Can ghosts be helpful ????

[monte_9501]

Can a spirit be like casper the Ghost ?

Dixboro ghost part of local lore
Posted by Jordan Miller | The Ann Arbor News April 30, 2008 10:09AM

http://blog.mlive.com/annarbornews/2008/...al_lo.html

As the legend goes, Martha Mulholland died in 1845, supposedly poisoned by a greedy brother-in-law who wanted her land and money.

According to that same legend, it's Mulholland who, more than a century and a half later, is hanging around the Dixboro General Store, moving things around, labeling jars of jam and generally making her presence known.

Store owner Steve Dani says staff and customers alike have been encountering the ghost since the store opened 17 years ago.

"We've had customers come right up to us and say, 'Do you have a ghost here?'" Dani said. "And we go, 'Yeah,' and they say, 'Well, I just saw her.'

"I've never really felt any kind of presence or anything personally, but it's been noted. ... And little things happen to us that are unexplainable."

The ghost in the Dixboro General Store is just one of a number of specters described in "Ann Arbor Area Ghosts," a new book by Royal Oak author and self-described "sensitive" Mimi Uptergrove.

"I have the ability to pick up certain traits about people, dead and living," Uptergrove said. "I truly believe that spirits on the other side, in order to communicate with us, they have to find a link."

Uptergrove, who also works as an editor for an Ann Arbor consumer testing group, said she started out writing a book about ghosts across the state after she began keeping a journal about her experiences as an amateur paranormal investigator in 2004. The publisher she found for the book told her that she needed to narrow it down to a particular area, and suggested Ann Arbor.



The book includes stories of Uptergrove's investigations of hauntings throughout the area, including a violent haunting in Milan, an Ann Arbor man who can't seem to avoid witnessing the paranormal, and a former Ypsilanti resident who made an independent film about the haunted house he lived in there.

In the case of the Dixboro General Store, Martha Mulholland was living in a house on the same property where the store sits now, according to Uptergrove. The story goes that Mulholland and her sister were married to two brothers, and both women died of the same mysterious illness within a period of several years.

A family traveling toward Ann Arbor broke down in their wagon near the house, and Mulholland's 15-year-old son took them in as boarders. Shortly thereafter, the ghost of a woman began appearing to the father of the family, telling him details of her death and saying that she had been poisoned by her brother-in-law, James Mulholland.
Reporter Jordan Miller can be reached at 734-994-6679 or jmiller@annarbornews.com.


When the man reported these sightings, angry residents demanded that Martha Mulholland's body be exhumed and an autopsy conducted. When the investigation uncovered that the woman had, in fact, been poisoned, community members shunned James Mulholland, who quickly left town.

Whether or not it is Martha Mulholland who haunts the Dixboro General Store, Dani said he doesn't mind having her around.

"Nothing bad has ever happened," he said. "It's never been like anything creepy or weird. Supposedly she's a friendly ghost. She's our own little Casper."

[jgreenland0153]

Interesting article. If a person felt particularly comfortable in one place or another, why wouldn't they be drawn to that location after death? If they choose to interact with the living I guess is up to them. It doesn't sound unbelievable to me. If someone murdered me I'm sure I would try whatever I was capable of doing to get the person caught and brought to justice.

[Smokey]

Dear Spirits, I would like you to help me win the Powerball Jackpot! LOL

[jgreenland0153]

Wouldn't that be great LOL I wouldn't mind them helping me clean my house and plant my garden LOL.

[monte_9501]

I wouldnt mind help with the house work or lotto, but if they would help me by letting me take pictures of them that would be very cool

[jgreenland0153]

That would be awesome!!

[deadmansghost]

hi guys

[harveybogart]

Hi monte_9501,

Well,Given that Casper is depicted as a ghostly slightly obese little boy, there is a controversy among fans of the series about whether or not he is a dead child. Early Casper cartoons seemed to suggest this, as they portrayed him "living" beside a gravestone. Specifically, the short There's Good Boos To-Night featured Ferdie, a fox befriended by Casper, coming back from the dead as a ghost. Casper's death (as well as the reason why he became friendly) has become disputed since then.I agree that ghosts like Casper is friendly and help other friends.

Thanks