A Chaminade ghost story Some night when the mists rise from the creek, take a walk down Cemetery Lane. For a hundred years, the old path has split Chaminade College Preparatory School. It runs by the ball fields, passes the sweet gum trees, crosses the shrouded creek and ends in the old cemetery. There, for years, rested the bones of Marianist brothers who ran the Catholic boys school in Creve Coeur. Those bones are gone now, unearthed and moved to make way for houses and families. But, some say, the brothers remain. What? You don't believe in ghosts? Neither did so many who work at Chaminade. But Gloria McCoy saw that shadow slide by one day a few years ago. Deanna Bailey heard the invisible children laugh and yell in those hallowed halls. Charlie Jones felt the brother walk by, up on the fourth floor, where the boys used to live. No wink-and-nod here. Ghost stories are as popular around St. Louis as candy corn on Halloween. But staff at Chaminade tell these tales quietly, with straight faces and quick smiles. They understand: Some folks can't believe something like this. Just wait, they say. Wait till it walks by you. "There's a lot of strange things that have happened here," Bailey said recently. "People are going to say it's really silly. But it happened." For McCoy, it started a few years ago, when the counselors were moving their offices into Frische Hall, where the brothers used to live. First, someone said hello, yet when she turned around, no one was there. Then a desk chair rolled inexplicably. One day, McCoy was talking with a co-worker. His eyes darted to the
left. By the time her head swung around, the vision was gone. About two years ago, housekeeper Deanna Bailey was mopping her way across a room into a corner, where she kept her bucket. But when she got to the corner, there was no bucket. She looked up, and there it was, in the middle of the room — the bucket, two spray bottles and a gray cart, all in a perfect line. After that, Bailey heard radios turned on without warning. She saw toilets flush for no reason. She heard children running and laughing on stairwells, yet found none upstairs. "I won't come over here at dark, I swear to God," she said. But possibly the most well-known ghost story at Chaminade comes from facilities engineer Charlie Jones. One night about three years ago, well after midnight, Jones got a phone call. The school's alarm company said a smoke detector was malfunctioning. Jones met his boss at Chaminade Hall. They found the alarm, and were waiting on the fourth floor for the repairman to arrive when, at one end of the hall, a door creaked. They looked, Jones said, but no door opened. Then they heard a click. And another. And another. It was the unmistakable sound of shoes on hardwood, Jones said, even though the hallway was carpeted. The sound came right up to the two men, passed between them and continued down the hall, as if something was opening and closing each door all the way down. At the opposite end, the squeaking doors stopped and the steps came back, passed the men again. A door creaked open and shut. Then the hall went silent. "We'd always been told Chaminade Hall was haunted," he said. Since then, other workers have told Jones the same. Marianist Brother Louis Pinckert, who lives at Chaminade, hadn't heard these stories. But he said he understood them. At one time, the fourth-floor of Chaminade Hall housed boarders. Each night, a brother walked the hall, Pinckert said, opening each door to make sure students were in bed. Back then, the floors weren't carpeted. Those yells and shouts from invisible children? At one point, Chaminade taught fourth graders on up, he said. And he wouldn't be surprised if Father James Canning was still walking through Frische Hall. When the school remodeled years ago, Canning lost his room and never got over it, he said. Does Pinckert believe? "Until I get evidence one way or the other, I think it's possible," he said. Jim Zolnowski, the school's head of library and archives, loves the stories. Each, he says, is a chance to teach history. For 50 years, brothers lived and died at the school, he said. Are there spirits still here? "I do think folks are so attached to this campus," he said, "they find it hard to leave." And for those unconvinced, said Zolnowksi, well, try this: Some night when the mists rise from the creek, follow Cemetery Lane, the road that splits the 100-year-old campus and ends at the old cemetery, where so many brothers were buried. Take the road west, toward the creek. Pass the hall where brothers lived and died. Duck under the sweet gum trees, and step onto the old bridge. There. See that shrine under the pin oaks? See the crumbling concrete pushing through the grass in front of you? That's it. That's where the brothers were buried. Shh. Listen. Hear that? |