Also, shortly after we bought the place, a black lady name Ruby B. Critton stopped by for a visit. She said it was a beautiful house, but didn’t we know it was cursed? A black man was hanged on the back porch, and he died cursing the place.

Apparently Mrs. Stilley died around 1879, for her husband was selling the house from Weatherford. A family by the name of Burks bought it for $175! Then six months later, they wanted their money back! The house then went to bridge builder D.C. Rock, his wife, Amanda, and a live-in employee of the Rocks named O'Toole. (A psychic from Dallas once asked me who the young dark-haired and bearded young man in a waistcoat was. "He lived here but he did not own the house.")

Finally, in 1885 Mr. Charlie Young bought the place and raised two daughters and a son here.

Now, for my own personal experience with the "lady in white." Friday, July 26, 1991…it was 4:45 P.M. just fifteen minutes before we open. Just my sister and I were in the house, she to wait tables. She was wearing a white blouse and black slacks. As I passed through the hall I noticed the old trunk in the hallway needed dusting. It was Louise Young’s and has her name painted on the side. Her father gave it to her in 1906 when she went to college. I got the cloth and oil and got down on one knee to dust. I heard and felt footsteps coming from the kitchen and thought it was Mary. Then the footsteps stopped in the Blue Room and crossed the hall. I looked up and saw a woman in a long white dress with puffed sleeves, and when she neared me she pulled her skirts aside, exposing high buttoned shoes. She passed me and went into the ladies’ powder room, which had been an old bedroom. I was stunned and though, "That’s sure not Mary!" I got up and went into the powder room, and there was no one there! The young woman I saw was not foggy or misty and did not float. It was a very real solid person! My next reaction was to locate my sister, and the first words out of my mouth were, "Did you just walk past me?" knowing full well she didn’t. When she said, "No, why?" two customers were coming up the walk!

The second appearance was two years later, in May 1993. We were doing a dinner theatre production of Angel Street, a murder mystery done in period dress. During the dress rehearsal, the light technician, Jennifer, was on the front porch with some equipment looking through the window, watching the action, and doing some light cues. She felt someone staring at her and looked to her right. There, standing on the east side of the house by the porch was a lady in white! When Jennifer saw her, the lady started walking behind the east side of the house. Jennifer ran down the steps and turned the corner and the lady was gone. Jennifer said either she ran (the house is eighty feet long) or was there a door on the east side? In fact, there was a door there, which led into the Blue Room. Meanwhile inside the house rehearsals were still going on. Molly Gold, the actress portraying the heroine, was coming down the stairs, and when she reached the landing she looked into the ladies’ powder room, spoke to some cast members, then reached the bottom step and looked to her right and saw someone "in costume" standing in the corner. She thought it was a cast member, but when she spoke the "lady" disappeared!

Seven months later during the Candlelight Tour, a couple from the Dallas area took a picture of the Christmas lights on the neighbor’s house to the east of The Grove. The next Friday they called me to say, "We’re sending you a picture." Indeed, they got their photo of the Christmas lights, but in the foreground, surrounded by a "smoke ring" is a lady in a high-collared, puff sleeved white dress!

The most recent occurrence was when a neighbor lady living a block behind us said, "Let me tell you what my sister and I have seen recently. My sister was standing on our porch one night around 9 o’clock when she called me out to see a glowing white figure across the street. She looked like she was inspecting the renovation of an old building."

When I asked the woman what it was, she said she didn’t know. When I asked her where it came from, she said it came from the east side of The Grove! The lady said she and her sister had witnessed this several nights in a row, and in parting, she said, "You know, a lot of people think you’re pulling their leg about that house, but we grew up right here, right behind it, and we’ve always known about that house!"

I am certainly appreciative of Patrick’s taking the time to tell us all about this "lady in white" who has become quite a fixture at the beautiful restaurant known as The Grove. The description of the house on the menu, which he sent me, depicts it as of Greek Revival style with twin double parlors on either side divided by a central hall. In 1870 a dining room was added to connect with the formerly detached kitchen, which still fulfills its original purpose. During restoration, Civil War era newspapers as well as newsletters of the local Episcopal Church were discovered lining the walls. The house is built of oak and cypress wood. Several of the rooms still retain heart pine flooring and tongue and groove wooden ceilings and other interesting architectural curiosities.

The menu certainly lists a lot of wonderful delicacies, including a dessert called Jefferson’s original pecan praline cheesecake! If ghosts have taste buds, no wonder they hang around The Grove!