It was shortly after WWII when my husband and I and our new baby moved into an old housing addition created by the government for veterans. Our address was 107 34th street on the east side of Madison county, IN. It was a small, two bedroom square home made out of concrete blocks painted white, with a red roof and lots of hedges around the properties. The coal bin was located along side the front door which opened into the furnace room. The homes were built for Government workers who worked for the defense plant in Madison and later it was made available for the veterans just returning from war. We were on the waiting list for almost a year to get one of these homes due to the extreme housing shortage everywhere for the veterans just returning from WWII. After settling in and meeting my neighbors, I began feeling at ease. One day when I went to check on my baby in her crib, I had just turned towards the window and there I saw him. T his old man with a fedora hat and brown trench coat, looking into the bedroom window where our baby was. He stared at me for a second and said. Keep your child quiet, that baby cries all the time I said Ill try, Sir and he turned and walked away. That evening I told my husband about the strange, old man looking in our bedroom window, and he said hed be keeping an eye-out for him. The other neighbors were talking as well. They complained of the old man describing the old man just as I had looking into their windows, too. One early morning about 7:30 a.m. one of the husbands caught the man looking through the window and went outside to confront the man but the man had seemingly disappeared before he could be questioned. The next day I put the baby down for a nap, and I left one of the windows open at the back of the house where I was planting flowers so I could hear the baby cry if she woke up. I had come back inside when I heard the baby cry. Much to my surprise, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the man turn to leave the window just as I came in the bedroom to get the baby. When my husband came home that evening I told him about seeing the old man at the bedroom window once again to which he replied, Hes not trying to come inside, so lets just wait until I catch him in the act. The next morning the sun was so bright, my husband couldnt wait for me to open the drapes, so he gingerly pulled them open. When he did, he saw the old man with his nose pressed up to the window and it startled him. As uneasy as my husband felt, he still had to leave for work so he told me to keep baby close to me and not leave the baby alone. I stayed indoors all that day, looking out frequently to see if the old man was about. Later in the week, around Thursday as I can recall. My husband left for work a little late as the alarm had failed to go off. I started to open the drapes when I heard a rustling at the window, and it scared me so, I did not open the drapes, I was afraid that the man was out there once again and he was the last thing I wanted to see. The rest of the day went uneventfully. I knew the old man had been at the window earlier that day when I was too fearful to open the drapes. Actually, the next few days the man did not come around looking in the windows. I felt pretty good about things. Hopeful, the old man had gotten tired of his window peeping and finally stopped bothering us. We neighbors would meet at the hedges between our homes and talk about the old man.They too had noticed the old man wasnt around either. At the same time, we were all on guard and still not wandering too far away from home in case the old man showed up someplace in our neighborhood. We watched out for each other. T he old man had been pestering us and I was beginning to hate the area . I didnt even know how this old man could be here because he seemed too old to be a vet of WWII. I never saw where he lived, nor did I care, I just knew that I was tired of seeing him almost everyday. One evening when my husband got home, he asked if Id seen the old man that day. I reported that neither I nor any of the neighbors had seen him for a few days! As we were settling down for the evening I noticed there were police cars in front of our house. What on earth are they doing outside our house? My husband went outside to see what the commotion was about. When he came back inside he said that the police told him that one of the neighbors dogs found a body of a man in the hedges between mine and the neighbors yard. I couldnt help wondering if it was the same old man that had been disturbing our neighborhood since none of us had seen him in several days. I had just been at the hedges earlier in the day, talking to a neighbor and I did not see a body laying in there. I would have been terrified had I looked down and seen any dead person laying there. I am sure I would have been panic stricken. I dont know how many times I had been out there and not seen anything. I was trying to retrace my days activities to see if I could remember seeing anything unusual as I walked past the bushes. My mind was racing and my heart was pounding so fast I had to struggle to keep from passing out. How could I miss seeing something in the bushes or smelling the foul od or? How could I be so unobservant? How could I have missed seeing a body in my hedge just outside my home? The police said the identification in the mans pants said he was Heinrich Beeson Lang, and he resided at 107 34th street! My heart ached as it was beating so fast again, as I realized that this was my address! How could he have a card with our address on it? I didnt know what to think. The mans family reported him missing two-weeks ago. He lived just a few houses away with his family and they and police had searched the land in our area, Lang was ever found. Id crossed the hedges many times and didnt see the old man lying there. It was frightening to think this old man had been lying there so close to my house for several days and not one of us in the neighborhood saw him. The whole neighborhood was so uneasy. Nothing was adding up in this mystery of this old man suddenly ending up dead in our hedge. The mans body was removed and things about the neighborhood began to return to normal. The man had been dead for close to two-weeks. Heinrich had just been wandering around his old land. His cause of death was a heart attack brought on by hypothermia. Its sad to think back maybe the rustling at the window was a call for help I missed. To this I will say I was young with a newborn I was trying to protect my baby and his actions frightened me. In 1975 some coffins were accidentally dug up during a construction project in the area. The coffins turned out to be Heinrichs parents, Thomas and Elizabeth. Lang seemed to own more land than just where the 200 WWII vets homes were built. It was discovered he owned that entire section known as Beesons Addition according to the old city map and other records. Beeson was Heinrichs mothers maiden name. The paper did a news story when the coffins were found. The residents were told that the Beeson/Lang family and how they helped settled the area after coming from North Carolina in the early 1800s. There is a Beesons Addition today, In the early days people in the area had never heard it called Beesons Addition until the 1975 when the bodies of Langs parents were found. Beesons addition is about 2 miles away from the WWII veterans housing. They owned all that land, which has been broken up into lots for homes and businesses over the years. I surprised to learn many years later that my home was built on the exact spot that Heinrich B. Langs huge farm home once stood and his address was 107 34th street and they just created new addresses for the other homes. So if you see an old man creeping around looking into windows in a trench coat and hat in the Beeson area, you will know its Heinrich B. Lang coming to frighten you away. He doesnt take kindly to people on his land, He had loved and lived off his family land and raised a family and buried his parents. He never did like the noise of barking dogs or children crying. To his notion this land is still his land and he doesnt like the homes built on his land and to see and hear the noises disturbing his property. Every year about Halloween, there is a story about the haunting of Beeson Addition just as I have told you. All the articles tell that you can see him walking around in his trench coat and hat late at night removing signs and scattering construction equipment. But, my neighbors and I know the real story and now you do too.
Posted on: Sun, 21 Sep 2014 01:37:47 +0000
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