As you drive into Bodie from the kiosk entrance, distanced from the main town site, and across the street from the cemetery, the Moyle House sits on the edge of the meadow.  Ella Haynes spent her childhood summers in this home which was originally owned by her grandparents, Thomas Nelson Moyle, and Daisy (John) Johnson Moyle. Ella’s father was the first of six children, all raised in Bodie. The home was used by various family members as a summer home until its reluctant sale to the State of California when the fading mining town turned ghost town was designated a California State Historic Park in 1962.

The Moyle House is one of the first buildings visitors see when entering Bodie from the south. The main town is off to the right. The map below (from USGS Bodie topo, 1994) shows the Moyle House in relation to the rest of Bodie.

In 2010 I had the pleasure of meeting Ella Haynes, and have kept up a friendship with her through the magic of modern social media. We recently spent a morning comparing stories of life in Bodie then and now. Ella fondly remembered how she and her siblings entertained themselves and we pondered over whether children today could keep themselves entertained in an isolated town with three kids and three or four adults minus electricity, phone, radio or television.

The close proximity the Moyle house had to the graveyard made it a favorite spot for Ella to run up to and climb inside an abandoned casket to greet tours as they arrived. She also recalls being able to hear sounds of voices and shovels on rocks when she was in her bed at the house trying to sleep. The following day Ella’s Dad and Bobby Bell would find bones dug up where someone had been searching for jewelry, and she would hear them talk about what they would do if they caught someone up there digging.

Graves in the Bodie Cemetery can be seen in the hillside behind the Moyle House.

Strains of music caught Ella’s attention one evening, so she set out to investigate. Instead of a ghost she found an Irish tourist with a set of bagpipes. He was camped out down below the present day entrance of the park.  He couldn’t see her, so she started applauding. “That was my radio entertainment…..I guess.”

The original outhouses still stand next to the homes and businesses in Bodie. Ella’s grandparents' home had indoor plumbing when she was a child, but she would often slip out at night to tend to her business and listen to the ghosts talking to her through the half moon air vent. “Who knew ghosts liked outhouses?” Ella laughs today. “Because of the ghosts in the outhouse I got a spanking in the middle of the summer when my parents figured out that the smell outside the front door was where my sister and I would go at night….it was fine during the cold months but not so sweet during the heat of summer.”

Worse than ghosts in the outhouse, Ella remembered “….one night there was a big earthquake and the bed bounced halfway across the room and sleeping in the bathtub because the coyotes were howling right outside the window and if my sister needed to use the potty that night she was too scared also!!”

Animals have always been a big part of life in Bodie. The sage hens, that still frequent the town today, were fun for Ella and her siblings to walk up to and watch fly in a circle just like a boomerang and fly right back to your feet since they didn’t stay in the air long and always came right back. The sage hens also provided food instead of domestic chicken or turkey, for Ella’s family. To take the strong taste of sage away, it was best to soak the hens in water for a short time then rinse them off thoroughly after the soaking.

A bull once charged Ella and her sister as they came across the meadow. Ella made her sister climb into a large pipe that was out there and started yelling until the adults could come rescue them. Mother came with one high heel on and one in her hand and went after the bull. When the bull wandered off, Ella’s sister found herself stuck in the pipe.  Bobby Bell got down to help her out, and decided that they would have to leave her there to go into Bridgeport to get help to get her out. “No don’t leave me!” cried the sister, as she managed to crawl out.  She wasn’t stuck at all, she just felt safe inside the pipe.

A popular Bodie ghost story during Ella’s childhood, was told about a donkey that was taken down into one of the mineshafts and got so big and fat they had to leave him down there when most of the town was gone. The donkey wore a bell around his neck and early tourists would swear they heard the bell of the ghostly donkey ringing. Ella knew better, as there was always one cow in town with a bell around its neck so the other cows would follow it. If sheepherders were around their donkey or one of their goats also wore bells. It was great fun to listen to the tourists talk of the “ghost” of the poor donkey and watch their faces turn white as a sheet.

When you live in an abandoned town, the most asked question you get is if you have ever had any ghostly encounters. Modern Bodieites spending a season in the Moyle and other residential houses swap stories at night for entertainment after hours. Ella shares her ghostly stories and admits that perhaps the “rotten kid” inside her had something to do with many of them.