(NECN: Leslie Gaydos) - It all started for Julielle Kahn when her family moved into their renovated Victorian home in Newton, Mass. a decade ago.
The house was stripped down to the studs and rebuilt, and everything was new, except for maybe one thing.
"She was an older woman with gray hair," Julielle says. "She always kept it in tight bun on the top of her head. She wore a long dress and always wore stockings."
Julielle was not even 5 years old when her encounters with the friendly lady on the third floor began.
"There would be either blue or a white sort of orb-light thing floating around, and a face would appear in it, and then eventually the whole body would appear, but her feet were never on the floor. She was always floating," Julielle says.
The woman would also speak to the young girl.
"She told me she lived here when she was younger," Julielle says, adding that she was never afraid. "She told me she loved children, that there was no reason to be afraid."
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Julielle told her parents the woman insisted she call her Mrs. Woodman, and that she wanted Julielle to put her hair up in a bun and wear dresses and tights, since it wasn't ladylike to wear pants.
Her parents say they were baffled when Julienne first began talking about her experience with Mrs. Woodman.
"When pressed, 'What do you mean you're talking to the lady?' 'I'm talking to Mrs. Woodman and she's upstairs,'" Julielle's mother, Donnalyn Kahn, says.
"'It's Mrs. Woodman' and she says 'She speaks to me but her lips don't move,'" Julielle's father, Jeff Kahn, says.
The kindergarten teacher called, curious about this Mrs. Woodman who began appearing in Julielle's family drawings.
"She would draw Mrs. Woodman and then she would scribble through her as if she was invisible or floating," Donnalyn says, pointing out the artwork.
The 5-year-old girl's mention of the name Woodman prompted Mom to dig through old city directories.
"I wasn't really finding anything until I got to the 1889 directory, and I found the name Dr. George and Mrs. Woodman, and that caused me to pause," Donnalyn says.
Leslie Gaydos has more on the story in the attached video.
