CAITIE'S FRIEND

     I always found it remarkable that children seem to be much more likely to see apparitions.  Some say it's because they don't manufacture any sort of logic to explain away what they see and experience.  What they see, is what they see.  Perhaps if we all thought this way, we'd all see ghosts at one time or another.  Another thing I find odd is the fact that many kids take on imaginary friends to keep them company.  Well, what if those imaginary friends aren't imaginary at all.  What if they are in fact, ghosts? 

     This next story is taken from the works of Jo-Anne Christensen, Ghost Stories of British Columbia.


     Caitie's Friend


     It was 1990 when Janice and Ed Clapp decided to leave their home in Ottawa in pursuit of a calmer existence on Vancouver Island.  With their two year old daughter Caitie in tow, they travelled across the country in a van searching for the perfect charming house to turn into a bed and breakfast venture.  They found that house on Windemere Avenue in Cumberland.  Whether they found the calmer existence is up for debate.

     "The house was eighty-five years old and in dire need of repair," Janice recalled.  Still, the Clapps were excited by the home's potential.  It boasted 3500 square feet, five bedrooms, and a distinctive history, having been originally owned by one of the founding members of Cumberland Hospital, a doctor by the name of McNaughton.  The home had charm, albeit hidden by years of neglect, and in August of 1990, Janice and Ed began working to bring it out.

     Part of the extensive renovation process was research.  As the Clapps wished not to alter, but enhance, the Windemere Avenue house, they asked dozens of questions about its original state.  By December 16, when they invited the public to an opening celebration, the home looked as grand as the day Dr. McNaughton moved into it with his family.  To those who attended the open house, it would seem the past had come alive.  Years later, Janice would wonder if, in fact, it hadn't.

     Little Caitie Clapp was two and a half when  the family moved into the restored home.  It is an age when children are typically imaginative, so her parents were not surprised when she began talking about the 'ghost' of a little girl in the corner of her bedroom.  They dismissed it as a phase Caitie was going through, yet with each passing night, she offered more details about the spectre.

     "Go away ghosts and goblins, witches, get out," became a bedtime ritual with Caitie, as her parents made a great business shooing unwanted paranormal types out of her room.

     "This took place every night for about three months," wrote Janice, "when we finally said she had to start the shooing on her own - and she did."  This passing of responsibility did nothing to discourage Caitie's fantasy, however.  The ghost, she claimed, was still there.

     It was around this time that the Clapps received a telephone call informing them that one of Dr. McNaughton's daughters was coming to Cumberland and would love to see her old home restored.  Anxious to see the woman's reaction to their work, Janice and Ed invited her for a tour.  It would prove interesting for everyone involved.

     Janice and Ed engaged Dr. McNaughton's daughter with the details of their extensive renovation.  She entertained them with stories of their home's past.  But it was one casual remark made after touring the bedrooms that captured Janice's attention.

     "She commented on how her sister had, in fact, died of influenza...and that although her dad was a doctor, there was nothing he could do."
  
     Janice was intrigued.  Could Caitie's ghost be the little McNaughton girl who was lost to the Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918?  Suddenly, other odd occurrences seemed to bear greater consideration.  "I had often heard noises, like footsteps from the top floor when we were downstairs," Janice remembered, "but passed them off as my imagination."

     It is natural to wonder why, after more than sixty years, the spirit of the young girl chose to materialize for the Clapps - but there are theories that make sense of the situation.

     Renovations have often been reported to stir up paranormal activity; sometimes because the ghost takes offense at extensive changes, but more likely, in this case, because its former environment has been lovingly recreated.  The other probable explanation is that Caitie, at her sensitive young age, acted as a sort of catalyst, encouraging the phenomena.  This supports Janice Clapp's own conclusions.

     "To this day I often wonder if the ghost of the little girl was indeed some lost soul who left Windemere Avenue back during the influenza epidemic and came back to find a friend in Caitie," she wrote, also wondering if, had they stayed in the house, the ghost "would have made her presence more evident."

     There is no way of knowing.  Ed and Janice Clapp sold their beloved bed and breakfast in 1991, and the house has again undergone major changes.

     Does the little McNaughton girl approve?  Does she visit?  Only the current tenants know for sure.