In recent weeks it has come to my attention that certain parties are using my ghost stories and those of my contributors as references for their own commercial enterprises.  If you or someone you know is writing a book on ghosts in the Pacific Northwest, PLEASE DO NOT!!! copy or use the following stories or any other materials within this website as references.  

Jefferson Davis (25 April 2003)

What Was New in 2020

My Events for 2020:

For the last four years, I have been giving ghost walks of the Vancouver Barracks, concentrating on Officers Row and the western Barracks.  Last year, I worked with the Clark County History Museum as a volunteer, giving ghost walks of Downtown Vancouver.  Because of the restrictions imposed in response to Covid, it was not practical for me or the History Museum to give our tours this year.  Instead, we are giving virtual tours.

The tours start on the 9^th of October and run every Friday and Saturday at 7 PM, through Halloween.  Rather than making this an imitation of the original walking tours, we are trying out new things that we could not do on a live tour, especially after dark.  We will have video footage, not just of the outside of buildings, but in some cases, we have gone inside as well.  In some of the tours, we have invited guests, who will talk about their experiences.  We will also have historic pictures to share.  In at least one location, the Vancouver Barracks Post hospital, we will have video and audio footage of past paranormal investigations.

One advantage of these tours is that you won’t have to worry about the weather, and there should be a bathroom handy.  So please register to watch our virtual ghost walk, hopefully with the lights off and snacks and your favorite drink handy!    

Friday, 9 October: Pat Jolotta’s Top Four Vancouver Haunts.

Vancouver historian and author Pat Jollota will share stories about her favorite four haunts in Vancouver, Washington with Clark County History Museum Director Brad Richardson.  These haunts include the Interstate Bridge, the First National Bank… and you will have to find out the last two yourself.

Brad Richardson and Jeff Davis visit three of Vancouver’s oldest cemeteries and share stories about some of the people buried there.  This is not a ghost walk, more like letting the tombstones talk to you.  The cemeteries include the Vancouver Barracks Post Cemetery, the Old City Cemetery and the Fisher Cemetery.  People celebrated include duelists and musicians, heroes and misers, a murderer and three ladies who died too young.

Friday, 16 October:  The Haunted Streets of Vancouver, WA
Brad Richardson and Jeff Davis walk along Vancouver’s oldest streets, visiting such as the old Elk’s Lodge, the Hidden House, the Kiggins Theater and even the Clark County History Museum itself.  We will share video footage and stories from inside at least one of the buildings.

Saturday, 17 October: Esther Short Park and the Hidden House
Featured on the television show, The Dead Files, Esther Short Park may be the site of Vancouver’s first shootout.  Within Esther Short Park is the historic Slocum House, which has its own spirits.  We go inside with a paranormal investigator who shares some of his experiences.

Friday 23 October:  Haunted Camas
The haunts of Camas, Washington may date back to the period before European contact, involving Native Americans, water critters, and many spirits haunting downtown Camas itself.  In addition to haunted hotels, we have – a haunted parking lot!

  Saturday 24 October:  Haunted Battle Ground
Battle Ground Washington is unique among our haunted virtual tours, because of the spirits that seem to walk its streets and roads.  In addition to these spirits, there are haunted restaurants and even… a brick duplex of death!

  Friday 30 October:  The Vancouver Barracks Post Hospital
The Vancouver Barracks Post Hospital may be the most haunted location in the Portland/Vancouver area.  Built in 1904, it hosted veterans returning from World War I and people suffering the Spanish Flu.  Learn about its history and watch seldom seen footage of a paranormal investigation that took place there over 20 years ago.

Saturday 31 October:  The Ghosts of Officers Row
The former army residences at the Vancouver Barracks were built from 1849 to the early 1900s.  People and businesses still live and work there today but many people seem to share with past tenants who will not leave. With rare exceptions such as the Grant House, we cannot tell you which buildings are haunted, but we can share many stories, including a firsthand account.

Here is Where to Sign UP 

As a special Halloween night, after the virtual tour , there will be live broadcast of a paranormal investigation from a location somewhere in Clack County, called Those Who Would Not Leave.  this event will last approximately 2 hours.  Watch real investigators as they explore a haunted location and share their findings.  More details to come!

News, Articles, and Opinions

Doing Death Backward uploaded 7 October 2020

A Final Visit? Uploaded 7 October 2020

The year 2020 has been stressful for most people, mostly due to Covid and all its restrictions.  For me, the threat and thought of getting covid and dying (myself) was overshadowed by the long illness and death of my father in 2020.  As I waited for him to pass, I had a lot of time to think, especially at 2 AM.  I thought mostly about how our society now does death backward.

Until the 1990s, it was generally a surprise when someone died of illnesses.  By that, I mean although many people were diagnosed with terminal illnesses, or chronic health problems, medical science was not advanced enough to predict how long someone had to live and diagnosis happened close to the point of death.  In the last few decades, diagnostic medicine has become quite precise.  Medical tools and technology have also become efficient at staving off death from various causes.  However, early diagnosis and new, innovative procedures are usually not a cure.  Instead, they let us know quite early that someone is dying, and then prolong the illness, merely delaying death.

As in the case of my father, he had heart valve replacement in 2014, followed by a cancerous kidney removal, cataract surgery, pacemaker installation, increasing dementia, and so on.  Between dietary changes and nine different medications, he survived into 2020 until his heart finally failed and he died in his sleep.  It was a long time to watch him fade away.

In the past, someone with my father’s medical conditions would have probably been diagnosed with his health issues, and within a few months, he would have died.  That person’s family would have had some warning, but they would have been hopeful of recovery and probably been surprised when the person died, quite suddenly.  When that person died, then the family would have grieved, perhaps for months, even years.  That was the natural order of things.

Now, in many cases, we know years ahead when someone is going to die.  It is a terrible burden for the sick person.  It is just as severe for the family, in a different way.  For me, the grieving process began in 2014 and continued to the day my father died.  When he finally died, it was a relief to me on so many levels.  I hope people reading this article are not offended.  If you are, you have probably not lost someone to a prolonged illness.  After my father died, I spoke with some people, many of whom went through the same experience as myself, and they echo my sentiments.

In the future, we are all going to have to get used to the new order of death and grieving.  If you are on the outside, please do not judge any of the reactions of the surviving family too harshly.  If you are one of the family members who has passed through this ordeal, please do not judge yourself too harshly either.

For myself, when thinking about my future ending, I am not sure if I would want to know years in advance.  Maybe it would be better to simply keel over, a surprised look upon my face?  Or, I could simply not go at all…

Were I to write about my father’s death as a screenplay, it would be a combination of Monty Python and the Holy Grail and The Wizard of Oz.  Or maybe Joel Orton’s Loot.  Please believe me when I say that I am not intentionally singling out anyone in this comedy of errors.  I blame it on the Covid crisis and various government agencies trying to find new ways of doing things.

My father died in his sleep in the morning of 29 April.  However, I did not get his death certificate until 12 May. Dad was in an adult group home.  He went to bed for a nap at 11:30 am and when the care giver came in to wake him up for lunch at 1:30 PM, she found him dead.  Or rather, not breathing, with no heartbeat. It obviously happened some time earlier and there was no reviving him. She was not a doctor, and so could not pronounce him dead.  She immediately called me and I called 911, who sent the paramedics. I arrived and they agreed he was dead, but did not have the legal authority to pronounce him dead either. Neither did the police officer who arrived about 30 minutes later.  It reminded me of the Collector of the Dead from Monty Python and the Holy Grail crying, “Bring out your dead!”  And the one plague victim saying, “I’m not quite dead yet!”

The police officer called the coroner's office, who finally agreed (around 3:30 PM) that Dad was dead, but was could not come out to sign any paperwork.  You see, he may have been biologically dead, but legally he was not quite dead yet. The holdup was the death certificate. Because of Covid, there was no coroner on the scene. They did all their work from home.  This hiccup reminded me of the Wizard of Oz, when the munchkins are thanking Dorothy for killing the Wicked Witch.  Right after the song, “We represent the lollypop guild”, the coroner comes out waving a death certificate, and pronounces the witch, “not merely dead, but most sincerely dead.”  The magic was in the piece of paper.  Too bad it was not as quick for my father.

In the meantime, I contacted a funeral home and made arrangements for them to pick up my father at 4:30 PM.  The driver got lost or turned around and did not arrive until closer to 6:30 PM.  They held his body at the funeral home until nearly mid-May, waiting for the death certificate.

I arrived at my home around 7:30 PM.  I put a few of my father’s belongings in the back bedroom, fed my two cats and sat down on the couch in the living room.  I put my feet up and sat in silence.  About a half hour later, I noticed something very strange.  My two cats were sitting at the entryway between the living room and the family room.  They were sitting next to each other, looking intently into the family room, or down the hall, at the end of the house.

This surprised me for many reasons.  At that point, the two cats did not get along.  My senior cat, Lucifer was the alpha male of the house.  He was easy going, but did not have personal boundaries.  My second cat, Ping originally belonged to my father, I adopted her about three months earlier.  My father LOVED cats and Ping was his last surviving pet.  She was a typical ‘fraidy’ cat, and hissed at Lucifer whenever he got within three feet of her.  I was startled to see them both sitting, shoulder to shoulder, looking down to the far end of the house.  I watched them silently for several minutes.

Slowly, Ping got up and walked almost hesitantly into the family room.  She disappeared from my view, but I am guessing she went all the way to the end of the house, where the back bedrooms were located.  I am sure of this, because I heard her rapid footfalls, and saw her suddenly appear, galloping through the main portion of the house, where she nearly crashed into the refrigerator.  Then, she walked back to the family room entrance and sat down next to Lucifer. 

A few minutes later, he got up and walked into the family room, and suddenly reappeared, running just as Ping had done.  Then he returned and sat down next to her.  They both repeated this performance twice more, then walked away to other places in the house.  The next time they came near each other, Ping hissed at Lucifer again.

So, what does this all mean?  Could it have been my father, returning home to try to contact me?  At one point Dad lived in the house with me, and his bedroom was the same one at the back of the house, where I stored his clothing.  What would have happened if I had the energy to get up and go into his old bedroom again, following the cats?  Or was he saying goodbye to Ping?  Sometimes he preferred his cats to humans.  I do not know.

There are a couple more mundane explanations for what happened.  Cats have a very powerful sense of smell and when they want, empathy for their owners.  Did Ping smell my father’s clothing, including some pheromone that warned of his death?  I read about a nursing home, where the facility cat jumped on the beds of several patients, who died shortly after the feline visit.  On the other hand, could my cats smell pheromones from me, after going through the ordeal of having my father’s body taken care of, following it on the clothing I stored in the back bedroom? 

The incident was never repeated.  It was another four months before Ping would let Lucifer come within six inches of her.  Now they have a feline friendship and look out for each other, within limits.  It’s just the three of us right now.  Ghosts, or cats smelling death and despair, I am not sure which I would prefer.

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