THE HAUNTED ROCKING CHAIR...(Part One)

"Hello, my name is Deborah Soileau and I live in South Louisiana. I am currently 55 years old and my story started 35 years ago...

 My husband was going to pre med school in Baton Rouge, La and I was the only one working. We lived in a small apartment and the only furniture we had was donated by our family.

My mother-in-law gave us an old rocker, which needed covering and the wood needed sanding and re-staining. My husband and I recovered the rocker in a black material and re-sanded the arms and legs. The rocker was very old and very heavy.

My husband then transferred to Monroe, La to attend Pharmacy School. There I got a job at a local bank. During the last year of his schooling I became pregnant with our first child and after 7 months of pregnancy my doctor took me off work and partial bed rest.

 My husband then had to get a part time job and he would attend school all day and work from 3:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m or later at the school cafeteria, which left me home by myself every night except for weekends.

Around my 8 month of pregnancy I was laying on the sleeper couch in the living room watching television. We had purchased a very small mobile home when we moved to Monroe. I had the living room/kitchen light on. All of a sudden the rocker starting rocking, at first a very slow rock, then a litter bit slower, then a little bit faster...

I sat up unable to move, just staring and saying; "Oh my God! Oh my God!"

I stood up and slowly backed out of the mobile home and went to my neighbor's trailer. (We lived in a large trailer park and we were friends with a lot of people who lived there.)

My next door neighbor's lights were on and her husband worked nights. I told her I could not sleep and I was not feeling well, and wanted to stay at her place until my husband got home. I was too embarassed to tell her what I had just witnessed.

When my husband came home, I told him I was too scared to go back in the house. He just laughed at me and said I was just seeing things and that I had probably fallen asleep.

I assured him this was not the case and he said it was probably the air conditioning vent on the floor making the chair rock. I said, "Well if that's the case, how come I just now noticed it, when I am always home?" He then moved the rocker totally away from the vent.

Days and nights passed, and many nights, the same thing would happen. It only occurred at night between 8:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. and only when I was alone. I started making every excuse I could to visit neighbors. My husband was really starting to get worried about me and said it had to do with my pregnancy and being put on bed rest. He did not want me to tell anyone about what I was seeing.

The time finally came and I had my child, a little girl in December of 1974. My mother came to stay with me for the first month and the rocker completely stopped rocking.

My husband graduated within this time frame and I went back home with my mother, while he packed up the trailer and found a mover to move the trailer to New Iberia, La. where he had found a pharmacy job.

We moved into another trailer park and I returned home after about 1 week. He was working days and would get off at 6:00 p.m. I did not see the rocker rock for a long time.

Time passed and when my daughter was two, I was pregnant again, with my second child. I was probably close to 8 months at the time, and had put the rocking chair incident out of my mind.

Until one night, when it started all over again"....

(Continued in Part Two)