Guys this was the presentation I did for my communication lab non-technical presentation. This comprises of three ghost stories based on unrequited love. I worked so hard on editing this. So I hope you'll like it. :)
The Footprints of Unrequited love
Introduction:
Unrequited love is a condition that afflicts most people, at least once in their lives. Unrequited love is a condition when you love someone but he or she does not love you back. How true! Love that is not unrequited tends to entrap us, to keep us in bondage. But unrequited love never ends simply because it never had a chance to start. Love was always a monopoly. You never know whether someone really loves you or not. All you know is you love them. That is what always makes unrequited love difficult. Unrequited love never goes unnoticed and leaves their footprints from where it started or ended and also leaves a sad trail for us to find.
A mighty pain to love it is,
And 'tis a pain that pain to miss;
But of all pains, the greatest pain
It is to love, but love in vain.
-Abraham Cowley
The Ghosts of Unrequited love:
Grace Brown:
Born on a farm on March 20, 1886, Grace "Billy" Brown would grow up with the basics in life yet was unable to continue her education past the age of sixteen since she had to pitch in on the brown family farm in South the young woman visited a relative in Cortland, she became enamored with a city that was small but still had hustle and bustle she never experienced on the farm. She quickly found employment at the Gillette Skirt Factory and was nicknamed "Billy" for her constant singing of her favorite song, "Won't you Come Home Billy Bailey,".Grace "Billy"Brown loved to dance and was very thoughtful and cheerful bouncing around Cortland in her slight framed build that topped out at five feet, two inches and one hundred pounds.
The Crime:
Grace "Billy" Brown was in love with Chester Gillette the nephew of the factory owner. They grew intimate, and she became pregnant. It was unknown that if Chester asked her to marry him, but it was known that they took a trip together to the Adriondack Mountains that had been suggested and planned by the young man. The couple took the train and made stops along the way, including at Utica. They took a train up to upper Lake and then transferred over to another locomotive that brought them south to Big Moose Lake, where they checked into the Glenmore Hotel.
Later on, the conductor thought it strange the man was carrying a suitcase while the pretty young woman had hardly any baggage. The conductor also found it odd that Gillette had a tennis racquet attached to the side of the luggage. Oddities were not missed by the eagle-eyed Adriondack folk, and Chester's mannerisms from the moment he arrived had been considered strange by the Big Moose lake Locals. Chester rented a seventeen-foot rowboat to take an excursion out to the secluded part of the lake.
Sometime around 6 p.m. Grace ended up at the bottom of the lake. She had told Gillette in one of her letters that she could not swim. Chester, taking his suitcase, camera and tripod, ran off into the woods and found a trail to the south. Later that night he arrived at the Arrowhead Hotel in Inlet and stayed there until his arrest three days later.
During his trial in November and December 1906, Gillette said Grace had jumped into the lake and committed suicide because of her plight. The district attorney said Chester hit Grace over the head with the tennis racket that had been attached to his suitcase. The jury found him guilty of first degree murder and sentenced him to die in the electric chair. He was executed on March 30, 1908.
The case has lived on in fiction and legend.
The century old love letter written by the 20 year old pregnant Grace Brown to her unfaithful lover:
I have been bidding goodbye to some places today. There are so many nooks, dear, and all of them so dear to me. I have lived here nearly all of my life. First I said goodbye to the spring house with its great masses of green moss, then the apple tree where we had our playhouse, then the "Beehive," a cute little house in the orchard, and of course all the neighbors that have mended my dresses from a little tot up to save me a thrashing I really deserved. Oh dear, you don't realize what all of this means to me. I know I shall never see any of them again."
The footprints of Grace Brown:
For generations, the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York have been a favorite vacation spot for the famous and the infamous. One summer night in 1988, several employees of the Covewood Lodge on Big Moose Lake, including Rhonda Bousselot, were approaching the staff lodge. Rhonda led the pack, unaware that someone, or something, might be waiting inside:
"I walked into the staff lodge, straight up the stairs with my hand out, reaching for the string, which is how to turn on the light. As I approached the top of the stairs and just before I was ready to turn on the light, a feeling came over me that somebody was right there. More or less, I stopped in my tracks and really just didn't move. I didn't have an overwhelming feeling of fright, but something definitely or someone was there, and it just kind of took my breath away."
But the real show was outside. According to Rhonda, her friends were witnessing a spine-tingling vision:
"All three of them had the same exact story. It lingered for just a few seconds, and then moved away. All three of them saw the ghost. I didn't see anything myself, but I felt that somebody was right there, and it was just a strange feeling."
Author Craig Brandon has written about the infamous Grace Brown murder: "Chester Gillette was considered quite a catch by the people in town because he was popular and he was athletic and he was handsome. I'm sure a lot of women in Cortland were interested in him."From the start, it was a scandalous romance. According to Craig Brandon, Chester convinced Grace to see him without a chaperone which, in those days, put her reputation at risk:
"I think she saw him as the ideal person, that he was everything that she wanted. She was in love probably for the first time in her life, and she wanted to see this through no matter what. For Chester, it was a secret affair. He never took Grace out in public. He never acknowledged their relationship.
According to Craig Brandon, Chester was frequently seen with other young women, especially those from the town's wealthier families:
"Her friends were warning her that he wasn't what he seemed to be, that he was something different, and I think that she had no experience with that type of person. And so she was seeing what she wanted to see rather than what her friends were telling her."
Grace Brown Big Moose Lake
Lynda Lee Macken had her own encounter with Grace Brown a few months after Rhonda Bousselot's:
"I was walking down toward the lake with my flashlight and the light was getting dimmer and dimmer. By the time I got to the edge of the lake and the rocks, my flashlight wasn't working. So I had to turn around and go back… I was awestruck, and not only was I certain that I was looking at a ghost, but I had a very strong feeling of sadness. She was very sad."
Was it the ghost of Grace Brown? Over the years, there have been continual sightings. And many wonder if her spirit has been trapped at Big Moose Lake since the day she was drowned by her faithless lover.
The Legend of Alice Flagg:
It is a common story, the tale of Alice Flagg, but as one hears more details of this sad narrative, it becomes dazzling. For Alice Flagg is the most popular ghost on South Carolina's famed Grand Strand. The Alice Flagg story began in 1849 when she lived with her brother, Dr. Allard Flagg, and their mother in Murrells Inlet. They lived at The Hermitage, which was the seashore home of the owners of Wachesaw Plantation during the colonial period. This is a case of the mother and brother becoming deeply involved in the life of a young girl when she fell in love with a man believed to be beneath her station in South Carolina aristocracy.
The Hermitage: The house in Murrells Inlet where Alice Flagg died.
"Every woman must leave her mark on the earth," Alice's mother whispered to her. "And how can you etch on this earth anything that's worthwhile if you attach yourself to this common lumberman?"
But Alice was obsessed with her young man and paid scarce attention to her mother and her brother. However, on day when the tall, clean-cut lumberman came to call and Alice was about to step into the carriage with him, her brother stormed out of The Hermitage, and yelled, "Wait!"
He refused to allow Alice to ride with her young man, and he forced the lumberman to ride a horse while he, Dr. Flagg, sat in the carriage beside Alice. Alice felt she was suffering under the tyranny of her family, and she hotly resented their unrestrained exercise of power. She was wretched, and for all she could tell, her mother and brother didn't care!
While her mother and brother had extolled the virtues of falling in love with someone who would be a glorious addition to the Flagg family, Alice could not relate to their arguments, spoken with great fervor. She accepted an engagement ring from her true love. Dr. Allard Flagg staunchly refused to allow Alice to wear the ring on her finger, so she attached it to a ribbon and concealed it around her neck. As the days passed, she believed she was successful in concealing the ring. But one day her mother discovered the ring on her chest and another fighting match flared. The mother shouted that the lumberman was deplorable and plebeian and unfashionable as well - worthy of no better wife than a common shop girl!
After suffering undue abuse, Alice was unable to persuade her mother and her brother to change their attitudes toward her betrothed, and under their bitter arguments she agreed to leave Murrells Inlet for Charleston where she would attend school.
But living in Charleston, with the change of terrain and the sensation of being alone in the pastel port city - plus what seemed to be a lifetime of grief over her lost love - took its toll on Alice. She became frail and listless and complained of some discomfort in the left side of her head. Lying on her bed, crying into her pillow, she carved in her mind a track of her life without the man she loved, and the track ended, always in a blur, an indistinct ending to her future. When she had first arrived in Charleston, she had been able to look with stark clarity on her predicament, but now it was blinding, a remarkable silence that she couldn't comprehend. Was she to survive this, she wondered?
Later, word went from the school that Alice had taken sick and should be sent to her home in Murrells Inlet.
When her brother received the word, he left at once in his carriage, but the way was long and arduous. Four days later he reached Charleston. He found Alice incredibly fatigued, with no strength to even nod to him. Her stamina had evaporated, and her nerves seemed in knots. He carried her to his carriage, and one of her friends packed her favorite dress for the journey. It was another four-day trip back home. The jostling and jolting as the carriage convulsed and bumped on the uneven roadway and across several rivers by ferry heightened Alice's nervousness. When she reached home, she was substantially weakened and soon lapsed into a coma and died.
Alice Flagg was dressed in her favorite dress for her funeral at All Saints Church, but her engagement ring had been taken away. Her corpse wasn't one of beauty. Her waxy face clearly showed the pain of losing her true love, and then, her life.
A plain marble slab, engraved ALICE, was placed over her burial mound.
Myriad friends and relatives say they have seen Alice's apparition at her home, The Hermitage at Murrells Inlet, and in the burial ground at All Saints Waccamaw Episcopal churchyard. It is believed that she comes back to search for her lost engagement ring. When a group of young people stood at the gravesite of Alice Flagg, a ring suddenly flew off the finger of one of the girls. It took the group much of the day to locate the ring, which was treasured. The girl had been unable to remove the ring from her finger for several years due to a weight gain.
Clarke A. Willcox, owner of The Hermitage in Murrells Inlet, opens his home each week for visitors to see the home of Alice Flagg.
Legend built around this incident has Alice's ghost still searching the coastal low country looking for her lost ring. Although more than 150 years have passed, the ghost of Alice Flagg is still occasionally seen in her lovely white dress coming in and out of the front door of The Hermitage and walking the cemetery at All Saints Cemetery. Whether she's seen at the house or the cemetery she's always clutching one hand to her chest, hoping her ring will be returned.
Alice's grave The House that she lived in "The Hermitage"
The report of the ghost of this young girl walking the salt marsh graveyard searching for her ring brings many romantics to this site. Visitors often bring flowers and small tokens of remembrance in hope of contacting Alice and calming her heart-sick soul. It is also said upon visiting the resting place of Alice. If you start and the right bottom of her gravestone and walk around it six times counterclockwise and then six times clockwise. Stopping at the letter "A" on her marker and placing a token of recognition upon the resting place. You make a wish and it will be granted. If this ritual is done at the stroke of midnight not only will your wish be granted but the ghost of Alice herself will appear before you.
The Don Cesar Resort:
The Don Cesar Resort is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but it was not always this charming edifice of luxury since the early 1940' resorts six majestic crowning towers and archways again reached for the skies with glory. The tall ceilings came alive once more to entertain the rich and famous, the jet set, and those on romantic interludes. Sadly Thomas Rowe, always in poor health with severe Asthma and a chronic heart condition, died in his cherished hotel, collapsing one morning on the lobby floor. He died of a heart attack a few minutes later in what is now room 101.
When Thomas Rowe was a young man, in the1890's he was studying in Europe. Rowe had a romance with a young lady named Lucinda. Lucinda's parents did not approve of Rowe and forbade Lucinda to see him. Rowe returned to America, forlorn. His letters to Lucinda were returned, unopened. When Rowe heard of Lucinda's death he received a note that she wrote on her deathbed: "Time is infinite. I wait for you by our fountain...to share our timeless love, our destiny is time.
When Rowe started construction of the Don CeSar in 1924, he included a fountain that was a replica of the courtyard and fountain where he and Lucinda used to meet. The fountain was destroyed when the Veteran's administration took the building over. The original fountain was replaced by a replica fountain that is now in the hotel lobby. Although he only had a short time to enjoy living in the tribute to his Lucinda, his spirit is believed to continue its should not be too much of a surprise to find out that the Don CeSar is haunted. After all, this hotel was built out of a dream, made with the passion of love, how could it not attract ghosts? In early 1970's, after a long hiatus when the resort was being renovated, the first rumors of ghosts were heard.
The construction workers would often tell their superiors that an older man dressed in a cream-colored suit and sporting a white Panama hat would often stop by to check up on them. This nicely dressed gentleman could be seen standing in the shadows of the hotel, eerily smiling to the workers, only to fade back into those shadows when approached.
Thomas Rowe The Don CeSar
Today, many people report smelling mint or menthol cigarettes wafting through the hallways, which is quite strange since smoking is not allowed inside the hotel to begin with. This would be a total mystery indeed, but several of the long-time residents of , and Don CeSar historians in particular, will tell you that Thomas Rowe was to prescribed menthol cigarettes as a medication when he was alive, a common treatment for asthma in the phantom smoke may be detected at almost any time within and around the grounds of the hotel, and although no one can certain, many feel that it's Thomas himself checking up on staff and guests at his cherished Don CeSar.
Many people over the years claim to have been approached by a nice-looking gentleman who asked, "Is everything to your liking?" or simply greeted the guests with a smile and a polite nod. When these witnesses would ask the bellhop or bartender who the gentleman was, they might receive a prolonged stare, or perhaps a smile and a response like, "That was Thomas Rowe just making sure you're having a good time."
Another commonplace paranormal event is the unassisted movement of chandeliers. Many people say they can see the crystals move for no apparent reason,even when all the French doors are closed and there are no air vents near the chandelier. The individual crystal shards are said to move either erratically,swaying from side to side,almost violently,or just slightly,almost imperceptibly.
Thomas Rowe is often seen waling around dressed in only the finest clothing,and always with a cheerful demeanor,from the hotel's lobby,to the conference rooms, and on most upper the hotel's hobby for instance,there stands a beauiful and accurate replica of the wishing fountain where Thomas Rowe and Lucinda would meet for their romance interludes while in of the employees claim to see the two lovers walking together and holding hands from time to time,then simply fading into a mist,then to other occasions,an image of a man resembling Thomas Rowe is seen sitting in a chair out on the beachside courtyard,staring pensively out to ,in life,Thomas would often sit in the courtyard contemplating the love he could never have.
Lucinda died at the turn of the century,leaving Thomas always to regret not having her as his wife,and he never let her spirit out of his they never married in life,many believe they are married in the afterlife,as many have witnessed the two together today.
Conclusion:
1 Corinthians 13:4-8
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.Love never fails.
So there is only one thing for the lover to do. He must house his love within himself as best he can; he must create for himself a whole new inward world a world intense and strange, complete in himself. Let it be added here that this lover about whom we speak need not necessarily be a young man saving for a wedding ring this lover can be man, woman, child, or indeed any human creature on this is Happiness for those who accept their fate,there is Glory for those who resist their fate.