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| (Photo: J. Rubio) |
Tucked away in the
middle of the historic Stockton Rural Cemetery in Stockton, California, you
will find many locally historic graves and crypts. One that particularly stands
out in the "unexplained" department is the final resting place
of 10 year old Daisy Dryden and her siblings: brother "Allie" and
sister "Nellie." Daisy’s story became
famously known for her visions of heaven and the "other side", she
claimed to have seen while on her death bed.
Daisy Dryden was born on September 9, 1854 in Marysville, California.
She was the daughter of Reverend David Anderson and his wife. She was named
Daisy, “because she was such a petite
child, with such large, luminous brown eyes, that to us she seemed like the
dawn of a beautiful spring morning, and so we gave her that name because it
signified the opening of the eye of day.” The two Dryden daughters, only two years
apart, were very much loved by their mother. Though Daisy was mentioned as
having brown eyes, Lulu’s eyes were a beautiful blue, and “these two darlings made sunshine whereyer they lived.”
Her mother recalled that Daisy wasn’t a perfect child, but who really is
at that young of an age? “There were
times when she was self-willed and even to stubbornness. Obedience was often a
very bitter morsel. She had a quick temper. There would be a sudden flaming up
of fire in those brown eyes, and angry words would follow. And then there would
be just a sudden repentance.”
Although Daisy was a lot like most children, at
times she was also not like most children. She was very in tune with other
people’s feelings, what today we would call empathetic. She also had a very
strong faith in God, and once when her mother was very ill, she saw her father
crying and took it upon herself to go pray that God would make her better. She
told her father that she had prayed and that God was going to heal her, and she
miraculously recovered.
She was also not afraid of the dark, which was uncommon for young
children, particularly girls. Lulu, her older sister was terrified of the dark
and always asked Daisy to come everywhere with her when it was dark. Daisy would speak as logically as an adult
when she’d say, “There is nothing in the
dark which is not there in the light.”
Daisy also loved the outdoors, nature and a beautiful view. “Once she said, ‘I should like to
climb to the top of that high mountain, because, you say, there are no clouds
there, and we might see the angels looking down on us.” – (this is when the
family was living in Nevada City, California). “There was a beautiful garden in the front of the parsonage at Nevada
City, in which she loved to walk and talk to the flowers. She had at the time a little watering-pot.
One day a lady was passing and said: “Daisy, what are you doing?” “Oh, giving
the flowers a drink, and you ought to see them laugh,” she replied. She was
very fond of pansies and daisies; pansies because she could see faces in them,
and daisies because of her own name. She said one day, when we were in the
garden, “Let us have daisies every place we go, if we can have nothing else.”
She was also a little girl with a very sensitive conscience, even
praying for forgiveness to God and asking forgiveness of her mother one time
for picking blue bells (flowers she was not supposed to pick) and leaving them
under the rose bush. As her mother said, “this
circumstance showed how tender was her conscience at the early age of five.”
In the summer of 1864, Daisy became ill with “bilious fever,” but it
seemed she was going to recover. But her mother stated that by the afternoons
Daisy would droop and complain of weariness. The doctor was called and he
diagnosed her with Typhoid fever. She lay in bed for five weeks, struggling to
break the fever that tormented her poor little body. It seemed as though she had conquered the
illness and even her doctor believed she was “out of the woods,” so-to-speak,
and on the road to recovery. He even gave her a shiny new silver half-dollar
saying “This is for the little girl who takes her medicine so well.” But Daisy knew, for whatever reason, that she
was not going to get better. Her mother spoke of happy plans of them moving
back to Nevada City from San Jose, but Daisy would tell her, “Mamma, you will go to Nevada City, but I
don’t think you will take me with you.”
To her family it appeared that Daisy was getting better week by week,
but then one afternoon she lost all expression in her face, and stared into
thin air. Her father asked her what she saw and she claimed she could see
Jesus. That very night she fell ill once again, this time with enteritis, and
thus started the four days of visions before her tragic death. According to her mother the first 24 hours were the worst, as Daisy
could not eat, drink or take any sort of medicine. After that she claimed she
felt no pain, but her mind was very astute. Her sister would sing to her from
their school hymnal book, and she could recite poetry she had learned before.
She also enjoyed having her parents read the Bible to her. This was around the time she started mentioning that her brother, “Allie”
(Albion) would come visit her. Allie had died just seven months before, from
scarlet fever. She claimed that he would come to her every day, especially those
last three days of her life. Many times when her parents would ask her
questions that she felt she could not answer to them herself, she would say, “Wait until Allie comes, and I will ask him.”
As her mother put it, those three last days of Daisy’s life, she “dwelt in both worlds.” It appeared that
from what Daisy was experiencing, she could see through the veil so-to-speak, and
into the other realm that mortal eyes do not usually see. Daisy explained to
her father, “There is no curtain; there
is not even a line that separates this life from the other life.” And she
stretched out her little hand from the bed and with a gesture said, “It is here
and it is there, I know it is so, for I can see you all, and I see them there
at the same time.” For the last few days Daisy had several visitors and
with each visitor she claimed she could see to the other side and communicate
with their dead loved ones. She also told her mother only “No one, unless they have dying eyes can see spirits.”
Daisy loved when her sister Lulu would sing to her, and she always
enjoyed her singing this one particular song:
“Oh! Come, angel band,
Come, and around me stand.
Oh! Bear me away on your snowy wings
To my immortal home.” –
One time when Lulu finished singing it, Daisy stated, “Oh Lulu, is it not strange? We always
thought the angels had wings! But it is a mistake; they don’t have any.”
Lulu replied, “But they must have wings,
how else do they fly down from heaven?” “Oh, but they don’t fly,” she
answered, “they just come. When I think
of Allie, he is here.”
When asked how she could communicate with the spirit realm without
anyone hearing her speak or see her lips move, Daisy, in such a simple and
childish reply said, “We just talk with
our think,” meaning it was all through her mind. The day she died she asked her mother for a mirror to look at her face,
staring at her reflection for several minutes. “This body of mine is about worn out. It is like that old dress of
mamma’s hanging there in the closet. She doesn’t wear it anymore, and I won’t
wear my body anymore…..you will lay my body in the grave because I will not
need it again.”
Her mother opened the shutters to the window at Daisy’s request, so she
could look outside at the world one last time. Her father carried her to the
window and she bid goodbye to everything she saw. “Goodbye,
sky. Goodbye, trees. Goodbye, flowers. Goodbye, white rose. Goodbye, red rose.
Good-bye, beautiful world….How I love it, but I do not wish to stay.”
At 8:30 pm, Daisy told her mother that her brother Allie had told her he
would come for her at half past 11. She rested on her father’s chest and
shoulder and waited. Lulu kissed Daisy goodnight and started up the stairs to
go to bed. She could hear Daisy call out, “Good night and goodbye my sweet
darling Lulu.” By 11:30 pm, Daisy told
her father that Allie was there to take her away. She lifted both arms up and
reached in the air, saying “Come, Allie,”
and took her last breath.
Daisy succumbed to her illness on October 8, 1864, and was laid to rest
with her brother, “Allie” (David Albion) who died only 7 months earlier at the
age of 6 from scarlet fever. Her other sister "Nellie" (Helen) preceded
them in death and all three are buried together in the unendowed section, plot
# 25.
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Grave of Daisy, Nellie and Albion Dryden
Photo Credit: J.Rubio |
Her mother published a book in later years telling about their
experience in "Daisy Dryden, A
Memoir", published by Boston Colonial Press in 1909.
To this day her story remains a mysterious
one. Some people think she was only hallucinating due to her body and mind
shutting down, while others adamantly believe she genuinely saw into the spirit
realm.
For the record, there are no stories or reports of Daisy Dryden's spirit haunting the cemetery, nor has there ever been any reports of the cemetery itself being haunted. Believe it or not, this place is a tranquil place for those at rest, and in all the years I have visited, I have never had any sort of paranormal experience there. --
Photos: Copyright, J'aime Rubio, 2014
