The Whitewright Sun
Thursday, December 26, 1929
pg. 14

HAUNTED HOUSE IN BELLS BEING RAZED
by Raymond Martin

Bells' "haunted" house, a relic of 1875, is to be torn away, a house around which a weirdly grotesque story is woven of a woman's battle with herself against overwhelming odds, of a life tragic and yet heroic, of a life ever searching for happiness and never finding it and of the ultimate pitiful end.  These and a score of other things pioneers of the community are recalling as workmen are busy razing a quiet story and a half brown house in Bells.  Children are seeing the building come down with relief, for early they have heard queer stories of the house, of how peculiar noises are said to come from there on a dark night, and even of how a woman with a neck more than a foot long, is said to visit the house ever so often clad only in a long, white gown.
Early in the 1880's a family by the name of Show moved into Bells and established themselves in a house just off the principal street.  The man, a big two-fisted type of fellow, became the night watch for the city, and a splendid officer he was, so old-timers say.  Powerful, with a  voice that boomed, fearless and relentless, he was the fear of lawbreakers.  He commanded and it was done.  His word was the law.
Lena Show, his wife, was exactly his opposite in every way.  Quiet, domestic, small, a lover of peace and harmony, she cared for her home and her 5 children.  Lena was completely dominated by her big officer husband, and here, as elsewhere, his word was law.  Lena obeyed him implicitly, without questioning his judgment, keeping herself ever in the background.  Lena was not happy.  She loved life, for all that she was a quiet unassuming sort of person.  She did not love drudgery, and yet her life had become just that.  For days, neighbors said, she went about her work listlessly, caring for his children, cooking 3 meals a day, sweeping, cleaning, washing, scrubbing, eating little and reading her Bible much of the time.
It was hog killing time in December of 1895.  The shows had some splendid hogs, and Officer Show said it was time they were putting away some meat for winter.  "Those hogs," he said, "will be killed today.   You make the sausage."
"Very well," said Lena.
So the hogs were killed during the day.  Officer Show slept in one of the downstairs rooms, and Lena went about her work quietly so as not to awaken him.  But the sausage she did not work up.  There was a great dish pan of unfinished sausage setting on the kitchen table.
That night Show went about his work as officer, and Lena slipped off over to the preacher's ho use.  She had something on her mind which was causing worry.  She wanted advice.
"Brother Alderson," Lena asked at last after she had visited with the pastor and his wife for some minutes, "Do you think that a person who commits suicide will go to heaven?  Is there any place in the Bible where it says anyone who kills himself can be forgiven?"
Rev. Alderson, the pastor of the Methodist Church, talked with her for some time, and Lena, relieved so it seemed, left carrying her baby in her arms.  She went home and went to bed.
Officer Show came in from his night job early in the morning and wanted his breakfast before lying down for the day.  Lena was up early the next morning.  There was much work to be done.  That sausage was to be worked, for one thing.
She prepared the meal and called the children and her husband to breakfast.   She did not eat.
"Why, where's your chair?" her husband asked.
"It's - it's upstairs," Lena faltered.  "I'll get it."
"Upstairs? What's it doing up there?"  The upstairs was never used.  It contained no furniture.
"Oh, I used it up there yesterday afternoon," Lena replied nervously.  "I'll get it."   But she didn't right then.
"I believe I'll go down town for a few minutes," Officer Show said after breakfast.  "You'd better work up that sausage."
The children went to school and Lena and the baby were left alone in the house.   On the table sat the breakfast dishes unwashed.  On the table also sat the sausage.
Officer Show was gone for some time, but about the middle of the morning became sleepy and decided to go home and go to bed.  Lena was not there.   On the table sat the dishes.  The fire in the fireplace in the bedroom had gone out and the baby, neglected, was playing in the ashes, thoroughly enjoying himself in his new-found sport.
"Lena." Officer Show called.
But Lena did not answer.  Officer Show started to look for her.   He searched the downstairs and then went over to the neighbors to look for her.   No one had seen her.  Two neighbor women followed him back to the house and a search was started.
"Perhaps she's upstairs," one of the women suggested.
"Oh, no, she wouldn't be there.  We never use that part of the house at all."
But the woman went on upstairs.   A moment later she screamed and the others rushed to the scene.  Lena was dead, her body dangling from a rafter in an unfinished upstairs room, a stout piece of bed quilt taut around her neck.  She had been dead for more than an hour.
And so that is how the house got its name for a "haunted" house.  Officer Show and his children moved out of the house soon after and since that time the place has been untenanted, save for birds, bats, and rats.  It has fallen into a melancholy stage of decay, its windows broken and its doors creaky on their rusty hinges.  Recently the house changed hands and the new owner has decided to tear it away.  So within a few more weeks at most the historic old house around which the weird, ghostly stories are told and in which Lena Show fought her battle with herself, will be no more in Bells, but the story will be kept alive in the memories of citizens here for many years to come.