Millie's Run
Mildred “Millie” Fitzsimmons for five days vanished. Nobody knew where she went. Her older sister Elizabeth had not a clue, her parents, her neighbors, and friends all had no idea. It wasn’t until Christmas day five days later in 1891, when Millie finally came home.
Frozen to the bone, and barefoot Millie collapsed into the arms of her mother Fannie. When Fannie asked Millie the obvious question of where had she been all Millie could muster was “The Tall Man in The Woods.”
The home of Fannie and her husband Henry Fitzsimmons was located in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. A small town nestled outside of the big city Boston. Like most small towns this one had its own stories and folk lore. The town is bordered by a wood, to which, the parents have passed down the story that was told to them. Which is not long, in fact, it would more or less be considered a warning: ” Do not go into the wood after sundown, for there is a monster of un-human proportions that lurks amongst its trees. With cold red eyes, epically tall, with a smell of mildew and pine, at night you can hear his whistle that glides through the air, you would be wise to not go into the wood until an hour after dawn.” To reiterate parents would tell this to their children and by all accounts would say it in the most serious of tones. Millie and Elizabeth were well aware of what lurked inside the woods, but Millie seemed more intrigued than Elizabeth. In their bedroom Millie began simply looking out towards the wood. Elizabeth would firmly say “Millie, time for bed,” and Millie would come back to bed. This went on for weeks and Millie was becoming more entranced and enthralled by the wood outside their bedroom window. For months this carried on, but only in their bedroom. Elizabeth did her best, and wouldn’t say a thing to her parents being older and feeling responsible for Millie she figured she could handle it.
A couple of months went by of this then Thanksgiving came around, and it wasn’t until then when Fannie and Henry finally noticed the strange happening. The family was over for the holiday and as the day turned into night Millie had slowly gravitated towards the downstairs living room window. Her right ear pressed firm against the cold glass window pane while her parents looked on with bewilderment. They let her be, for Millie had always been just a little different, they loved her all the same, but she was just different. That evening as Henry carried Millie to bed Millie stirred and woke herself up. She was half asleep when Henry asked her “honey, what are you listening to?” Millie in a soft and tired voice simply replied “It’s a beautiful song daddy.” After he put her to bed he placed his ear against the cold window pane, but all he heard was the wind blowing around the snow that had begun to fall. What he was not hearing was the whistle coming from the wood.
A few weeks went by with more of the same, Millie sitting with her ear pressed firm against the window. Then, on December 20th 1891 Millie never returned home. According to Elizabeth, Millie and her had met some friends to go sledding at the big hill located less than half of a mile from home and just on the edge of town. The sun was getting lower in the sky, and it was time for supper. Elizabeth and Millie said good-bye to their friends and walked off. Millie however, did not want to go. She didn’t say anything, and Elizabeth begged, pleaded, and tugged at Millie to come home but to no avail. After some time doing this Elizabeth out of frustration said “fine stay here, but Mom and Dad are not going to be happy if they have to come out here and get you.” Those words would have worked hours ago, but alas they had no effect. Elizabeth said later that Millie just seemed “entranced by something only she (Millie) could see in the wood.”
The bottom of the hill leads into the wood where Millie had been watching and listening for months now. Elizabeth worried and scared hurried home, and told her parents. Henry took off running and when he arrived at the hill there was nobody there. There was no sign other than Millie’s sled. The empty dark space did not lend to any easy tracking. Footprints were hard to make out, as this was the spot where the kids were playing. Henry began bellowing Millie’s name, loud. So loud the neighbors awoke and arose. The men joined Henry down the hill and on into the wood. No sign, no trace, nothing. Just cold dark air running through the wood, and from morning till night they searched that woods. Every inch, but they came up with nothing. Deflated and dejected Christmas morning came, and Henry with these feelings begrudgingly tied up his boots and dressed himself determined to find his daughter, and as he came down the stairs that’s when he saw Millie in the arms of Fannie. Millie was cold, tired, and hungry seeing Millie this way Henry, her mom, and sister simply held her. Glad to have her home, and glad she appeared in good condition. The constable came by later in the day, but held off any questioning until she was in better spirits and nobody really knowing if she would ever be in better spirits.
Millie spent Christmas day in a bewildered state of confusion and whistling. Her sister Elizabeth recalled years later in a local newspaper article that “Millie kept whistling from dusk till dawn and only at these times never during the daylight hours.” Everyone could see that Millie was not well. Neighbors and friends and family had come by to visit over the Christmas holiday and all recounted the same things as Elizabeth the whistling and this confused look upon her face. Fannie tried everything from a priest to a strange concoction of dill weed, horse oil, goats milk, and honey but the whistling continued along with the her bewildered state. After a year of this Fannie began losing what if any control of herself that she had. Winters are harsh in New England, especially back then, and maybe it was the seclusion and harsh winter that drove Fannie mad, or maybe, and most likely, the “loss” of her daughter was too much to bare. Fannie waited until everyone was fast asleep, she walked out to the barn, climbed the ladder to where the hay was kept, tied a rope around one of the beams and her neck, and leapt to her death. As Fannie hung inside the barn Millie began whistling, loud, very loud. So loud that Henry awoke along with Elizabeth to find Millie sitting by a living room window that looked out toward the barn whistling and pointing toward the barn.
Eventually, Henry passed away as well of natural causes. Never succumbing to Millie’s “unfortunate circumstance” which he told the constable, he loved his daughter’s and did everything he could to provide for them, and always told them their mother loved them too. Elizabeth became Millie’s caretaker, and took to it splendidly. As Millie got older her whistling lessened and she took to writing six words over and over again, “The Tall Man in the Wood.” Millie never spoke except to say those six words. It was her answer for everything. Elizabeth began to wonder if it would just be best if they leave Fitchburg for somewhere new. Elizabeth began packing things up, and when it came time to leave Elizabeth recalled Millie’s “eyes turned red, her face flushed, and she was snarling as if to say we are not leaving.”
A year after that incident Millie penned a letter, set it on her sister’s bedside, and Millie was never seen again, Millie was 18. Millie’s letter was strange. She mentions the tall man, and thanks Elizabeth for caring for her for all those years, for feeding her for all those years, and genuinely loving her for all those years. Millie said in the letter “my reason for leaving is so you can have a life. I will always love you, and I will miss you but I must go now and it is time for you to move on.” Millie’s letter was not cryptic except if you count the tall man. She only says of the tall man “he has given me my turn.” With the letter written Elizabeth folded it up and put it in her pocket. She said that she walked over to the window and peered out to the wood, said good-bye and I love you and packed her things.
Elizabeth eventually married and had three children of her own. As much as she wanted to find Millie that day and every day thereafter, Elizabeth felt it best to let her be, and maybe that is all Millie wanted all along. To have never been seen from, nobody knows except for Millie.
Christmas Day 2008, three boys and one girl were all sledding down the very hill Millie had gone down a hundred years ago. Just after dark the kids running back home aghast and hysterical all said the same thing “where the bottom of the hill met the woods there was a woman dressed in white, with red eyes, long brown hair, and she was whistling, really loud!” A few weeks after the incident the little girl went missing, and was never found or heard from again.
Elizabeth was never able to get anything out of Millie. Millie just seemed to have lost her mind. Whatever happened in that wood had stayed there for more than a century, until the spring of 2008 when the town of Fitchburg had named the hill “Millie’s Run.” Then on Christmas Day the girl went missing. There had been no incidents, no accounts of anything strange coming from that wood up until then. The story was the same, parents told their kids not to go in, but nothing happened. Not until the city decided to name it after its most beloved daughter.
The Lost Woods as they were known are still there, and it is said that from Thanksgiving till January 6th and from dusk till dawn you can hear a loud whistle blowing through the woods. I have visited these woods, and to say they are creepy is an understatement. I did hear the whistle, and something else struck me. The hill leads right into the wood. Also, in terms of our time frame 1891 hysteria and going mad were common threads. As I stood atop the hill and looked out into the woods it was easy to see how someone could go mad. I was there a week before Christmas visiting my own family in Shirley, Mass. These creepy whistling woods have something eerily intriguing about them. It is not a thick wood nor is it skimpy either, but somewhere in the middle. In the winter it seems to come alive when in fact it is not. Maybe Millie heard the whistle in her head, maybe she was the only one to see “The Tall Man,” upon further inspection in the town records the constable James McFinneran left a note within his own notes regarding the case of Mildred “Millie” Fitzsimmons which said “I as a young boy hear these very woods whistle. I’ve seen red eyes from my bedroom window. The only difference between Millie and I is she went inside.”
There were plenty of accounts such as the constable’s as he questioned the older folks in town, but again nobody ever said they went in, and nor could they recall anyone that did. Maybe “The Tall Man” needed a successor, because recent accounts and accounts since 1905 only mention a woman.
Elizabeth passed away in 1931. In her hand she was clutching onto the letter Millie had wrote the day she left home. Mysteries left opened leave us hanging. They leave us with more questions than answers. For me this story that was told to me by my now deceased grandmother was never about Millie losing a part of her- self, rather, to me this story is about family. Given the times, the late 1800’s, in New England when insane asylums were on the rise, and one could be thrown into one for just about anything and any reason the Fitzsimmons stood by their sister and their daughter. Her mother being the exception, but Elizabeth recounts help from neighbors, and other friends and family all throughout her time spent with Millie till the day Millie went off for good.
While this story maybe dark, to me though this is what Christmas is all about. Being with family, and loved ones. Millie’s symptoms progressively became worse every year from Thanksgiving until after the New Year, but always by her side, was her eldest sister, Elizabeth.
