Mrs. L. E. Bates’s Daughter

Note: This case is only included due to the reported incidents of the Mrs. Bates’s daughter at the time of death rather than the general focus of the letters on Mrs. Bates herself and her claimed “premonitory” dream.

The following case is interesting as complicating a premonition with a vision of the dying associating the person who instigated the dream and the person whose life was concerned. The dream of itself would not be more than symbolic, but with the vision of the dying it is more striking.

May 1st, 1907

I met Mrs. L. E. Bates a few days ago and the present account is in response to my request that her dream be recorded. I found her an excellent witness especially that she was exceedingly sceptical in her views of this whole subject tho as anxious to have evidence of a future life. She had, in her many experiences with mediums, been keenly perceptive of their weaknesses and had remarked the little facts which betoken fraud. She had come to the conclusion that the whole craft consists of frauds.

(James H. Hyslop)

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It was night and I had gone to sleep when suddenly a vision as plain as day, just as though a stage curtain was drawn aside, and two beautiful shrubs, a snowball and a hydrangea, very tall for bushes, and perfectly laden with the whitest of blossoms, not a tint of any color on them, was before me. On the top of the bushes a light snow had fallen. My husband was in front of them dressed in evening dress and looked at me with a smile. He broke off three snowballs, pointed to the snow that covered the bushes and vanished. I found myself sitting up in bed and said, “That was not a dream, it was my husband and he has come to warn me of my death.” He was dead and one little daughter, and I thought the third blossom meant me. This was in the winter so I commenced to prepare for death. Had a married daughter living West. Informed her of my dream. She too, seemed to think it my death warning. This daughter was what I thought in perfect health and a beautiful woman, but on the sixteenth of March she passed away with what the doctors said was paralysis of the heart. Her sickness was of short duration but she said just before she died, “Why, there is papa, yes, that is Papa sure.” Mrs. Bates’ husband was not living.

L. E. Bates

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Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, (New York: Volume 5, 1911), p. 372-373.

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1. A cursory look into “Mrs. L. E. Bates” tied to similar themes in America may suggest this is the same “Mrs. L. E. Bates” mentioned in the The Hobart Independent published out of Hobart, NY. This would make sense due to the proximity to the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) and Dr. James Hyslop.
   
   W.C.T.U. Convention: County White Ribboners in Session at the County Seat—New Officers, (Hobart, NY: The Hobart Independent, Vol. 23, No. 19, August 31st, 1907), p. 1. ↩︎