November 21,2005
BY ROSELEE PAPANDREA 
DAILY NEWS STAFF

BELGRADE - Clifton Parker remembers the two-story green house on
Belgrade Extension as a place overflowing with warm memories and good
times.

It's where he spent Christmas Eve celebrations surrounded by family,
including his grandparents, Percy and Emma Parker, who bought the house
in the early 1950s.
It was a house with many rooms and secret passageways - perfect for
hide-and-seek, especially an enticing little nook with a door located
under the stairs.
For Parker, who now lives in Clayton, his grandparents' home was a
child's paradise. He can't imagine how anyone could think it's haunted.
While there are several people in the Maysville and Belgrade areas who
look at the green house - now overrun by overgrown shrubbery - and
immediately jump to that conclusion, it's difficult for Parker to
believe that there is anything lurking in the dark in the now-empty
house.

Rhonda Haswell, who lived in the house for about six months in 2002, has
a different story. She heard noises - footsteps, muffled talking,
children playing - the entire time she lived there. She felt like
someone was always looking over her shoulder. She hated going upstairs
and was scared to death to even open the door to the room under the
stairs.
After getting sick while in the house, Haswell left in a hurry one night
and never returned. She was so shaken by her experience that she
eventually shared her story with The Daily News, and it was published on
Halloween.
Since that time, the woman who lived in the house before Haswell
contacted The Daily News to confirm she had similar experiences. Several
readers called inquiring about whether the old house was for sale.
Others, like Parker, who had family ties to the house, told stories much
different than the one Haswell shared.

'Blows my mind'
Randolph Thomas of Jacksonville lived in the house as a teenager in the
1940s. His grandmother, Elizabeth Mae Ervin, lived there with his
step-grandfather, Edward Starkey Ervin, known as "Uncle Stark."
Thomas rented a room in the house for $5 a week while he attended White
Oak School, which later became Tabernacle Elementary School. Thomas
worked at Bill Walton's store and earned $10 a week.
Thomas was very mindful of his money. He kept it in a khaki money belt
that he buried under clothes in an old trunk. Thomas said he was always
paranoid about his money, and it's because of that he's convinced there
weren't ghosts hanging around the house at that time.
"When I would come home from school, I would run to my room and check in
the trunk for that money belt," Thomas said. "I would count that money
every day. The ghost never got any of my money. It was always right. I
never lost any of it."

Thomas kidded a lot about claims that the house might be haunted. For
him, it was a place that held fond memories, and he doesn't recall
anything out of the ordinary.
"All I know is that if there were ghosts there, they were very dormant
all the time that we lived there," Thomas said with a chuckle. "I was
never afraid. I don't think anything ever happened to cause me to be
afraid, and I was in that house alone at times."
Stories that the house might be haunted were a bit offensive to Sandra
Adams of Jacksonville. Elizabeth Mae Ervin was Adams' grandmother also
"My memories are it was a house of love - there was nothing but love in
that house," Adams said.

Adams' "Grandma Lizzie" moved to Belgrade in the 1920s to take a
housekeeping job in the White Oak River area. Adams' mother was a little
girl when Grandma Lizzie went to work for E.S. Ervin and his wife, Jane.
Jane Ervin died in 1928. Grandma Lizzie married E.S. Ervin, and the
couple eventually left Ervin's farm and moved to the Belgrade house,
which they bought from Ralph Provow, Adams said.
Adams spent Sundays visiting with her grandmother and loved celebrating
Christmas there.
"Grandma Lizzie always did things for me," Adams said. "It was a
wonderful place to go."
When E.S. Ervin died, Grandma Lizzie rented several of the rooms in the
house to make some extra money, Adams said.

She remembered a man who rented an upstairs room because he had a
monkey.
"A lot of military people would rent rooms," Adams said. "It just made
it a more interesting place to me. I could always see that monkey
jumping up and down on the bed."
Eventually, Grandma Lizzie sold the house to Percy B. Parker Sr. and his
wife Emma, but Grandma Lizzie remained at the house in a little
apartment on the right side of the house.
"I never had any bad experience in the house," Adams said. "I wasn't
afraid of the house. I didn't hear any noises. It was my safe harbor.
I'd love to get up on my grandmother's feather bed. â?¦ She
made the best dinners: chicken and pastry, collards, homemade chocolate
pie. Everybody got along with her. She was a good woman."
Percy and Emma Parker had eight children - four daughters and four sons
- but most of the children were grown with homes of their own by the
time they bought the house, Clifton Parker said.

Their youngest children, Glennie and Hugh, lived in the house. Glennie
died young of cancer and Hugh, who inherited the house after Percy B.
Parker Sr.'s death in 1986, died shortly after, but he was living at
Christian Care Home at the time of his death, Clifton Parker said.
Clifton Parker was close to his Uncle Hugh, especially during the years
that Hugh lived with his father. Parker remembers watching many
basketball games with his uncle, who was a huge Carolina fan, in that
house.
"I never remember any strange noises," Parker said.
Parker has a hard time believing that there are any ghosts in the house.
"As far as that house being haunted that really blows my mind," he said.

'Love comes through'
It's not uncommon for people to have different experiences in a house,
said Jim Longo, an associate professor of education at Washington &
Jefferson College in Pennsylvania. Longo has written several books that
include a collection of ghost stories from people around the United
States.
Although Longo has never been in the green house and won't really say
whether he believes some houses are haunted, he is willing to defend the
stories people tell him.
"The storytellers sincerely believe the stories are true," Longo said.
"Why would they make up the story? They have nothing to gain. If
anything, people ridicule or question them."
The people who are included in Longo's books are average folks - a cross
section of society, he said.
"Why do some people have these stories, and why do others not have
them?" Longo said. "The researchers tell us that one out of four people
in their life will have a major supernatural experience that will
literally change their life."

From his research, Longo has determined that ghosts or spirits don't
pick on everyone.
"You don't pick them," Long said. "They pick you."
If a spirit remains in a house, Longo said, it's rarely because
something horrible happened there.
"That's what people think, but it's a myth," he said.
Love is frequently what ties people to a person, place or thing, Longo
said.
"It is very clear to me that love is so powerful, and I do believe that
love outlives in physical death," Longo said. "Love comes through in the
stories I have heard over and over. Love has a life of its own. It's
very powerful."

'The way it was'
The house remained in the Parker family until 1988 when Raymond Eubanks
and his wife at the time, Paula J. Horne, purchased it. When the couple
divorced in 1997, the house was deeded to Horne. In 1999, Robert Dozier
and his wife, Joan Dozier, of Spring Hope purchased the house, according
to Onslow County deeds.

Dozier couldn't be reached for comment. It is unknown whether Eubanks,
Horne or Dozier ever lived in the house.
Pam Pekkala of Hubert rented the house in the summer of 2001.
"It is haunted," Pekkala said. "I've seen shadows. I've heard pounding
on doors and footsteps going up and down the stairs."
One night, Pekkala and a friend watched a shadow move all the way down
the stairs and then disappear. She heard people calling her name a few
times.
"I'd look, and there would be nobody there," Pekkala said.
Her youngest daughter, who was four at the time, passed out a couple of
times for no apparent reason, Pekkala said.
"She just fell to the ground," she said.

But the noises and "weird" occurrences didn't scare Pekkala who has
lived in other houses she believed to be haunted.
Even so, Pekkala still didn't stay in the house long. She moved out by
the fall of 2001, but it was lead paint that drove her away, she said.
She had all four of her children tested for lead poisoning, and all of
them had traces of lead in their blood. She had no choice but to move,
she said.
"I was always attracted to that house," Pekkala said.

Thomas understands the attraction of the old house. He's been tempted to
purchase it in the past but decided against it because he thought it
needed too much work. But lately, he's been thinking it would be fun to
buy it.
Thomas has called Dozier several times and has even sent him a letter to
see if he'd be interested in selling it.

"I'd be willing to go in on a joint venture with some of these people
who have a connection," Thomas said. "We can restore it and put it back
the way it was."

Contact Roselee Papandrea at rpapandrea@freedomenc.com or at 353-1171,
Ext. 238.