Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 September 1885 — VOICES FROM THE GRAVE. [ARTICLE]

VOICES FROM THE GRAVE.

Singular Experience of au Ohio Woman Whose Husband Has Been Dead Twenty Tears. [Washington telegram. I A telegram from Toledo relates the story of a farmer in Monclova, Ohio, who died and was buried thirteen years ago but is still writing to his family. The Sunday Capital prints a story quite as remarkable, as follows: “A very remarkable oase has come to my attention through a friend in the Pension Office, which furnishes incidents for a novel os powerful as any Dumas or Eugene Sue ever used. In 1864 a Lieutenant from an Ohio village was killed in one of the battles in Virginia and bis body was sent home, buried with military honors and a handsome monument erected over it by the citizens of the place. Thousands of people paid their tributes of honor to the young hero and looked upon his face as the body lay in state in the Town Hall. He left a widow to whom he had been married only a year, and for more than twenty years she has been trying to get a pension; but, although she keeps fresh dowers upon her husband's grave, she can not prove that he is dead. The reoords in the , Adjutant General’s office are perfect, and affidavits can be furnished from thousands of people who saw and reoognized his lifeless body, but every few months she receives a letter from him written in a hand as familiar as her own. Two letters never come from the same place; now they are postmarked in Colorado, then in Texas, then in New York. Once she got a note from him dated at Washington. He appears to know what is going on at home, and always alludes to local occurrences with a familiarity that is amazing. He sends messages to old friends and gives her advice about business matters which it seems impossible for a stranger to know. She can not answer these ghostly missives, because he never gives any clue to his whereabouts, and no detective has been able to find him. Her friends believe that the writer is some crank or malioioas person who takes this way to annoy her, and the distress the poor woman suffers cannot be measured by any other human experience. Lons? ago she ceased to open envelopes which came with the fumil.ar address, but sends them sealed to her attorney, who uses every possible means to secure a clue to the ideutity of the writer. The only circumstances to suggest that it may possibly be her husband are th* penmanship and tho familiarity the writer shows with the lady’s private life, but how he could keep himself posted is another mystery that cannot be solved. Several times the wr ter has intimated that he might soon pay her a visit, but the next letter always contains an apology for not having done so. The woman his suffered agony of mind beyond description, and her life has been ruined by this ho rible mystery, but of late she has become more resigned, and would neither be surprised nor disappointed if her husband should some day walk in a her door. ”