Want to get a jump on the Halloween spirit?

Want to get a jump on the Halloween spirit?

Meet her at Lone Pine State Park on Saturday at 6 p.m. Stevens will be presenting a Humanities Montana Speaker Bureau program, “Haunted Montana: Where the Ghosts Are!”

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She concentrates on Montana ghost stories from places that are open to the public. Stories might come from the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, the Old Montana State Prison, or Montana’s bars, hotels, parks, roads, restaurants, theaters and museums.

“People love ghost stories, whether they believe them or not,” Stevens says.

She does believe in ghosts. Has since she was 7, and her family moved into a haunted house in Minneapolis.

They noticed nothing at first, Stevens says, but after her father remodeled the basement into a playroom, “He must have disturbed something,” she says, “because strange things started happening after that.”

Children had a feeling they were not welcome in the playroom, and sensed a man was watching them.

“My mom believed us, but my dad pooh-poohed it,” Stevens says. “Then lights started turning on and off for no reason. The doorbell would ring, but there was never anyone there.

“We’d hear footsteps coming up the stairs from the basement when no one was down there. Our dog would stand growling at the door. One night when we were seated for supper in the kitchen, the doorknob on the basement door started turning. My dad reached over and yanked it open, but there was no one there.”

Her father never did buy the ghost theory, Stevens says, but he had to admit things were happening in the house he could not explain.

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When she moved to Montana in 1978, Stevens began collecting and investigating ghost stories from her new state. She worked as a librarian at Montana State University-Billings, then for 22 years at the Parmly Billings Library. lingerie wholesalers halloween costumes clearance adults halloween costumes sale clearance