The Old Beauchamp House

Witness: Timothy Beauchamp
Location: Grove, Oklahoma
Date of Encounter: December 1, 1982

I lived with my grandparents in the family home that is referred to by some, especially old-timers in Grove, as the "Old Beauchamp House" next to "Jim Beauchamp baseball field." My father, professional baseball player Jim Beauchamp, grew up in the house but the original house burned to the ground when he was around eight years old. The circumstances surrounding the fire were very murky; it happened during the Great Depression so it was difficult for them to rebuild right away but, eventually, the new home was built on the old family farm house's foundation.

While growing up on the farm, I noticed the house had several extremely cold spots and at night especially, I would hear footsteps and many times there was an unmistakable feeling of someone watching.

One night in the dead of winter, we were having a snow storm and I decided to watch television as my grandparents had already retired to their bedroom. While watching television I kept hearing a strange, muted sound as if it were coming from outside the house. The noise was so eerie the hairs stood up on the back of my neck and arms. I didn't want to but I felt I had to investigate.

I walked outside and could not locate the strange mewling sound until I realized it was coming from above me! I looked up and there was a glowing orb in one of the tree branches that had grown over the house. When I realized I was staring at a glowing ball of light, I literally froze in my tracks. It seems like an eternity before I shuffled, shocked back into the house.

I immediately went and woke my grandfather. He asked me gruffly what was wrong because he didn't like being awakened. I explained I heard a noise outside, and he asked, "Well? What did it sound like?" I mimicked the strange noise, and the color left his face and he turned away. He turned back and was visibly upset. I asked him what was wrong, and he replied, "My little brother was born in the farm house that had been built on this foundation. He was born with a hairlip and cleft pallet, and you just made the exact noise he used to make. He died because he could not breast feed, and his nursery was right where you described it had the house never burned down.

I often wonder now that we no longer live there, and there is a baseball field across the street, whether people ever see that glowing ball in the trees over the "Old Beauchamp House."