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Elizabeth Moran’s mother Cary grew up in a haunted house in Memphis. That’s how the story goes, anyway. Every night she and her siblings would hear footsteps slowly climb the stairs from the basement to the second-floor bedrooms. Usually, they’d stop outside her brother’s room, then turn and head back downstairs. Even now, Moran’s family believes that old house, which it subsequently sold, is still haunted. Elizabeth Moran never heard those footsteps for herself, but the ghost has been such a big part of her life that she’s exploring the history of this mythical creature and its relationship
to her family in a project called Record of Cherry Road. The name refers to the street on which the house sits and to a series of notes Moran’s mother wrote about the footsteps.
“My mom says it was scary when they fist moved in, but eventually they nicknamed him Casper and he became a member of the family who just was always there,” Moran says.
Photographing ghosts is hard, so Moran has approached the story in a round-about way. Her uncle, whose room seemed to be the ghost’s preferred destination, has since retirement taken up paranormal investigation; Moran follows him as he goes about his work using tools like light beams and audio recorders to ferret out ghosts. The family who now lives in the house on Cherry Road say they, too, have heard the footsteps and are more than happy to join the investigation.
They’ve also dived into the county archive to learn more about the house and who’s lived there before. That’s been slow going, but Moran and her uncle have learned the structure was once a farmhouse and the property part of a tobacco plantation. That explains the well in the basement, where they think most of the paranormal activity seems to start.
Moran realizes all of this might sound silly. But she isn’t concerned. She’s less interested in proving the house is haunted and more about having the exploratory experience herself. “I’m agnostic, but I hope that something happens to me to convince me that there are ghosts,” she says. “I really want to be convinced.”
This is also less about the ghost than her family’s life with it. Casper, regardless of whether he’s real, is a part of the family’s history and lore. In that way, Record of Cherry Road has become something of a sociological study of her family over time. “It’s about the house, but it’s also about the handing down of stories in our family through generations,” she says. “This is absolutely what ties our family together.”
There’s a second part to the story as well. The names “Cary” and “George” are common in Moran’s family. Her name is Elizabeth Cary, her mother and grandmother are named Cary, and her great-grandmother was Elizabeth Cary. Her great-grandfather was George, as is her uncle and his son. These names have created strong bonds across the generations, even with those relatives long since dead.
“I’m definitely haunted, in a good way, by these women that have come before me,” Moran says. “My relatives who shared the same name seem to continue to live through generation and generation.”
The story has struck a chord with others interested in ghosts. Moran says she’s been in touch with noted ghost hunter William Wilkens who often provides photos taken by people who believe they’ve captured a ghost on film. She uses her expertise in photography to tell these folks whether they’re simply seeing their camera flash reflected back at them or whether they might actually have something.
“A lot of the time it’s nothing,” she says. “But for me it’s been exciting because it’s helped me look at photograph very differently. I now pay more attention to how people tend to read into a photographs and create their own meaning.”
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Elizabeth Moran’s mother Cary grew up in a haunted house in Memphis. That’s how the story goes, anyway. Every night she and her siblings would hear footsteps slowly climb the stairs from the basement to the second-floor bedrooms. Usually, they’d stop outside her brother’s room, then turn and head back downstairs. Even now, Moran’s family believes that old house, which it subsequently sold, is still haunted. Elizabeth Moran never heard those footsteps for herself, but the ghost has been such a big part of her life that she’s exploring the history of this mythical creature and its relationship
to her family in a project called Record of Cherry Road. The name refers to the street on which the house sits and to a series of notes Moran’s mother wrote about the footsteps.
“My mom says it was scary when they fist moved in, but eventually they nicknamed him Casper and he became a member of the family who just was always there,” Moran says.
Photographing ghosts is hard, so Moran has approached the story in a round-about way. Her uncle, whose room seemed to be the ghost’s preferred destination, has since retirement taken up paranormal investigation; Moran follows him as he goes about his work using tools like light beams and audio recorders to ferret out ghosts. The family who now lives in the house on Cherry Road say they, too, have heard the footsteps and are more than happy to join the investigation.
They’ve also dived into the county archive to learn more about the house and who’s lived there before. That’s been slow going, but Moran and her uncle have learned the structure was once a farmhouse and the property part of a tobacco plantation. That explains the well in the basement, where they think most of the paranormal activity seems to start.
Moran realizes all of this might sound silly. But she isn’t concerned. She’s less interested in proving the house is haunted and more about having the exploratory experience herself. “I’m agnostic, but I hope that something happens to me to convince me that there are ghosts,” she says. “I really want to be convinced.”
This is also less about the ghost than her family’s life with it. Casper, regardless of whether he’s real, is a part of the family’s history and lore. In that way, Record of Cherry Road has become something of a sociological study of her family over time. “It’s about the house, but it’s also about the handing down of stories in our family through generations,” she says. “This is absolutely what ties our family together.”
There’s a second part to the story as well. The names “Cary” and “George” are common in Moran’s family. Her name is Elizabeth Cary, her mother and grandmother are named Cary, and her great-grandmother was Elizabeth Cary. Her great-grandfather was George, as is her uncle and his son. These names have created strong bonds across the generations, even with those relatives long since dead.
“I’m definitely haunted, in a good way, by these women that have come before me,” Moran says. “My relatives who shared the same name seem to continue to live through generation and generation.”
The story has struck a chord with others interested in ghosts. Moran says she’s been in touch with noted ghost hunter William Wilkens who often provides photos taken by people who believe they’ve captured a ghost on film. She uses her expertise in photography to tell these folks whether they’re simply seeing their camera flash reflected back at them or whether they might actually have something.
“A lot of the time it’s nothing,” she says. “But for me it’s been exciting because it’s helped me look at photograph very differently. I now pay more attention to how people tend to read into a photographs and create their own meaning.”
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