In the town where I grew up, Fourth Street runs from the offshoot of the main highway through town up past the courthouse, the old Catholic church, my parents’ house, the new Catholic church, Finnegan park and up to a street where the “newer” houses started being built in the 1960′s.
The western end of Fourth Street is lined with older houses, most of them small. In fact, there are more tiny houses in my dusty hometown in western Nebraska than large houses.
One of the main exceptions is the large Victorian house at the top of the hill where Fourth crests and then slopes down toward Main Street. As a child, I learned from my brothers that it was known as “Pill Hill” because the house used to belong to the town doctor. But that was decades before I was born, back at the turn of the century. Town gossip had it that the doctor had killed himself in the house, and haunts it still.
We would walk past the house to my sister’s friend Fay’s house, and dutifully crossed to the other side of the street rather than walk along its broken and rutted sidewalk. The stucco on the bottom half of the house was dingy and coated with grime, and the painted frame siding above it was peeling. Overgrowth of shrubbery and tree limbs, weeds and choked out honeysuckle bushes completely choked off any view of the back yard, which was fine with me. My memories of the house were all terrifying, its spookiness amplified by the wild and preposterous stories that generations of town children had scared one another with, year after year.
A couple of years ago, my hometown went digital with its property tax assessment information. As a matter of public record, anyone could go to the courthouse and look up information on properties, but now, a person could punch in an address and on screen would pop up the owner’s name, a photo of the house, and its assessed value.
I spent hours that first day, searching for the homes of my childhood friends, my parents’ neighbors, the homes of my former teachers. As a Realtor, I use our own county assessor site every day, but it was fascinating to look at the homes of my childhood and see the photos, see how the houses had changed or how differently they compared with my memory.
Most shocking to me was Pill Hill. The terrifying house of my memory did not appear on screen as I recalled. Instead, I saw a well-maintained house with cheery yellow stucco, brilliant white trimwork, tidy lattice under the porch, trimmed hedges, a fence and lights glowing from one of the windows. For some reason, I was expecting to see a replica of the Radley place from To Kill a Mockingbird.
I suppose there’s some lesson here, some deeper meaning, perhaps some tidy metaphor. Or not. I’m just oddly happy to see a place from my childhood look better than I recall, rather than diminished as I had become accustomed to.
Now I was always told that it was called “Pill Hill” because it was once a Hospital and that a doctor had hung himself from a hook in the ceiling in one of the upper rooms. I had gone to a party at “Pill Hill” back in the 70′s and I saw a large hook in a ceiling. I don’t know if the college kids living there put it there for a conversation piece or if it was the actual hook but it kind of freaked me out.
It’s a grand looking house, but I can see where as a child the stories about it would have been chilling. We had a few creepy houses in the small Iowa town I grew up in also. Nice to see that someone has cared for the house.
Di
The Blue Ridge Gal
I saw the hook in the ceiling as well, but not during a party…I wasn’t hot enough to be invited to those parties.
I would like to see the inside of the house. When I was younger, it creeped me out. It scared me almost as much as walking past that poor St. Bernard chained up in that small yard on the way to church. He would bark so loud when people walked past. He probably wanted to come out and play. (Remember him?)
I squealed when I saw this picture! You have solved a mystery!
My grandma loved that house, as does my mom, and we drive by it every time we’re up that way (my great-aunt lives just a few blocks away from it). I remember grandma talking about that house. She always thought it was beautiful, but said it scared her, too. She never did tell us why, and now I think I know why she was scared of it!
HELLO I USE TO LIVE IN THE HOUSE WHEN I WAS LIL AND THAT HOW WAS HAUNTED! IT WAS BEAUTIFUL MY UNCLE WAS THE THAT RESTORED THE HOME, I HAS SO MUCH FUN AND LOTS OF GOOD MEMOERYS IN THAT HOME.
Just a few hours ago I spoke with my cuz chanel and she told me she found this site with our old house in it. My Parents Blanca and Charles Stewart bought this house in 1995. I can still remember the feeling I had the first time we stepped inside, it was freezing and you could feel a presence with you, but it was not a bad presence but like someone had already picked us to live there. I looked around and thought to myself we arent really going to buy this heep are we(There were no walls only dusty old boards and holes everywhere, thanx to the previous owner who was going to refurbish the place but chickened out) but it was to late my mom and dad had already fallen in love with it. So we moved into the little side apartment a few months later and my Dad began rebuilding the old victorian. One night while i was sleeping I was woke up around 3 in the morning someone was tapping my shoulder when i turned around i saw anolder womans figure with fuzzy gray standing there I said what! loudly still asleep, but she didnt say anything. I was so scared i turned back around and didnt say another word. Then I felt her rub my head and walk away! yeah freaky right! But I think it was her way of saying thank you. It took my dad 3 years to rebuild Pill Hill. Its a huge part of my life, my grandmother passed away there (which was weird cause an old gysie lady once told her she was going to pass away in a house on a hill). My mom used to tell us every morning she would hear someone walk up the stairs and sit on the edge of her bed every night. There were alot of unexplainable things that happened in that house but none of which hurt us or meant to scare us. The ghosts there are only poor souls that couldnt find their way home and are looking for comfort. And I think my parents gave them some peice of mind when They turned that old scary house into a new beautiful home.We sold pill hill in 1999 and everyday we hear the name we are filled with regret for ever leaving.