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223 GHOST STORIES AND LEGENDS OF OLD SAN PATRICIO by J. Michael Sullivan  Last year as I walked into my Spanish class, I noticed pictures of big, creepy-looking houses, pictures that weren’t usually in that classroom. As my attention was drawn toward one particular picture of a house, I realized I had been there many times. I told my teacher, “Mrs. Cornejo, umm, I have my family reunions at this house.” She told me that that house was “Crazy Rachel’s” house, and that she would be sharing with our class that story among other South Texas ghost stories and legends. I’m here to tell you that there are many ghost stories and legends of San Patricio, and no two of them are ever the same. The ghost story that seems to be the most famous among residents of the area is the one Mrs. Cornejo told us in class that day about “Crazy Rachel.” The legend says that if you go to the Dougherty house at night, you will see a woman sitting in an upstairs bedroom window rocking in a rocking chair or wandering around outside. The Rachel referred to as “Crazy Rachel” is Rachel Timon. The folk stories confuse her with Rachel Dougherty, my grandfather’s grandmother, or my great-greatgrandmother . Rachel Sullivan Dougherty and her husband Robert Dougherty built the house in the 1870s as a home for their family and a boarding school for boys, known as St. Paul’s Academy. The family lived downstairs; the school was upstairs. The house sits on the shore of Round Lake, a lake of unknown origin just outside the town of San Patricio. According to my mother, Rachel Timon was a great-niece to Rachel Sullivan Dougherty and did not live in the Dougherty house until after all of the original Doughertys had moved away or died. She lived in the house supposedly as caretaker, but my mother doesn’t think Rachel Timon could be considered an actual caretaker. The family needed someone to live in the house, and Rachel needed a place to live. Although Rachel Timon wasn’t actually crazy, she was an eccentric person and a recluse.1 So, it’s really not unthinkable that such stories of her could have started and grown, as they certainly have. Now, there have been other spiritual sightings at the house, but the “Crazy Rachel” stories are what have made the Dougherty house so popular among the youth of Orange Grove and surrounding communities. 224 Everything But the Kitchen Sink Rachel Dougherty, the author’s great-great-grandmother, who is often confused with “Crazy Rachel” One night on the bus coming home from a baseball game, some of my friends were talking about wanting to go out to the cemetery in San Pat on Friday. In fact, tiny San Patricio has two cemeteries for kids to go to: the old cemetery on the hill, and the newer cemetery behind the church. From visiting the two cemeteries , especially the old one on the hill, I can see why some people might think that it is haunted. All the old headstones and the leafless trees give the cemetery an eerie look. While on the bus, someone asked me if I knew how to get to “Crazy Rachel’s,” and I told them that I have my family reunions at that house and that she is my kinfolk. They were surprised and asked, “Are you serious?” I firmly answered, “Yes I am!” I know from hearing other stories around school that often kids go sneaking out there to see if they can catch a glimpse of Rachel, or go out to the old San Pat cemetery to spot a ghost. In fact, a friend of mine went out to the Dougherty house one night and said he saw Rachel, but before he could try to get a closer look, the caretaker at the time came outside and started yelling and throwing rocks and waving a baseball bat, so he said he “hooked it out of there,” and he actually has a scar running from his palm up to his forearm from when he jumped the barbed wire fence. When my older cousin Alainya was in school, kids were going out to the Dougherty house and the old cemetery. The first time my mother talked to Alainya about the house, before we started having family reunions, Alainya exclaimed, “Really? Crazy Rachel’s house is our family home? Cool!” Up...

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