'd "really lived in
that place"? He had spent some time looking at some of the old magazines in the upstairs, but wouldn't say anything else except "he'd
never live there, in fact, he'd never so much as set foot in there again!" Playing dumb I asked why as I wanted to hear someone else's
version of the place, but all he'd do is shake his head as he rode on.
And what happened to the Old Sturm Place? A great blaze appeared one day on top of the lonely hill and the old house, and perhaps all
the ghosts, went up in smoke, or did they all go live in the barn? The house didn't burn accidentally, the men of the neighborhood
community got together and burned it down. They seemed to know a good deal about the strange going-on that went on in that old house,
but none would really speak of it, maybe feeling a little foolish it were voiced aloud, and would tolerate no more of that place.
I never went back after the house burnt just couldn't. We "all" got along fine in the house together and lived together quite well.
They tolerated us, but no one else could manage them. Perhaps they liked us, who knows? Being older and looking back, I couldn't or
wouldn't have stayed there now as I'd have been scared to death. I've never talked about it much and now have written it down. My
daughter remembers it very faintly, she was three when we left and remembers the good things, a puppy, a pet pig, going for walks
and picking the wildflowers, and who knows what friends she had with "Oscar and troop?"
