❧ Hudson House

November 2023

Built around 1908, the Hudson House (better name pending), it was partitioned into apartments during WWII, with a door installed on the second floor with metal stairs down the side. is the site of several ghostly encounters.

Per Rhonda Sasse:

I think the first things that we noticed in the Altus house were the sounds of someone walking. At first, we thought it was just the house creaking, but when you were down in the half dug-out basement. The first time I heard it when I was doing laundry down there, I thought someone had gotten into the house. Mom was, I think, the first one to hear it. Apparently, Mom thought the same thing, or that it were us kids. It sounded just like when anyone walked above, but silent, no talking. The other odd thing was that it was heavy steps, like it was boots, but we all wore tennis shoes. And it was very deliberate, heel toe, heel toe, heel toe. And the floors creaked like under someone, not terribly heavy, but with some weight. And it wasn't ever fast, it was always a measured pace. Steps through the back door and into the kitchen and through the living room, like it was going to the front door. She'd even hear the back door open and shut before the steps began. No one ever heard the front door open, though. It was only the back door.

When she'd call up 'who is that? Who's up there?' the steps would stop. But after a while, they'd resume, from the same place, and keep walking. So she'd go up from the basement and there'd be no one up there. After we proved it wasn't us playing pranks, she started locking the doors when she went out and into the basement to do laundry. It never ocurred to her that it wasn't a real person making the step noises.

When I started hearing it, I could tell it wasn't a woman. It sounded like a man, like it had the weight of a man. I thought it was Dad, but he never wore his boots inside. None of us wore workboots inside, because of the goatburrs.

So it became really obvious after a while. Gina said she heard it, and so did Allen. Dad didn't, because he didn't do laundry. Mom would ask him to go down, but he'd just say he didn't heard anything. When she said you had to be alone in the house to hear it, he asked her just why would he go downstairs alone with no one else in the house?

Later on, when we worked to clear out the half-dugout basement, Dad built a retaining wall to keep it from filling in. Allen and I helped him do that, and every once in a while, you'd hear something, like someone was upstairs, even when we knew Gina and Mom weren't home. When we'd try to mention it, Dad would just go "Nah! I didn't hear anything, no one's home besides us!" So that was his response to all that. 'Nah!' So for the longest time, Dad would not believe us. 'Nah! Your Mom has you believing.'

And then we noticed footsteps coming up and down the stairs. Up the stairs, a pause at the top, then back down again. And it was so distinct. I don't know if it was boots or just a heavy shoe, but you could hear the toe hit the stair before the stair would creak. I, personally, stood in the front entry way and I was watching and there was no one on the stairs, but if I closed my eyes, I could hear someone coming down the stairs. And when I opened my eyes again, I'd still hear them, but there was no one there. And they'd go past me, into the living room, into the kitchen, and out the back door. I saw the back door open and close. You could see the door open and close, but not like it was the wind. It was a measured, deliberate open and close, no slamming. So that was the full path it took, in and out.

None of us wrote things down when they happened, so I don't know if this was a repetitive action that only happened at certain times. I don't remember it ever happening in the morning, usually it was in the afternoon and early evening. Could it have been a repetitive thing? Maybe.

Gina said she saw the doorknob turn when it opened and shut, but I don't think any of us saw that.

So I think it was Gina and Allen who started talking about it at school. I never did, because I didn't want my friends to call me crazy! But rumors got started.

One time, I was waiting for a friend of mine to pick me up, and when she walked to where I was waiting, she asked why I didn't wave back. She said, 'I waved up to you! I saw you on the veranda upstairs, rocking in a rocking chair, but you didn't answer me! You totally ignored me and just got up and went inside!' I told her that I wasn't upstairs, I'd been waiting down here in the front. She said, 'No, I saw you! I know it was you because of the long blonde hair!' But it really wasn't me. I hadn't been upstairs most of the day... And we didn't own a rocking chair, and even if we did, the veranda windows were 5 feet off the ground. You wouldn't be able to make out a rocking chair, it'd be hidden from sight! No one could have even seen me if I was sitting.

And she never came over to our house again. We'd only meet out elsewhere.

I think then was when the stories started getting around school. I never said anything and no one else asked me personally about it, but other people would hear it too. Mom's piano students would hear the steps on the stairs when they were waiting for piano practice. They'd ask Dad about it, and he'd just say no one else was home and he didn't hear anything. Now, Dad had been around airplanes and heavy machinery, so his hearing wasn't as acute as ours.

One of the piano students' mothers said that she saw light coming through the archway, that she saw a dark figure. Now, I don't believe she saw anything. I think she was just making things up in her head. I don't believe her, but she said it.

Around then, we started talking about naming it or if we could find out who it was. At the time, the downstairs bathroom was this gross 1950's bathtub and shower that trickled water, and in it was the Door to Nowhere. It was an old, old, old door, starting at waist height, that opened up to a small landing with shelves that you could climb up into and then up into the attic by a little pull-down ladder. It had the original glass knob and big old keyhole for a skeleton key.

I thought it was creepy and I didn't go up there, but Allen thought it was great. That's where he found the WWII German helmet and the newspapers from the 1910s and 1920s and 1930s. We found some cool stuff. I hated that door. I'd wire it shut when I had to take a shower 'cause I had it open on me a couple of times, which freaked me out.