A Persistent Warning
I had been about five years married. My husband was a…business man, healthy and strong, and we were the possessors of two dear little girls, and very happy. As usual we started on our summer holiday, but, after the second week, I noticed a distinct change in my husband; he looked tired and ill, and he was very irritable. He made no complaint and said he was all right; but I felt anxious to get home. It was on the night after our return that I went to bed feeling very tired and soon dropped off into a heavy sleep, but was suddenly awakened and heard the clock strike twelve. I rubbed my eyes and listened, and then I saw distinctly leaning on the foot of my bed, a nurse in uniform, with head bowed down. It gave me a start and I called out “Nurse.” This awoke my hubby, and he was ever so cross. I turned my head to tell him, but, when I looked again, she was gone. Of course, he said it was a dream, but it was not, and I slept no more that night. I did not mention the matter to anyone, fearing they would laugh at me. But the next night, I was awakened by my elder little girl calling. I went to her and found she was greatly frightened. She said a nurse had wakened her, and described the vision as I had seen it. I got into her bed, but it was a long time before she went off to sleep. It worried me so much that I sent for mother, and, before I had time to tell her anything, I heard the child telling her just as she had told me. Mother laughed about it and said she would stay all night. Imagine what I felt like when, just as the clock was striking twelve, mother called out: “The ‘nurse’ has awakened me.” My husband was furious at being wakened, as he said, by hysterical women, but in the morning we all looked so ill—my husband particularly so—that, without telling us, mother sent for the doctor. When she told my husband, he was furious, put on his hat and went out. I was sitting at the window waiting for doctor, when an ambulance drove up. I rushed to the gate and was met by the nurse. Then, out slipped the doctor. They carried my husband in. He had fallen in a faint in the road, just as doctor was on his way to the house. He sent for an ambulance, and the nurse came with it. I tried hard to get nurse to stay with me, but she could not. My husband had a terrible illness from which he never recovered properly. Nurse often came in person to see me. Then, one day, I had the sad news brought to me that “pneumonia” had claimed her. But, up to the time of my husband’s death, I often saw her and knew it was to prepare me for some trouble. As the clock was striking twelve midnight on December 21/96, nurse came to me again. I could not sleep, and put my hand under the pillow to get my flashlight. The flashlight would not work, so I felt for my husband’s. He said his was out of order, but he would take them in the morning to be repaired. Those were his last words. Later, I found him dead, but I have never seen nurse since.
Warnings From Beyond, Signs, Visions, and Premonitions told by “Daily News” Readers, S. Louis Giraud, editor, (London, UK: Fleetgate Publications, n.d.): pp. 12-13
Chris Woodyard is the author of The Victorian Book of the Dead, The Ghost Wore Black, The Headless Horror, The Face in the Window, and the 7-volume Haunted Ohio series. She is also the chronicler of the adventures of that amiable murderess Mrs Daffodil in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales. The books are available in paperback and for Kindle. Indexes and fact sheets for all of these books may be found by searching hauntedohiobooks.com. Join her on FB at Haunted Ohio by Chris Woodyard or The Victorian Book of the Dead. And visit her newest blog The Victorian Book of the Dead.
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