Ghosts along the Texas Coast (22 page)

Soon after this, a former waitress with whom I also spoke, Ilona Langlinais, actually saw the ghost! The young man, the artist who lived upstairs, was able to draw a sketch of him from her very accurate description. Langlinais said one October day in 1984, around 9 a.m. she was in the place, in the upstairs section. In those days the upstairs was used as a restaurant to accommodate the overflow from downstairs. She had just made a fresh pot of coffee and was carrying it down the hallway. She was very startled when she glanced into a room off the hallway and saw an elderly man seated at a table. Although he had his back to her, she could see he had longish white hair, worn over the collar, and he had on a tall-crowned black hat and a black suit. He was sitting sort of hunched over at the table, and he looked dejected to her, just from the way he was sitting. Langlinais said a feeling of great sadness suddenly came over her as she saw him there. She thought a cup of coffee might be just what he needed, so she asked, “Would you like a hot cup of coffee?” As she spoke, she said a gust of wind hit her with a tremendous “whoosh!” and at the same instant, the man she had seen so plainly literally vanished in front of her eyes!

After she spoke to the figure, whom she feels might have been the spirit of one of the Wunsche brothers, she said she never again felt or heard anything strange at the restaurant. She believes the spirit left . . . at least during the rest of the time she worked there. She was glad, because she said seeing the figure, then having it disappear so suddenly, definitely gave her a good case of the “heebie jeebies.”

Several waitresses reported that the salt and pepper shakers and sugar packets used to be scattered all about the tables and on the floor when they would open up in the mornings. And pictures on the walls of members of the Wunsche family would often be crooked as if intentionally rearranged. No other pictures were ever touched, just the Wunsche likenesses.

Owner Brenda Mitchell says she has never seen or heard the ghost, but she believes in the veracity of her employees and therefore acknowledges the existence of a ghost at her restaurant. The place is very busy these days, with the restaurant operating on the ground floor and a successful gourmet food mail order business operating out of the former hotel rooms on the upper floor.

Why don't you drop by the Wunsche Bros. Cafe and Saloon next time you're in Spring? You might not run into Charlie, but the homemade hamburgers are worth the trip anyway!

The three cities that form the Golden Triangle are in the far southeastern corner of the state of Texas. The stories in this chapter are about the area around the cities which comprise the triangle: Port Arthur, Orange, and Beaumont.

Port Arthur was first called Aurora when it was founded as a small settlement in 1840. The city, which is located on the northwest shore of Sabine Lake, nine miles from the Gulf of Mexico, was named after Arthur E. Stillwell, a Kansas City financier who was instrumental in bringing a railroad to the town site and thus assured its success. The area claims it “oils the world,” because nearly a million barrels of crude oil are refined in the area daily.

Orange, the easternmost city on the Sabine, is right at the Louisiana boundary. It was established in 1836, the year Texas won her independence from Mexico. It was named by early French and Spanish explorers who found large groves of wild oranges growing along the banks of the Sabine. Today it is a deep water port terminal 42 miles inland at the junction of Sabine and Neches rivers and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway.

Beaumont is the northernmost city of the triangle. It was established as a fur trading post in the early 1800s by French and Spanish explorers. It is believed to have been named for its slight northeast elevation, called Beau Mont in French. The town site was laid out in the 1830s, but it came of age in 1901 with the discovery of the first oil well gusher at Spindletop. The small village became a city of over 30,000 in less than a month!

Docia Williams

There are happenings so mysterious

That they fill our hearts with fright;

There are rivers flowing, and lights a'glowing

And spirits that walk in the night.

There are “things” that we as mortals

Just cannot understand

About the restless spirits

That haunt this ancient land.

Oh, would that we might help them

Find their way to peaceful dreams,

Beneath the spreading live oaks,

That shade the crystal streams.

Then we might freely travel

And never fear the sight,

Of these souls, so lost and lonely,

That wander in the night.

The Sabine Pass Lighthouse, built in 1857, served as a beacon to passing ships for many years, up until about the time of World War II, in fact. Now it's deserted, and the elements are slowly taking over. Some say it's still “occupied” with something, or someone, from another time.

According to an article that appeared in the
Port Arthur News
on October 29, 1992, “The lighthouse always has had a ghostly appearance, dating back to the 1930s when the captain of a tanker complained the lighthouse could not be distinguished in the early morning fog. In 1932 the tower was repainted with black and white horizontal bands ten feet apart.”

It's said that a caretaker back in the early 1950s asked to be removed from his job. This was after he saw the specter of a man wearing a black suit with bold brass buttons and a cap that looked like the uniform of a former lighthouse keeper. It was presumed this was the apparition of a former keeper of the light.

Then, a daughter of a former keeper said she once saw a huge “thing” with round, red, glowing eyes. It was covered with fur! She presumed it might be an evil “swamp monster” who didn't want people intruding upon his swamp area. And the president of the Port Arthur Historical Society, Sam Monroe, said he believed the ghost that inhabits the house is the figure of a soldier killed during the famous Battle of Sabine Pass. Monroe expressed the belief that the spirit is both harmless and benevolent.

By the various descriptions, one would have to presume the old monument is inhabited by more than one spirit or ghost. There have been few sightings in recent times, since no one lives at the lighthouse anymore. Some people want the house restored, while others wish to tear it down. The ownership has actually moved from Texas to Louisiana. Parts of the huge light that once served as a beacon to ships
sailing off the coast are now in storage, waiting to someday be displayed in the Museum of the Gulf Coast.

Today the old lighthouse sits forlorn and alone on its tiny windswept spit of land. The big windows that once housed the life-saving light look like empty eyes gazing sadly out to sea. The once bold black stripes have almost disappeared.

Such a shame that this historical monument to another time should be left standing deserted and forlorn; not even a very good home for a ghost!

Postscript:

I recently appeared on a television show in Beaumont, and it was announced I would be at a local bookstore later that evening to autograph my books. While I was at the bookstore a young couple arrived, carrying a large framed photograph, a family portrait. They had heard me mention the ghost of the lighthouse on the television show, and said “Here's your ghost . . . our great grandfather!” The gentleman in the picture was Stephen Decatur Hill, the lighthouse keeper there for many years. He died in 1913. The likeness showed him in a dark jacket with big brass buttons and the lighthouse keeper's hat just as described by the caretaker who saw the apparition!

When I first began this book project, I sent out letters to numerous South Texas newspapers in the coastal area, hopeful they would run an article about my project and that people who had a “ghostly encounter” to share would contact me about their personal experiences.

I was not disappointed. Many people who had previously kept secret their encounters with the supernatural did contact me. I believe they were relieved to at last talk about what they had experienced, having found someone who would believe them and not question either their veracity or their sanity.

One such person is Anne Malinowsky Blackwell, of Nederland, a small town midway between Port Arthur and Beaumont. We have been in contact by mail and telephone for the past year. Her story is most interesting, and heretofore, unknown and unpublished.

Ms. Blackwell stated in her first letter to me, dated March 5, 1993, “Your letter caught my attention because six years ago I bought a house in Nederland that was built around 1922. I knew nothing about its history nor did I believe in ghosts prior to living here. After several years of strange occurrences that were totally inexplicable, I have accepted the fact that there is a ghost in my house. In fact, when I finally met a descendant of the man that built the house my first question to her was ‘Who died in this house?' ‘My grandfather,' she replied, ‘on New Year's Eve on the stroke of midnight.' ”

In another letter, in which Ms. Blackwell enclosed a photo of her home, she stated, “I've also included background information on me so you'll know I'm not a lunatic (at least not yet!). Actually, I'm the least suitable person I know of to be haunted. Certainly, if you find this of interest, you have my permission to use my Ghost Story, and my name if you wish. Maybe, with some exposure, we can find someone who appreciates him. I certainly don't!”

Nederland house built around 1922 by Joe Lee at 1616 Elgin Street

Anne Malinowsky Blackwell is indeed a fascinating and accomplished lady. The personal photograph she enclosed in one of her letters also shows her to be as beautiful as she is “brainy.” In fact, her brunette good looks would certainly border on “extremely glamorous” in finding words to describe her appearance. The owner of Maco Construction Company, Blackwell was the first female contractor in Southeast Texas, the first female to be licensed as a civil contractor by the state of Louisiana, first female contractor to perform underground construction for United States Environmental Protection Agency projects, and the first female contractor to be utilized on United States Department of Energy projects. Well qualified as an independent construction consultant, she has testified in numerous cases in state and federal courts and has been sought by a variety of federal agencies, senate committees, and the EPA which have incorporated many of her suggestions in their regulations. She is a member of Sigma Lamda Chi, the National Construction Honors Society, the Southeast Texas' Women's Hall of Fame, received the Jefferson Award for Public Service, Avon's Women of Enterprise Award, Female Entrepreneur of the Year, and holds membership in the National Association of Female Executives. Her
honors, accomplishments, and educational background fill two single-spaced typewritten pages!

This lady, to use her own words, is definitely “no lunatic.” And therefore her story is to be believed, just as she wrote it to me, in her own words:

I heard about the house in Nederland months before I ever saw it. I had lived in Beaumont or Port Arthur for most of my life and for the past seven years had resided in Louisiana. I had made frequent trips back to Southeast Texas, where I also had a business.

In 1986, I realized it was time to move back to Texas. Since I owned a second home, a townhouse, in Port Arthur, I didn't really need another house, but became intrigued by the house in Nederland that two of my employees frequently discussed between them. This house, I heard, had formerly been a rundown shack that someone had bought and spent several years remodeling. Now it was for sale. The more I heard about the house, the more I realized it sounded “like me.” Finally, I asked for directions, and found it. It was exactly right for me. Not large . . . two bedrooms when I bought it (one's now my home office), a small formal living room, and a very large, open kitchen-den area with lots of windows giving an almost “beach house” effect.

It sat on two lots that were covered with huge live oak and pecan trees. The old, quiet neighborhood suited me very well. I live alone and like my privacy. There was even a dog pen for my beloved “Beaux,” who I had acquired in Louisiana earlier that year. I bought the house at 1616 Elgin and moved in that October of 1986.

I knew little about the house's history beyond the prior owners, a young couple who only lived there three or four years before divorcing. It had been built around 1922 by a man named Joe Lee. It was empty for many years prior to being remodeled in the early 1980s. There's not much more I know about its history now, except that Joe Lee died here of a heart attack on a long-ago New Year's Eve, just at the stroke of midnight. He was survived by a wife, who was, according to his granddaughter, a “witch” (what kind, I don't know, and I don't
even know what became of her). But somewhere between learning that Joe Lee built the house and that Joe Lee died in this house, I have come to believe that Joe Lee has not ever left this house.