Thursday, April 12, 2018

The Shrouded Lady of Rippon, West Virginia



It's time for another Throwback Thursday vintage newspaper article!  The clipping above comes from the 8 August 1912 edition of the Shepherdstown Register. Rippon is a small community located in West Virginia's Eastern Panhandle county of Jefferson.

I was drawn to this short little blurb of a story, not only because its a West Virginia ghost story being reported and documented in a local paper...but also because of how the family chose to rid the home of this ghostly shrouded woman. It is stated that the head of the household flipped all the doors in the home upside down!

Throughout my years of study into folklore and ghost lore, I've come across a ton of strange ways to prevent ghosts or keep them away, and there does seem to be an underlying theme to most of the strategies:  keep the ghost confused.  While I've never come across the idea of flipping the doors to a home upside down, I'm going to guess that such an act is based on the theory that a confused ghost is a ghost that won't bother you. I mean, renovating a building is a great way to stir up latent energies and kickstart a haunting....I guess if you already HAVE the haunting, structural changes such as flipping doors could have the opposite effect?

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