About "The Gregoryville Ghost":

Every once in a while, I need a good ghost story.

            The other day a friend of mine told me about his wife’s ancestors, a family that can trace their roots back more than two hundred years to Québec. After looking up the history online I was thrilled to read the ominous title Gregoryville the Ghost Town. I scrolled down the article only to find it had nothing to do with ghosts, though the Gregoire history is fascinating.  Joseph Gregoire migrated from Québec with his family to the area of Lake Superior in 1855. He built a sawmill, watched it burn down, built some shelters for the equipment and continued to respect his contracts.  Workers of another age, I guess.

            I asked my friend about the ghost town reference, but he said the article probably just referred to the defunct village of Gregoryville as a ghost town.  That was well in good, but since I was left with the spectral munchies, I combed the inFernet for clues as to the ghost of Gregoryville.  Long story short (story), there is no ghost.  Well, I had to do something about that.

My solution was to try my hand at writing my first ever ghost story.  I changed some of the names and the landscape around Lake Superior, but took the idea of the sawmill, church and towns to spin this yarn. At a certain point writing the story I felt trapped in gridlock.  For some reason I thought listening to St. Teresa by Joan Osborne would be the solution.  Two and a half listens later I was back to writing and completed the first draft of the short story in the wee hours.

I’m quite pleased with the result considering I wrote and edited the story between one night and then an early next morning.  Have a spooky read!