Williamsburg Native Patty Wilson Closes Out Library Series

“This is the one I’ve been waiting for,” Loranne Keithley said of local author Patty Wilson who closed out the month-long Williamsburg Public Library series featuring local authors and historians.

Wilson is no stranger to the library as she has presented many times there.

She grew up in Williamsburg and has family in the area. She said her first book was supposed to be a “quick project.”

Wilson has written stories for the Altoona Mirror, Bedford Gazette, and has articles published nationally and internationally.

For her first book, the second publisher whom she presented it to bought it, and two weeks later over 5,000 copies were sold.

Since the publishing date, over 70,000 copies of her first book have been sold and she holds the record for the most stolen local author in Pennsylvania. This means a lot of people borrow her books from the library and don’t return them.

When talking about ghost encounters, Wilson said she always believed in something beyond.

She told the story of her first encounter with her grandfather, “Booky.”

Her 98-year old grandfather’s health was failing, and he was put in a nursing home.

“The only way out of here is in a body bag,” Wilson said she remembers her grandfather saying.

The night before he passed, she recalls seeing her grandfather at the foot of her bed.

“I knew this was the last time I would see him,” Wilson said. Then his image just faded away.

The next day, she came home to her father crying, saying that her beloved grandfather passed away the night before.

Wilson also said that her grandmother on her mother’s side had multiple ghost stories and taught her how to tell ghost stories.

She told the crowd about the feed mill baby story, where the tenant kept hearing a baby crying in the basement of their house.

They found out later that a baby had died there and its remains were found in the feed mill.

Her publisher then wanted more stories, and along with this fame, Wilson said she received a lot of letters from people far and wide.

One letter really stuck with Wilson – a mother of a five year old son and a newborn, whose son said that there was a “mean man who threatened them if they didn’t move.”

Wilson said this was her first paranormal investigation. She also enlisted the well-known paranormal expert John Zaffis to help in this investigation.

After doing some research on the property, Wilson said the building was first a post office and grocery store on the first floor, a home on the second floor, and then it was just a private home. Then it was transformed into two apartments.

After installing motion sensors, Wilson and her team said that it would pick up something going as far as the wall by the bathtub, which they found out was a doorway at one time.

She went on to describe how to communicate with ghosts, especially during this paranormal activity, by asking them questions and then waiting for sixty seconds for them to respond.

Wilson said they only got one response back during that investigation, and when asked if it was his (the ghost’s) private residence, they heard a “yes.”

She has been involved with ghost hunting and writing for 25-30 years. She said two reasons people ghost hunt are because they’re fascinated and they want to help someone.

Wilson said she has visited over 400 haunted sites, written over 20,000 stories and has a podcast and a blog.

“This has become the center of my life in a lot of ways,” she said. Wilson also told the crowd about her passion for history, and noted that one of her favorite places to ghost hunt is the Jean Bonnet Tavern located in Bedford. Wilson plans to come back to the Library for “Ghost Voices” in the Fall.