Bringing Back Sligo

Breathing new life into an Italianate home in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
Bringing Back Sligo
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  • Monthly Archives: August 2019

    • Mrs. Scott-Johnson

      Posted at 8:24 pm by Lauren Tepaske, on August 29, 2019

      A few weeks after connecting with the various grandchildren of Mr. and Mrs. Scott I had the pleasure of actually meeting Mrs. Annette Scott-Johnson who had fond memories of Sligo as a little girl. She, her husband, and their daughter came to Sligo, curious to see it all of these many years later. I was met with such warmth I immediately felt at ease, as if meeting up with my own family and I was absolutely thrilled to take them through the house.

      As we toured Sligo Mrs. Scott-Johnson would describe what she remembered about various parts of the house and the Shannon family who employed her family for many, many years.  Below is a transcript of my telephone conversation with Mrs. Scott-Johnson on July 26th and posted with her permission. The sentences in parenthesis are my own interjections and explanations.

      “Grandfather worked for the Shannon’s as a handyman for 52 years. (I was later told that their grandfather would receive a new truck from the Shannon’s every year because he was constantly driving to their many farms which were located at Sligo, where Central Park is today, and on Landsdowne Road.) At that time I was around five or six years old when I can remember and I, used to being the oldest grandchild, I lived next door to him so I was at that farmhouse at least four days a week. My grandmother worked there as a cook. So he would go in the mornings and there were a couple of cows he would milk and he would come home and have breakfast and pick-up my grandmother and take her over.

      The side porch where you come into the farm we always came in on the side porch and that’s where Mr. Shannon always sat and I would sit out there and talk with him waiting for my grandmother to finish work. (Mrs. Scott-Johnson remembers as a child wishing she had a bike and mentioning it to her grandmother in the vicinity of Mr. Shannon. Next thing she knew she had a shiny new bike waiting for her.) I don’t know after the house was sold if people made modifications because the house sat vacant and the people before you everyone said were hippies because they painted it kind of a pink and yellow color. Before it was a nice, pretty, white house.

      The last time I was in the house was 1952 or 1953 (the year she graduated from high school) after the first people bought it, it was looking kinda hippy from the highway. I can tell you how the house looked when I went over as a child. When you came off the side porch the kitchen was to the right (which means the kitchen was in the small addition at the back of the house and was tiny) and the dinning room was to the left. To me it was huge, because I was a kid. Mr. Shannon sat at the head of the table so he could see out the door.  (Mrs. Scott-Johnson even remembered where she would sit at the table when she was visiting with the grandchildren of the Shannon’s.)

      If you walked straight it was a small hall and a bathroom to the left and then you made a left and that was a big wide hall. Mr. Shannon never slept upstairs because he was heavy and had a bad leg (I later was told that he may have had a prosthetic leg) and right there they had a bedroom and past his bedroom was another room they considered the living room and then it was the front porch. Around April or May 1953 they had Mr. Shannon’s body on display in that wide hall.

      I didn’t go upstairs much because it was Mr. and Mrs. Shannon living in the house but I understand he had been married three times. The second wife, Molly, she suggested my name “Annette Marie” (after the Canadian Dionne quintuplets born around the same time). We had a relationship with them for years because…I’ll be 84 years old. (She said she would play with Mrs. Shannon’s daughter’s children who came from Baltimore and that’s the only time she would be upstairs.)

      I spent my time inside and John (her cousin who still lives across the street in Mayfield) spent more time outside.

      (She moved away in 1955) but up until 1990 I was down there every week and then after my mother got sick I was down there every Thursday for 10 years. And as the years went by the shrubs grew up and the house started looking worse. It was a beautiful place when I was a little girl. (She was born on the 31st of July,just celebrating her 84th birthday).

      Where the pool is now it was a wheat and hay field. At the interchange that was a big field and that’s where they had the Angus cows. There was nothing on that side of the highway but the Shannon farm. The Sylvania plant down to the left of the swimming pool all of that was just all open field. So it has really, really grown down in that area.”

      20190816-Mrs Annette Scott-Johnson

      Mrs. Annette Scott-Johnson, August 16th 2019, standing off the side steps of Sligo. Where the two white chairs sit on the porch is where Mr. Shannon would sit, watching the comings and goings of the farm.

      .

      Posted in Grounds, History, Main House, Shannon | 2 Comments
    • The Wonder of the Internet

      Posted at 1:49 pm by Lauren Tepaske, on August 26, 2019

      It’s a funny thing, the Internet.  There is a negative side of the Internet, a side that would have you believe the world is full of nothing but hate.  There is also a positive side of the Internet, a side that reminds us the world is still full of a lot of good.  Undoubtedly, it’s because of the Internet, and how small the world has become as a result, that we are acutely aware of both the good and the bad in the world.  Lucky for you, this a story of the good Internet and a story of personal growth because I have come to realize the Lauren who existed only a few short years ago is not the Lauren who exists today.

      For some reason, nighttime for me is prime Interneting time.  It’s a time when I do my writing, my researching, my Facebook stalking perusing, my Instagraming, etc.  I don’t know why this is but I think it stems from when the girls were really little and nighttime was the only time I had for quiet.  Regardless, it’s a bad habit because sometimes I will read something that gets me really worked up and keeps me from falling asleep.  Or, in this case, I read something and I get so excited I immediately email our Dovetail consultant because Marcus is asleep and even if he was awake he wouldn’t be excited because he shows the same amount of emotion awake as he does asleep.

      Earlier this year I joined a group on Facebook called “You’re Probably From Fredericksburg If…” in an attempt to learn more about Sligo and the Cottage.  I don’t really follow this particular group very closely and as a result it’s rare that a post will show-up on my news feed.  But one night, right before bed, there was a post shared from the Shannon Airport Facebook page about a group of cousins who had gathered at the museum.  These cousins were the grandchildren of a married couple who worked for the Shannon family.  This caught my attention because the Shannon family owned Sligo for about 50 to 60 years in the early 20th century.

      As if that weren’t interesting enough the cousins had shared pictures of their grandmother and grandfather.  As I perused the old, sepia toned pictures I immediately recognized that the grandmother was standing just off the side steps of Sligo.  I have spent many days now standing in almost that exact same spot and there was no mistaken the cut of the sidewalk or the little bit of hand rail that can be seen.

      Mrs Scott at Sligo - 1950s or 1940s

      Mrs. Annie Hamm Scott standing just off the side porch steps of Sligo.  The water tower and most of the outbuildings in the background are no longer there.  (Photo retrieved from Shannon Airport Facebook page and property of the family of Mr. and Mrs. John Scott.)

      When I saw that picture I was so excited I immediately emailed our Dovetail consultant (as I stated earlier).  She probably thought I was nuts because it was about 10:00 at night and it definitely could have waited until the next day.  Regardless, we both agreed it matched previous descriptions and fire insurance maps of Sligo.  It was at this point that I decided to do something so outside of my comfort zone that I surprised myself:  I contacted the Shannon Airport Facebook page and asked if they would please pass my information on to the cousins in hopes that one of them would be willing to share what they knew about Sligo.

      The old Lauren would have been terrified to put herself out there.  I mean, the worst that could happen would be nobody would ever contact me and I would cry myself to sleep wondering what I did wrong and life would continue as is.  But, that’s not what happened.  Within hours of my message exchange with Shannon Airport I received a call from Mr. White, one of the cousins.  We had such a nice conversation and it turned out he had done some previous work on getting a church on the National Historic Registry so we had that in common.  However, he had not spent much time (if any) at Sligo and so he gave me his cousin’s name and number and whom he had already communicated with and was expecting my call.  All of a sudden I found myself in communication with perfect (lovely) strangers who didn’t know me at all but were willing to share their stories and I will forever be grateful for the opportunity.

       

      Posted in Grounds, History, Main House, Shannon | 1 Comment
    • It Was an Interesting Night…Part III

      Posted at 7:19 pm by Lauren Tepaske, on August 1, 2019

      So, hearing a male voice when there wasn’t a male was…interesting.  As we all walked up the stairs from the basement I felt like a child again, not wanting to be the last one up and my back feeling so exposed to whatever might be down there.  Because of the male voice on the recording the paranormal team determined that perhaps the energies were more interested in communicating via EVP so we did a few more sessions in the same room of the basement.

      Carl, the only man on the team and who according to him the spirits care less to communicate with, decided to give it a try.  So Carl, my mom, and I went down to the basement.  Carl had barely started the EVP session when we heard Paris call from upstairs that the monitor had gone completely blank.  Everything else was running but the monitor had simply turned off.  Jokingly (though I took him very seriously), Carl said that whatever was in the basement wasn’t interested in talking to him.

      There were experiences that others had making it difficult for me to write about them because it wasn’t my own person having the experience.  Two people saw a shadow in the basement and asked for it to leave as it was not healthy to still be there.  Another person saw a full bodied figure walk near the Cottage.  While I did not see the shadow with my own two eyes I saw the reaction of the person who did and not even Meryl Streep could fake that.

      By 2:00 in the morning we were all wiped out.  We decided to break everything down and call it a night.  I don’t know if the paranormal team were disappointed in the lack of evidence or if this was a typical investigation for them.  Perhaps, when they get back home and review all of the video footage and EVP sessions something else will pop-up that nobody caught in the moment.

      Before the team left they assured me that whatever was in the house meant no harm.  As I looked at them wide-eyed, just a little panicked, Paula told me that when a spirit makes itself known it’s almost as if seeing a mouse; it’s totally unexpected and you may startle but then you calm down (although if I do see a mouse I know two household pets who have failed miserably at their job).  I’ll have to get back to you on exactly how I react to that first time seeing a spirit but I have a feeling it won’t be pretty.  I can say that while the events of the night weren’t so terrifying I still did not leave with a sense of belonging in the house.  Marcus travels so much and I just know the first night he is gone I’ll be calling my ride or die biatch to stay with me (because I’m fairly certain mom is out after this night).

      In the end there was just enough evidence and just enough inexplicable occurrences that there is no way to deny the existence of something in the house.  Sligo’s land is ancient, it’s foundation is nearly 260 years old, the house itself is 130 years old.  Imagine what has come and gone on that land from ancient peoples, to wars, to births and deaths.

      For a slightly more cheery end to this story both of my girls came running into my room the morning after and asked, as if it were Christmas, “Did you see a ghost?!”  When I told them I had not they left, thoroughly disappointed.  I don’t know what Marcus was so worried about.  They clearly think Casper the Ghost is there.

       

      Posted in Haunted, Life, Main House | 1 Comment
    • Recent Posts

      • Preoccupied December 20, 2021
      • The “Haunting” of Sligo August 4, 2021
      • Rehabilitation Tax Credits April 27, 2021
      • Put Me in Blogger Jail April 6, 2021
      • Virginia Historic Registry and the National Landmark Registry August 6, 2020
      • My Good Boy, Axel July 14, 2020
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    Lauren Tepaske
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