Ghost Stories of the Long Beach Peninsula

A few days ago, I received an email from Nancy Hall who volunteers at the Pacific County Historical Society’s museum in South Bend. She said she had been glancing through my Ghost Stories of the Long Beach Peninsula and was especially intrigued by the last story, “The Light Keeper’s Wife.”

The subject of the story is Mary Pesonen, wife of Alex, who served from 1898 to 1924 as the first keeper of the North Head Light at Cape Disappointment. Mary died under mysterious circumstances just six months before her husband was due to retire and now, almost a hundred years later is said to haunt the head keeper’s house.

Across the Cape D Isthmus

When I wrote Mary’s story I was hard pressed to find much information about her. I felt myself extremely fortunate to be sent a photograph by one of the interpreters at the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center that he said “might” show Mary and Alex. It’s a great photo taken in 1901 when the grounded Columbia River Lightship No. 50 was being hauled across Cape Disappointment Isthmus to Baker Bay. As it turned out, not only does that photo accompany my story, but was also chosen by the art director at History Press for use on the back cover.

Mary Pesonen With Her Brother

But, as those things sometimes go, it was not many weeks after the book was published that the very same interpreter contacted me with new information. The couple was not the Pesonens at all! He had happened to see the same photo in Wayne O’Neil’s posthumously published Man and the Sea and “our Mary” had been identified by none other than the late Rod Williams as his maternal grandmother, Annie Warner King. I was glad to know the truth of the matter but very disappointed that we were still left with no image and very little information about “The Light Keeper’s Wife.”

And then, out of the blue, came the email from Nancy Hall! In it she said A.K., or Ikey as they referred to him, and his wife Soney were close friends of my grandparents and she attached photographs of them both, as well as copies of some of their correspondence! To say I am thrilled is the understatement of the year. I’m looking forward to meeting Nancy and learning more on December 10th when the museum is hosting a 2:00 p.m. Ghost Stories book-signing.  Perhaps other people with interesting ghost-related information will also be there to share their stories!