A real life haunted house… no thank you.
For a while many decades ago, Dolly Parton and her husband let her best friend, Judy, and some of Dolly’s other siblings, lived with them.
But eventually, Parton and her husband, Carl Dean, were left alone in the house when everyone else traveled back home to Dolly’s hometown in East Tennessee, and in her book Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business, she recalled hearing a bump in the night, so to speak, that woke her up, but she figured it was just Judy and her siblings had come back early:
“One night we locked the doors and windows, as we routinely did when living in the city, and went off to bed. We soon began to hear noises in the kitchen. We heard the familiar sounds of cabinets opening and water running. We weren’t too disturbed because we knew Judy had a key.
When we heard footsteps up the stairs and water turning on in the bathroom, I said to Carl, ‘I guess Judy and the kids have come back early.’ And I rolled over to sleep.”
In the early hours of the morning, Dolly got up to use the bathroom, when the hot water cut on all by itself, and of course, Dolly “screamed in horror.” She knew something weird was up… and of course, Carl came running in to see what was wrong:
“In the wee hours of the morning, I got up to weewee. Just as I entered the bathroom, the hot water came on full force, all by itself. I screamed in horror, and Carl came running. Now, that was a hard faucet to turn on anyway, and it always took a while for the water to heat up. I was scared.”
Dolly said her husband still thought it was Judy, though they quickly realized they were still home alone, and convinced themselves it was “the neighbors, or rats, or built-up water pressure in the pipes, or whatever.”
They never figured out exactly what it was, though not long after this occurred, Dolly’s aunt Dorothy Jo had a scarily similar story.
Dolly’s grandmother, Rena, who was Dorothy’s mom, had passed away not long before that, and Dorothy told Dolly she believed her mom had visited her. Dolly says she felt her “willies came back a hundredfold” as her aunt explained she found the kitchen window wide open the next morning:
“Very soon after that night, my Aunt Dorothy Jo told me something odd. She said, ‘I believe that Mama visited me last night.’ Her mother, my Grandma Rena, had recently passed away, at least her earthly self had.
Aunt Dorothy Jo explained, ‘I felt Mama’s presence real strong, standing right by my bed.’ Then my willies came back a hundredfold as she went on to say, ‘This morning, I found the kitchen window open.’”
Sounds like they could’ve really used a modern-day security system with cameras to be able to really get to the bottom of it…
Dolly was pretty convinced the had experienced something paranormal, and obviously, the experience never left her:
“I still don’t know what happened, but it made me feel that much more certain that there are spirits and angels with us. I’ll leave it to you to figure out.”
In some ways, it had to be somewhat comforting that they believed it was her grandmother, though the whole hot water and faucet thing would have been enough for me to consider moving out I think…
And speaking of spooky experiences, Dolly penned her song “These Old Bones” about a clairvoyant mountain woman who was able to tell people their fortunes, though got ostracized by her community for doing so.
She included it on her 2002 Halos & Horns album, and it will certainly get you in the spooky spirit, especially the opening verse where we hear Dolly playing the part perfectly:
“These Old Bones”
