By Suzanne Hodgson
Staff Writer

South Portland residents have long called Kathy DiPhilippo when they have a history question about the city where she’s lived all her life.
But this year DiPhillippo, historian for the city’s historical society, has received more and more calls about South Portland houses and secrets they may hold.
“As a historian I receive calls from residents who do believe there is something in their house,” she said. Something … unusual.
DiPhillippo recently received a call from a woman in Thornton Heights who was in her basement when she felt a presence behind her. Thinking it was her husband, she began a conversation. When he didn’t answer her, she turned around to discover she was alone.
 DiPhilippo understand callers’ concerns – she’s had her own experience with strange houses.
When she was young her father was a minister at the Elm Street Church and her family lived in a house just off Broadway near the church.
The family that lived there had an ominous warning when her family moved into the house: They told tales of lights turning on and off and the sound of footsteps running up and down the upstairs hallway to the attic doorway.
The homeowners told DiPhilippo’s family they had put a lock on the attic door because they used it as a storage unit and didn’t want their small children playing among the boxes and furniture, including a chaise lounge with a blanket thrown over the chair to protect it from dust.  
One day the family unlocked the attic door and went upstairs to find something in storage. While they were looking around the attic, they noticed the blanket on top of the chaise lounge had an imprint, almost as if a body had been sitting in the lounge moments before.
“There was definitely something centered around the attic.  I would hear doors opening and closing even when everyone was sleeping,” said DiPhilippo. “Even if the [attic] door was nailed shut, it would still open.”
DiPhilippo said she would hear footsteps coming down the hallway and stop right outside her door, but when she opened the door no one was there.
“Our dog would sit in one room looking up at the air and start barking,” she says.  DiPhilippo thinks the dog was barking at a person, or thing, the family couldn’t see.
DiPhillippo has had other experiences at other houses but is amazed that people call her at the historical society to learn the histories of their own homes.
Cape Elizabeth may not have a historian with a history of the paranormal, but it does have an old lighthouse with a spooky past.
After two deaths in a shipwreck near Portland Head, a lighthouse was finally built for the busy port in 1791.  
Many stories of ghosts are told about the lighthouse, including one recounted in “Haunted Maine” by Charles Stainsfield Jr. of a father and son who tended the light.
According to the book, Samuel Lancaster lost his young son to typhoid fever while the two were working at the lighthouse. A few years later Lancaster fell sick and died during the middle of a big storm. But the light never flickered or went out at Portland Head Light, and sailors reported seeing a small boy waving at them from the top of the lighthouse.
Portland Head Light Museum Director Jeanne Gross had never heard that story or felt anything strange in the lighthouse, but has heard a few interesting tales.
Last year a group of English investigators of the paranormal visited the historic lighthouse to see if they could find any scientific or psychic evidence of ghostly spirits at the keeper’s house.
  Gross said they told her they felt the presence of a 7- or 8-year-old girl named Mary playing in what used to be the keeper’s dining room, one of the museum’s main rooms.
Glenn Jordan, who used to live in an apartment above the lighthouse museum, has another tale to tell.  One day several years ago while walking outside the building on his way to the laundry room, he saw a group heading up the lighthouse steps through a window. Jordan said this was not strange because groups often came to see the historic site.
He nodded his head or waved at the group and a man standing in the window scowled at him.  Jordan said the man appeared scruffy and was wearing what looked like blue sailor’s attire.  Jordan was a bit confused by the interaction but continued on his way.
After 10 minutes in the basement thinking about the man, Jordan walked outside again and looked up to see if the group was still there.  
Not only was there no one in the lighthouse, but there wasn’t even a window on that side of the building.  
Jordan says it could have been his eyes playing tricks on him, but the memory is still vivid.
DiPhilippo’s memories also are very vivid, and she says can still remember the strange feelings she felt at her haunted house.
“I’m sure some people are making things up, but I’m not making it up,” said DiPhilippo.

Staff Writer Suzanne Hodgson can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 233.