Seeing two young girls rushing up and down the stairs, a man walking the expanse of the store right through to the front door, and hearing heavy footfalls coming from the second floor are all part of the sights and sounds experienced at Sisters Rock’n Gems.
The head-scratcher is that these reports are all about the ghosts that are said to haunt Corless House at 1276 Fourth Ave., Specialty Avenue, in downtown Prince George.
“When I come in here I feel very positive energy – I don’t feel anything negative ever,” said Sue Bloomingdale, co-owner of Sisters Rock’n Gems. “Right from Day 1 we’d hear a bang or some really heavy footsteps from the second floor and I’d be like ‘somebody snuck in the window!’ and I’d go running upstairs and there’s nobody there.”
Many customers and staff have shared their experiences and say they’ve seen spirits, especially one tall, thin man who walks with confidence around the store.
Bloomingdale believes it’s most likely Richard (Dick) Corless, who owned Corless House and lived in the home with his family from 1919 to 1947. The house was built in 1917.
Corless was a pioneer Prince George businessman who held several jobs during his lifetime, including car dealer, furniture dealer, undertaker and coffin maker.
“So customers have said they’ve seen this man and they see his wife standing a bit behind him,” Bloomingdale said. “When it gets busy in here, they go upstairs and two girls that are in long dresses play up and down the stairs. I have seen spirits but not the two little girls but I have definitely heard them.”
Bloomingdale said the ghosts play tricks on her, too, by moving stuff around quite often.
“We had a psychic here at an event called Evening of Clairvoyance and there were about 20 people here,” Bloomingdale recalled. “We were all sitting here and it was really quiet and all of a sudden we hear ‘stomp, stomp,’ really loud.”
So once again Bloomingdale went running upstairs only to find nobody there.
“I’ve seen a spirit as real as you and me and I’m talking to it and of course he wouldn’t talk back and it turned and walked out the closed door,” Bloomingdale smiled. “And I’m like ‘holy crap!’ You know what? I’ve always kind of believed but until you actually see it … And people who say that it’s not true – perhaps they’ve never seen anything themselves and I say 'whatever.' I’ve seen flashes of light where there’s no source of light, lights turning on and off and things moving without any other explanation.”
One day a customer came into the store wanting to get a banner off the wall over the couch in the back.
“She was a very nice lady and she said she had wanted to get the banner but there was a lady there in spirit,” Bloomingdale explained. “And she said ‘I think it was your mom and she wants you to know that she’s here with you and this has never happened to me before and I’m really scared and I’ll probably never come back to your store,’ and she walked out.”
Bloomingdale said she knows spirits are in Corless house.
The question is: where did the little girls come from?
Bloomingdale has a theory.
In 1918 the influenza pandemic hit, killing an estimated 50 million people worldwide. It’s considered one of the worst pandemics in history.
“Dick Corless was an undertaker for about 15 years and when the plague hit his funeral home was so full he couldn’t fit all the bodies there,” Bloomingdale said about the research she had done.
Bodies were brought to be piled in a shed in the back yard of the family home until spring thaw when they could be buried, she added the information she had been told by community members.
So perhaps the two young girls dressed in long white dresses were part of that, Bloomingdale theorized.
“When we first moved the store here and started realizing there was spirit here we had a psychic come in and she told us they were happy we were here and they protect us,” Bloomingdale said. “And I believe that. When the explosion happened (Aug. 22, 2023) there was no damage.”
Corless House is a little more than half a block away from the explosion site of the old Achillion restaurant located at 422 Dominion St.
Bloomingdale gestured to all the art hanging on the walls, the jewellery on racks, crystal balls and artwork on tables.
“Look at this place – nothing fell,” Bloomingdale said. “Nothing in the whole store was damaged and all my neighbours had their windows blown out – including the frames – and even those further away from the blast had damage, but not us.”
She said they've been lucky.
“I don’t know why the spirits don’t move along but they’ve never bothered us," she said. "I think maybe they like it here. You can believe or don’t believe. Once you’ve experienced it, then you know.”
