Lou’s View – Aug. 18, 2016

Ida’s Day

By Lou Bernard

She didn’t do anything important. She wasn’t a prominent member of the community. She was too young to accomplish very much.

She just died.

But in dying, she left behind a lasting legacy that we still remember over a century later.

It’s coming up on the anniversary. Ida Yost, the ghost who inhabits my home, committed suicide on August 19, 1905.

I’ve written about Ida before. Many times. But I wanted to write another column on her for the anniversary, because A) Her tragic story deserves to be remembered, and B) I can do this one quickly from memory.

Ida Yost was born on February 1, 1888, one of seven children of George and Lydia Yost. The family lived on South Fairview Street, in the home that I bought almost a century later. When my wife and I first moved in, back in 2003, we heard noises. Footsteps at night, in the stairs and the hallway. Once, a clock flew off the kitchen wall for no reason. Sometimes we’d hear various thumps and bangs that we couldn’t explain.

I dug into it, and did the research on the house. I traced back the deeds, and learned who had lived there over the years.

And there, I found Ida.

Ida Yost was a young, largely unhappy girl. Her mother died in 1901, when Ida was only thirteen. Ida had to drop out of school to take care of her little sisters—The oldest sister, Blanche, was living with relatives, and the next oldest sibling was the family’s only boy, and not expected to do child care. So the job fell to Ida.

Her father, George, was an abusive alcoholic. I don’t know for sure the details on what was done to Ida, and honestly I don’t want to think about it too much. But it’s clear that she was abused by her father.

Ida couldn’t handle it.

On August 19, 1905, she stood out on her back porch and killed herself.

She drank an ounce of carbolic acid, which was a horrible way to die. (Not that there are very many pleasant ways to die.) Ida’s mouth and throat were badly burned. She held out as long as she could, but finally began to scream. Her father ran out and found her there. He carried her into the house and sent one of the girls running for a doctor, but it was too late. Ida died in about twenty minutes, and was buried next to her mother in Highland Cemetery.

Her death sparked the investigation that ended up with her father arrested on charges of neglect and alcoholism. By this time, only three of her younger sisters still lived at home—The next oldest, Carrie, had left home to live with a boyfriend in Beech Creek immediately after Ida’s death.

It was almost a hundred years later when my wife and I bought the house and moved in. When we began to hear noises and experience weird things, I did the research. Ida had largely been forgotten by that point; her life was too short to have left much of a mark on the community. I really had to dig to find her.

But Ida’s story….It sounds strange to say, but Ida seems to be a suicide with a happy ending. Now that I’ve told her story, now that the community remembers her, she seems to be more content. Granted, it’s hard to discern much emotion from a few bumpy noises in the night, but I get the sense that she’s happier.

Ida is supported now more than she ever was during her life. She has a family in the house that cares for her, and the community knows and respects her. She has dogs to play with, and sometimes at night, when everyone else is asleep, I talk quietly to her. I’d like to think that she sometimes looks in on my son, Paul Matthew, as he sleeps. I think they’re both okay with that; Ida with a little one to look after again.

Over a hundred years after her death, Ida has support. I’d like to think that satisfies her, makes her happy as she moves about the house. Finally cared for. After all this time, at peace.