We've got a real weird one for you, MMers, so hold on. Shelly Macintosh, a college student out of Westbrook, tells the story of her great aunt, who she claims married an actual ghost!
The woman in question, Mary Kaminski, was a spinster well into her fifties, according to her great-niece Shelly. "She was always a bit of a homebody, if you know what I mean. She liked cats, jigsaw puzzles, that sort of thing. Super nice, though."
As Shelly tells it, Mary met a man who moved into the apartment across the hall from hers. "He was older, maybe seventy, seventy-five. Pretty old school, but still a nice guy. We all thought it was cute he and Mary were dating."
The couple was soon married and moved in together. For a few years things were great. Mary and her husband, a man named Donald Warren, were happy. It was like a breath of fresh air for the couple. "They both seem reinvigorated, full of life," Shelly told us. "It was great!"
But then things started to change. "I noticed that Don always walked about the war and his experiences," Shelly continued. Don would tell stories of practicing with live ammunition and that his friend William Corbell jumped up too soon and was shot in the head. He used terms that were outdated, that didn't seem to be a part of the modern world.
"At first, I thought he was just an old man, you know?" Shelly told us. "Like he came from a different generation. You know it's not right, but sometimes you just have to accept that he's stuck in his ways. You know what I'm saying?"
It wasn't until Don mentioned the Battle of Blackburn's Ford that Shelly began to seriously question. "It didn't sound like a World War II battle or Korea, or Vietnam or whatever. So I did a little research and I found that Blackburn's Ford was a Civil War battle in Virginia. Well, I thought that was odd, so I did a little more research."
It turns out that the 113th Infantry Unit from Maine, under the leadership of one General James A. Cluthcher took part in that battle. It was a bit of a rout by the Confederate troops, and many of the Maine brigade perished in the battle.
Including one Private Donald M. Warren.
"My first thought was, okay this is weird. Maybe it was like an ancestor of his," Shelly said. "Then I googled a few more things and I found the story about his friend William Corbell getting shot during a training exercise, and suddenly the pieces started coming together."
The outdated manner of speaking, the hatred for Southern States, his stories of a nebulous war that sounded nothing like modern warfare. Shelly was convinced he was a ghost. The real kicker was when she found a picture of Private Donald Warren and compared it to one of the man who had married her great aunt.
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| Donald Warren, 2020 |
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| Private Donald M. Warren, 1861 |
"I was scared," Shelly admitted. "So i burned some sage and doing some reading on the internet, I found a... not a spell, I guess, but a ritual? I don't know what the right word is, but it was to cleanse the spirits of the lingering dead. I went over to Mary's house one day when I knew her and Don were out and I said the words I printed off the website. I left the little charms and symbols it told me to draw."
Shelly never saw Don again. According to Mary he disappeared one night while she was asleep. It was as if he had never been there at all. Mary became depressed and after a few months, just a few days shy of her sixty-third birthday, she passed away in her sleep. Shelly suspects it was from a broken heart.
"She really loved that guy, and I guess he really loved her. I know he was a Civil War ghost or whatever, but maybe I shouldn't have intervened. Maybe I should have just let them be happy. Wherever we go when we die, I hope they're together."
Stay safe out there, Maine!
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