EPISODE 144 “GHOSTS COME FROM THE COFFINS WHEN THE SNOW BEGINS TO MELT, ALAN”
alan skeoch
Oct. 2020
This story is about a ghost. Sort of. To make the story real we have to go back in time to the year
1948. Too a stormy Sunday afternoon. To a story about ghosts. And then the story jumps to the present…
to a sunny splendid October afternoon…Oct. 17, 2020. The story has legs so to speak, and will be
continued in Episode 145.
(photo is similar to the bob sleigh in the story)
FIFTH LINE, WINTER 1948
“You boys are cold..too cold. Jump off the back of the slight and run behind, the horses cannot
go fast because the snow drifts are too deep. Running will warm you up.” said our Uncle, Frank Freeman,
on one of those miserable February Sundays as we tried to meet the Gray Coach Bus at the
corner of the fifth line and Highway 7. We were going home to Toronto. We visited our grandparents
often on the Fifth line with the help of Uncle Frank and his horses.
Uncle Frank was never really appreciated when he was alive. We took it for granted that he
and Aunt Lucinda would get up earlier on winter days and harness the team of horses then hook them up
to the big bob sleigh just to get us back to the city. This was not a simple task. Then Uncle
Frank had to turn around and beat his way back up the line to the barn where the horse harness
had to be removed and hung on big hooks beside the horse stalls. Then some fresh hay needed
to be pushed down to the stable from the threshing floor above. Uncle Frank loved his horses.
“A horse is better than a tractor,” he told me often, “Horses need to rest. Tractors never rest.
When the horse took a break, I got a break as well.” I remember so much about those farm
visits. Especially that winter day.
I remember that day clearly. Eric was 10 and I was 12 or thereabouts. Uncle Frank and mom
were wrapped in big buffalo robes and coats. Collars turned up, scarves across their faces.
This was not a nice day. It was an adventure . Eric and I ran behind the sleigh. Maybe a
bit fearful we would not keep up and be forgotten. Not likely.
But the trip was more than that because the only structure on the corner of the fifth line and
Highway 7 was a small graveyard with limestone markers angled various directions. The graveyard
is still there. Just the graveyard on the North east corner. Nothing on the others. Which means
it was a scary place for kids like us. Uncle Frank made it moreso.
“Boys, when the snow begins to melt ghosts emerge from that graveyard. Maybe not real ghosts
but something strange happens. A white mist flats up around several of the headstones.”
Uncle Frank did not tell us this to frighten us. He was simply stating what he had seen.
“White mist around the old gravestones sometimes”
That was around 1948…a long time ago.
Today, October 17, 2020, there is no snow, no ice, no snowdrifts for the team to
bust through, and Uncle Frank Freeman is not around anymore. But the graveyard is still
there. Abandoned really. I always give it a wide birth when going to the farm. Probably because
of Uncle Frank and the ghost story.
I STOPPED THE TRUCK…PULLED OVER.
Today, Oct. 17, 2020, the little graveyard bursts with colour. Maple leaves in their splendour.
Ghosts? What a silly thought.
Ridiculous, there are no ghosts…and if there
were, they would not be whispy shadows in the graveyard today. The sun is shining,..the day is
warm…and the maple leaves are still splendid. Might be a good idea to stop and walk into
the graveyard…something you have never done in the past 70 years. Do it.”
So I parked the truck beside the road and strolled into the tiny cemetery to read the
dedication stone erected when all the limestone slabs were gathered together.
WHAT A SHOCK!
I READ THE 1953 GRAVE MARKER WHICH SAID, “ERECTED BY THE BANNOCKBURN COMMUNITY”
This will not seem shocking to any reader unless he or she is familiar with the Skeoch family and the
battle of Bannockburn deep in the history of Scotland when a Scottish army lead by Robert Bruce defeated
the English at Bannockburn. Another name for the place of this defeat is “the Skeoch steading”…i.e. the Skeoch farm.
So what? There is a legend that has been passed down through our family. A legend. A story that may or may not be
truse. I am still unsure about some aspects of the legend but there is a core of truth which keeps recurring associated
with Bannockburn, That legend will be the subject of the next Episode (145) for anyone interested. Family history
may not be interesting to anyone but the family involved. Legends, however, do have an appeal beyond particular families.
So you may want to read the legend and help me find the core of truth.
Getting back to the little graveyard. There are no Skeoch’s buried here. Most of the gravestones commemorate the Worden family
who purchased this tiny property for personal burials.
What interested me was the use of the term “Bannockburn” which reminded me that our section of the Fifth line, Erin township was
settled heavily by Scots…McLean, McEchern, Kerr, Leitch, Macdonald and others no doubt. There was a strong anti-English
prejudice according to my grandparents, Louisa and Edward freeman, who were Welsh/English. “It tooks some time for us to
break down that anti-english feeling. We did it with music. I played the pump organ and Grandpa played the violin. We were
needed.” (my words, but true to grandma’s comment)
In time, I got to know these Scots pioneer families. But I did not know there ever was a Bannockburn community on the Fifth Line.
That community is long gone now. What remained for a while, apparently, was the Bannockburn School which was just north
of the Bannockburn graveyard. It is gone. Gone Long ago for I have no memory of such a school in my 80 years.
All that remains is this tiny forgotten graveyard.
The ghost? Well, the ghost is real in a way. The ghost is “Bannockburn”.
SEE EPISODE 145 — TRACING A LEGEND
alan skeoch
Oct. 17, 2020
