Haunted Antique Porcelain Dolls

By: David Slone

During my lifetime I have had several personal encounters with the paranormal, or supernatural as some people prefer to say. I shared this experience with several members of my family when I was about 12 revolved around a set of antique dolls. Although I was not the one who actually encountered the ghost I was there while it was going on.

My grandmother found a set of antique dolls somewhere and she bought them and brought them to her house. The bodies of the dolls were made of porcelain and their dresses and hats were a combination of silk and feathers.

She put the dolls into a large walk-in closet at the top of the stairs. My older sister lived with our grandparents, her bedroom was just next to the walk-in closet. Right away she started having nightmares. She also told us that she heard an old woman humming and a creaking noise like a rocking chair while she was trying to go to sleep. She prayed and tried to ignore it until she finally fell asleep, but when she did she had nightmares.

Naturally, the adults did not believe her. They said that she had only imagined it and it was natural for a child to have nightmares sometimes. She continued to hear the old woman and to have nightmares. We were all starting to get worried about her and, of course, my other sisters and I believed her. It seems that adults are often closed minded to the possibility of such things.

I should say that none of us made any kind of connection between the dolls and what my sister was experiencing. I remember seeing my grandmother bring the dolls in, but I never paid much attention or thought much about them. It was only later that a connection was discovered.

My grandmother attended a Pentecostal church. She had some people from the church get together during a service to pray for my older sister to try to stop her nightmares.

After the prayer one of the ministers came up to my grandmother and asked her if she had brought anything different into the house. He said that he felt like there was a spirit that was causing the problems. Naturally, she thought of the antique dolls and decided to remove them from her house.

To this day I do not know what she did with the dolls, but I do know that as soon as they were gone my sister stopped hearing the old woman and having the bad dreams.