I grew up in a house in Mt. Airy Md. It was a grand old house on Main St.; build during the 1870’s. My Uncle was visiting us and one morning we noticed that he was acting a little strange. He was reluctant to say what was wrong. However, after some prodding, he told so the he woke up in the middle of the night and saw a woman standing at the foot of his bed. He said that the lady had red hair. When he looked at her she turned and walk out of the room through a door into the adjoining bed room. There were two problems no one in the house had red hair and there as a piece of furniture blocking the door in the adjoining bed room. The door could not be open.

As we talked bout this my mother remembered that the wife of the former owner had red hair and matched her general description. From that day forward any thing strange that occurred as attributed to Louise.

A number of years later my mother opened a Ceramic Shop in the house. As it grew the three car garage was enlarged and the shop was move out of the house. One summer my mother hired a young college student to help pour the ceramic castings (greenware). One day this young man worked late trying to fill all the orders that were outstanding. Since it was late and he was to come back the next day my mother invited him to spend the night. He agreed and used one of the rooms in the attic of the house. There was not alarm clock in the room and the young man over slept. When he came down to the shop he was ashen and shaking. It took a while to get him to talk.

I seemed that that a red haired lady had shaken him and told him that he was late. He was to get up and go to work. Once he was awake the lady turned and walked through the door and left the room. For some reason the young man never spent the night again.

After I got married and lived in VA, FL, and TN, my wife and I returned to Frederick, MD to live. We were lucky that a friend of my wife’s had a house in downtown that they were thinking of renting. The house was built in the 1930’s by the friend’s Grandparents. My wife’s friend had grown up in the house and my wife had spent a lot of time in the house visiting. It was almost like coming home for my wife.

About 10 years before we moved in the friend’s mother had passed away in the living room of the house. The father died a few years later and the house stood empty for about five years before we moved in. Not long after we moved in my wife and I commented on some strange sounds in the house. My wife said off handedly that just the friend’s mother, Louise, don’t worry about it. (Do I sense a theme here?) Over the years the sounds continued but never any problems for us. But, I am not sure I can say the same for our cats. It appeared that the cats enjoyed the house and did the normal cat things. However, every so often one or the other of the cats would sit on the landing on the stairs between the 1st and 2nd floor. The cat would sit there staring up at the top of the stairs and give out that low guttural moan cats have when they are frightened of something. We had a number for cats while living in this house and they all did the same thing, stare and moan.

I may not have been the former owner since we were only about 5 houses away from the local Catholic Church. The Church was used as a hospital during the Civil War after both Antietam and Gettysburg and is on the route for the local ghost tour. There may have been some spill over.