Have I lost my mind since the weather has been bad?
We had some really pretty weather and now it is cool and rainy for the last few days. I haven't been out much but I still had this urge to find something. My house was built in 1940 and in the upstairs closet there is a little door with an area that goes back under the eaves of the house. A couple of days ago I got the flashlight and went back in there to look around. There were some boards that had been put down by some previous owner and I found the one shown in the attached picture. Then I guess my imagination got the best of me, but first I will tell you a few things about my house. When we first looked at it I noticed that the lady who lived there had a lot of smoke detectors. There were two propped up on the range hood. I didn’t really think a lot about it at the time. She lived alone and one can’t be too cautious I guess. After we moved in we discovered that under the carpet that needed to be replaced were hardwood floors. We had to get the office ready first so that we could get back to work and we pulled the carpet up there first. It all looked really good until we got to the last section and there were these cigarette burns as if someone had just lain in bed and dropped cigarettes on the floor. There were probably 25 burn marks, some as long as a full cigarette. We found a few in the living room too when we pulled the carpet up in there. I am really surprised the house didn’t go up in flames at one time or another. Now and then we will get this strong smell of cigarette smoke, as if someone has just blown smoke in our faces. One day we were taking up a little gravel path that went to the back gait and we smelled the smoke very strongly, outside no less. I decided that the lady who had lived in the house prior to the one we bought it from (she may have even died in the house) she was our smoking lady and she wasn’t happy about us taking up her path. One day I walked into the kitchen and noticed that one of the burner knobs on the stove was gone. I asked my husband if he knew where the knob was and of course he had no idea what I was talking about. I really had no idea where to start looking. After a couple of days I had decided that I would probably have to go to an appliance store and see if they could sell me a similar knob. On the weekend my husband and I went to see a movie and while I was sitting in the theater I felt something in my jacket pocket. There it was, the knob to the stove. How did it get there? Now this brings me back to the plank I found in the attic. I found this information about the Central Scientific Co.
The company was incorporated in 1900 as Central Scientific Company, located at 315 Wabash Avenue in downtown Chicago. It was formed out of what was left of the Olmstad Scientific Company after a disastrous fire in 1898, which killed the founder and owner, W.A. Olmstad, and ten of his staff. Olmstad had been in the science equipment business since at least 1889. From the beginning, Central Scientific manufactured and distributed science teaching equipment for schools, colleges, and universities by catalog mail order. The company put out its first complete catalog dated 1903 (but issued in 1904), a larger one in 1909, and a much bigger one in 1915. The trademark "CENCO" was used from 1909 onwards, and is still in use today.
So, does the smoking lady haunt my house or was there a curse passed on to the Central Scientific Co. from the Olmstad situation. Anyway, I think it makes for a good story and at least my imagination gets a little workout while I am waiting for better weather.
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04-29-2005, 05:23 PM
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