The
Gentle Spirit of Mattye Chandler
A Ghost Story Of Old Bowling Green
By Susan Sili
There once was a time when Bowling
Green was still very young. This was a time when the famous old trees still
grew wild on the Courthouse Lawn and the streets, yet unpaved,
rambled here and there while gaslights lit the village of Bowling
Green. In those days too, the old tavern still stood, a witness to
the Revolution and host to the founding fathers of a new "Commonwealth" called
Virginia. It was this tavern, known as New Hope, the townspeople
saved during the fire of 1900 by running with wet blankets and sheets
to drape the old clapboard sides. Here too, on the rambling streets
were beautiful homes embraced by more huge old trees stretching out
like arms in all directions, lending the town the dream-like quality
known in old photographs today. These were the days of Mattye
Chandler and the Bowling Green she knew.
A portrait of young Mattye before her
marriage shows her extraordinary serene beauty and near perfect
features. One is drawn to her lovely face and soft dark hair but it
is the eyes which hold you fast and keep you, vividly dark, full of
character, strength and personality. She would need that strength
for the life Mattye surely envisioned on the night of May 14th
1902 when she married Ferdinand Chandler in the Christian Church in
Bowling Green, sadly was not to be hers.
Just a few years after the turn of
century, it was still not appropriate for a young widow to live alone
and Mattye and John, age 4 and Elizabeth, age 3 left the house on
Milford Street to live with her father. In 1912, three weeks short
of her 8th birthday, her little girl Elizabeth died,
succumbing to heart failure. Mattye remarried Bertram Woofolk in 1914
and spent the remainder of her life in Alexandria. Tragedy followed
her there when her son John, 21 was killed in an automobile accident.
Although there were no more children, Mattye and Bertram were
married for fifty years until his death in 1965. Mattye died in at
the ripe old age of 94. She is buried in Lakewood commentary. End
of story? Not quite.
Mary and Ken
Many people say they know immediately a
house is “theirs,” but for newlyweds Mary and Ken Barnett living
out their own real life love story, finding the Victorian house on the
corner of Milford and Martin Street in Bowling Green was much more
than that. The feeling of coming home was so strong, Ken tried to buy
the house on the street before they had ever been inside. “We just
knew,” they said, “although we had looked at probably 50
properties.” They made an offer to longtime owners, Mayor Frank
Benser and his wife Sharon and the Barnetts moved in on May 31, 2002.
There was something else Mary felt right from the start. She was by
no means alone. The feeling was not in any way frightening or
negative but she knew there was a presence, a
feminine presence.
Many little things began to happen
right from the start such as the movement of small objects, the
distinct sound of soft steps on the stair and the deliberate opening
and closing of a door. Mary found herself on more than one occasion
locked out of the back door while Ken had no trouble at all. More
acutely attuned to the presence than perhaps Mary herself were the
cats, Beggar and Bozo. Beggar sitting on the stair would draw
himself up and move over and sometimes roll over on his back for the
unseen presence to rub his tummy. Even more intriguing were voices or
murmurings that sounded far away yet close at the same time as if the
upstairs were full of people conversing. Mary and Ken set out to
discover the stories of the previous owners of the home in hopes of
finding who she might be.
The Journey
The quest for insight into the families
who lived in the home since the first mention of the house in the tax
records of 1902 was an all encompassing one. They contacted local
historians who lead them to surviving family members still living in
town. The search for the earliest family associated with the house
produced very little but the name of the couple, Ferdinand and Mattye
and some information about their relatives, the Collins and the
Chandlers. The search for more recent information was fairly
successful. Audrey Torrence, whose maiden name was Borkey was
instrumental in providing information to the Barnett’s as the
Borkey family had made the residence home from 1912 to the 1930s.
They were the first real family to occupy the house since the
Chandler’s left in 1907.
In the 1930’s the house was sold to
the Martin family, then the Durrettes, the Bensers and finally to Ken
and Mary. Although there was a great deal of information starting
with the Borkey family on, there was almost nothing on the young
family who had so briefly occupied it at the turn of the century. In
the meantime, Ken and Mary had been living in the house for almost
two years when their unseen resident decided to take matters into her
own hands. The Barnett’s use what would have been a sitting room
as their bedroom today. It was a weekend night and about two o’clock
in the morning when Bozo the cat awakened Mary by suddenly sitting
up. Light from the streetlamp streamed in the window and on the
other side of the bed just beyond her sleeping husband, Mary could
see the figure of a woman from the side, dressed in a high collar
black dress. The detail was so solid and so exact Mary could see the
texture of the dress and even movement as she saw the figure was in
the process of putting on a short black cape. The woman was in motion
walking toward the bathroom door at the back of the house. Far from
being afraid, the experience only heightened the desire for the
Barnett’s to know the story of the lady who lived in the house.
Mary was convinced the lady was Mattye and longed for even one
picture and said to Ken about the bedroom where the lady had
appeared, “When we find Mattye we will put her in there.”
Mattye Comes Home
From the author
Over the past several years I have had
some brief conversations with the Barnett’s about the presence of
the woman in their house and their diligent search for information on
previous owners. However I was totally unprepared for what happened
to me when I visited there to do this story. I certainly went with
an open mind, having had things happen to me in my own life which
cannot be easily explained and having experienced tremendous loss,
the death of one close family member after another in the past ten
years. I do believe there is much we do not understand about death,
dying and the other side.
However a spirit in ones house,
especially a house which is so loved by its living inhabitants is
such a personal thing. I did not expect anything really but to
simply record what was being told to me. In my mind, if Mattye was
there she belonged to Mary, an intimate relationship, I did not
expect to be included in. The house is truly so lovely, its hard to
take everything in at once and is indeed like stepping through time.
But not at all like a museum. Here, every corner, nook and cranny of
the home spells rich color, warmth and love. We started our visit in
the large entrance hall and moved into the bedroom where the mourning
portrait of Mattye and her children stands in a corner on an easel.
I knew a few things already, that her husband had died very suddenly,
very young and they had only been married a few years. I knew this
was the room Mattye had been seen in, putting on her cape and walking
toward what would have been the back door of the home in her time.
As we talked, Mary and Ken stood on
either side of me and in the middle of my field of vision, just a few
feet away was the portrait of Mattye. Suddenly, although I was
trying to concentrate on our conversation, I was completely riveted
to the figure of Mattye standing in between her two children in the
picture. As hard as I tried, I could not take my eyes from the face
and eyes of the woman in the portrait and just as suddenly I knew
that Mattye was there and why she was there. I tried to concentrate
on the conversation at hand and focus on what we were talking about,
but to no avail. The force of the personality captured me and held
me fast, not in the least frightening or negative but like a weight
that wouldn’t’ let go and I found myself saying out loud to Mary
and Ken things I certainly had no way of knowing. On the very day
the picture was made in 1907, Mattye, as young as she was decided
beyond any doubt that her happiest days lay behind her and her heart
would always be in this house. She left the house after the death of
her first husband but always intended to return one way or another.
In just a few years she would lose a child living in her father’s
house and later a child in the house she shared with her second
husband, but this house was the house of her perfect happiness and
here is where she would always be. She lived on to be a very old
woman but the house lived on too, in a sweet, private place in her
heart.
Some people would say I experienced a
haunting, but it was not a haunting so much as a comforting message
and one I am privileged to say has been sent to me before. The
message is this. Real love is indestructible accepts no boundaries
and transcends even death. I think in today’s world, we identify
this as just words, words we hear on television and at funerals. We
hear this so often, we become deaf and blind to the fact that our
love for one another really is this strong and powerful. I think we
forget to use it as we should when we are alive. I know that despite
incredible odds and circumstances both my grandmother and mother
reached out across whatever it is that separates us from this world
and the next to let me know we are still connected by love as surely
as the sun rises in the sky every morning. So I was certainly a
believer of sorts when I visited the Barnetts and now have no doubt
that there are indeed two sweet and gentle sprits living here as
“ladies of the house.” I also agree with Mary that Mattye’s
story is not over, that there is more to discover and so I too await
the next chapter.
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