The story of Edith began for us in October of 2018. My cousin purchased a house in Brighton, Digby County, N.S. She asked my husband and myself to live in it and look after it for them until they retired.
When she came to Nova Scotia to sign the papers and take possession she told us the real estate agent told her the house came with its own ghost named Edith. She didn’t know much of the story but gave Robin the name of a person who had lived here for 18 years. Robin called the person and she told her the story, as far as she knew it, behind Edith haunting the house. It turns out the person Robin was speaking to was a friend of mine.
I spoke with Heather yesterday and got a bit more information about Edith’s passing. Apparently Edith passed away in the house waiting for her husband to come home from sea. I found out that Edith was apparently waked in this house for a couple of weeks waiting for her husband to return which never happened.
So apparently they then took her and put her in the back shed with the pigs, still waiting for her husband to return from sea. After awhile they couldn’t wait any longer and apparently had to bury her. The body was not in good shape as you can imagine. So now she haunts the house still waiting for her husband to arrive.
We had our first experience with Edith about a week or so after we moved in. Joe and I were sitting watching TV one evening around 10:30 and every few minutes we heard what sounded like gunshots outside. I figured it was some idiot out there shooting at deer.
We went to bed around 12 or so and were sound asleep when we heard someone banging on the walls. It sounded like someone was locked in a closet or something and was banging on the walls to get out. We woke up and looked around but didn’t see anyone. So we started downstairs to check on things. Just as we were going down the stairs part of the power went off in the house.
We then proceeded to check around in the house with a flashlight and didn’t see anything so we went outside to determine what was going on. No one was out there but we could again hear what sounded like gun shots. The conduit for the power to the house was just outside our bedroom window. As we came around the corner we could smell something burning. We weren’t sure what it was but didn’t want to take any chances so my husband went down into the basement and shut off all the power to the house.
The next day I contacted a friend whose husband is an electrician. She said he was up the Valley and really busy and asked what the problem was. I told her and she said I will get him to call you asap. He did and then came to take a look at everything. In the meantime he called NS Power and they shut the electricity off until he checked it out.
Steve came shortly thereafter and when he took the conduit off he said “Oh my God, good thing you shut the electricity off in the basement or you wouldn’t be here this morning to tell me about it.” Just then the guy from NSP came along and said exactly the same thing.
Apparently the person who had put the conduit in and the wiring put too small a conduit in and instead of replacing it, he just shoved the wires down in and rubbed all the rubber off. The house had been empty for a few years and so when we turned on the electricity when we moved in, it started to spark and if we hadn’t shut it off the house would have burned to the ground with us in it.
I am 100% positive it was Edith who saved us. That banging was eerie, there was no one else here. We all agree on that, that if it hadn’t been for her, we would have perished that night. Steve replaced the conduit and wires and NS Power turned the power back on and we were good to go. No one will ever convince me it wasn’t Edith that saved our lives that night. I think she sensed that we were not scared of being in the house with her there.
The next encounter with her was we have a door from the laundry room going to the three seasons room that we keep closed all the time. Every time we would go out and close the door we would come back to it being opened. At first we thought it was someone coming in the house but we then replaced the knob and put one on it with a key. Still was open when we came back.
One day Joe and I were going to Walmart to get a few things and when I went to close the door to the laundry room, I jokingly said okay Edith, enough is enough leave the door shut. And then I closed it and left. We went to Walmart and since we were only going to be a few minutes, I just left my phone in the car. When I came back I had a voice mail from a friend up the Valley saying sorry I just missed your two phone calls but I was on the other line and called you back after I got off.
I thought she was losing her mind, I hadn’t called her since I was in Walmart and my phone was in the car. I know I could have hit the button by accident and called her once but not twice since I wasn’t there. I checked my phone and sure enough my phone had called Judy twice while I was in Walmart. I showed it to Joe and we both said simultaneously, “It must have been Edith”, upset with us that we told her to leave the door alone.
We’ve had a few other things going on as well like footsteps, a female voice talking like she’s having a conversation with someone but there’s nobody else here. Edith is definitely here. There’s been a few other small things like things being put in one place and then when you go to get them they’re moved to another spot.
Around the beginning of January this year my husband started having problems with his back from an old injury when he was in the military. He now has a protruding disk and needs an operation. It is affecting his hip and knee. His knee gives out and he falls.
So he decided he was going to sleep in the living room on the couch. So I came down too in case he had any issues in the night. We never would have known this next part if it wasn’t for us sleeping downstairs. The first couple nights we slept right through but about three or four nights after we started sleeping downstairs, I woke up at 4:30 in the morning.
There was a light shining through the living room window and the window in the front door. At first I was terrified, thinking somebody was casing the place to rob it. We are a ways off the main road so I thought that’s what was going on. It had snowed during the night and I went out the next morning and checked and there was no footprints outside nor was anything touched. Both sheds were secure. Nothing was taken, so I put it down to my imagination at the time.
A couple nights later the same thing happened again. This night it rained and again the light was there, this time it went all the way around the house to every window downstairs. The next morning I checked again and again no footprints, nothing taken. At this point I was saying okay, what the heck is going on.
This has been going on I would say almost every night since then at exactly the same time, 4:30 in the morning and probably for a long time except no one would notice because the bedrooms are upstairs and it doesn’t seem to be happening in the upstairs windows.
A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I decided to start sleeping in the trailer because the weather had gotten warmer instead of in the living room. I think it was the first night we were out there, I had a dream (or at least I thought it was a dream). All I remember was Edith being in it. I woke up at exactly 4:30 in the morning with a poem in my head that I could not get out.
If you knew me, you’d know I don’t have a poetic bone in my body. I don’t write stories or poems, never have. But this poem was so vivid and would not go away. I had this unearthly feeling that I had to write it down before I forgot it. So that’s what I did.
I came in the house at and immediately wrote it down on a piece of paper and then typed it up. As soon as I did that, I immediately forgot it and can’t remember it now, except if I read it.
A Ray of Light
He came to me on a ray of light
He came to chat in the middle of the night
He came to say God needs me home
Where God needs me I will roam
He took me there on his wings of white
All the way in that ray of light
To see my family again at last
All of them who have previously passed
Mom and Dad were there
And my brothers too
With open arms
That said we all missed you
Smiles and hugs all around
Love and joy did abound
God said you have family here
But your earthly family also cares
If you feel you need them still
It can be arranged with your free will
I had the choice to stay or go
My earthly family still needs me so
I still had things before my time on earth was done
He said the choice was mike to make
All the time I needed I could take
I hugged my family and said goodbye
My time left on earth would surely fly
He flew me home through that ray of light
On his beautiful wings of white
At first I thought it was about me, as my mother and father and two of my brothers are gone now. One brother died when he was four months old of Leukemia and the other in 2013 from a heart attack. So it fit with my family dynamic.
But a couple of days later, it was raining out and I didn’t want to sleep in the trailer so I slept in the living room. That night I woke up again to the light in the windows and the next morning, I was talking with Joe and my daughter and we figured out that the poem is not about me at all.
I honestly believe it’s about Edith and that she is trying to tell me that the light outside is her husband and that they want to be reunited. Funny thing is, the store next door to us was once part of this property and the property on the other side of that as well as the one on the other side of us towards Digby was as well.
My husband was at the store just after I wrote that poem down and was discussing the trees that had fallen down on the property in the last wind storm. The conversation came around to the house, etc. and somehow my husband was telling them about my experiences. He said at first I thought I was losing my mind.
The woman next door said oh no she’s not, when the house was empty we saw the light outside at the windows and also saw a light moving around upstairs in the alcove in the front of the house. There was no electricity turned on at the time.
I sincerely believe that’s the case and am going to do my best to make that happen. I think that this is what she wants and she realizes that we will help her do that.
My husband, Joe has never really believed in this as he was brought up differently than I was. My mother totally believed in this and so do myself and my daughter. But my husband is now a believer after this and is trying to help us now solve this mystery.
I believe the poem has some real significance to their life. Unfortunately all I know is Edith’s first name. Have no clue what her husband’s name was or their last name. But we are hoping to find out more information as we go. I have started reading the book by Isaiah W. Wilson which is titled “A Geography and History of Digby County” which was originally published around 1900 hoping to find some information on who the previous owners were of this property and hopefully shed some light on this.
Sandra
Digby, NS
Thanks Sandra for sharing your story!
If you know of any Ghost stories from your area, or have a story of your own that you would like to share, we would love to hear from you!