By Anna Corbett, Staff Writer
Halloween is almost here. What better time to revisit Newman’s long history with ghosts and hauntings, which have been talked about as long as Newman has been around?
Here’s a compilation of some of Newman’s ghost stories that might not be very well known. They were shared by Shirley Rueb, who works as a volunteer in Newman’s archives. She has been at Newman for almost 50 years, and although she doesn't recall ever seeing ghosts, she said she has heard the many stories from students and staff.
Mystery Nun
Back when Newman was still known as Kansas Newman College, 1989 graduate Rosemary Veach would often help her mother, nursing professor Mary Veach, set up for nursing pinning ceremonies. She had helped her mother for years set up the receptions after the ceremony in the original Beata Hall.
Rosemary recalled often seeing a woman dressed in traditional habit attire with rimmed glasses and a pale face observing her set up the punch and cookies table. The woman would look at the display, smile at Rosemary, and walk on.
When Rosemary asked who this nun was, her mother had no idea. Rosemary reported that she had seen the nun all the years she set up the reception and never knew who it was. She believed it to be the spirit of a nun who had passed on, checking her work.
The child of DeMattias
In the early 1950s, there was a sister at Newman who was known for teaching art as well as painting commissioned portraits. She was commissioned to do a painting for a couple that had lost their young son to leukemia.
Her studio was located in Room 201 of the original DeMattias Hall, which existed before the DeMattias Hall we know today. The studio in the old building had a door that led to a low roof. Neighborhood children were often heard playing on the roof. The sister would hear laughing and running above her, which became very irritating.
One night, the noise became too much for the sister, and she stepped out to ask the kids to quiet down. When she did so, a young boy with a sad face looked over the edge. The noise stopped, and she was able to finish the painting – which was suddenly easier to capture since the boy in the reference images was the same boy she recognized from the roof.
McNeill’s Ghostly Bride
McNeill served as dorms when it was first built in 1961 but now is full of offices and classrooms. McNeill has a rich history of housing not only students but also ghosts, according to a few students.
During a particularly slow summer in 1980, two employees, Lori Creagan and Chris Campbell, were sent to the top floor of McNeill to clean out a room to be used as a dorm for the upcoming
school year. As they were cleaning out the room, they found an album of wedding photos as well as a wedding dress, all from the 1970s.
When the items were brought to one of the sisters, she immediately recognized the woman in the photos as a former student of Kansas Newman College. The woman was known for her love of the college: Because of her orphan past, she felt the school was her family and adopted community.
In her junior year, she met a man and later married him, although she was hesitant to do so. She left the school and was known to call her old dorm mates and express that her married life did not compare to her life at college. She longed to return.
The young woman died in a car accident a few months later. Her old roommate reported seeing a figure walking the path to McNeill most nights with arms outstretched. The roommates also said they heard knocking, but when they opened the door, no one was there. The roommates recognized the woman to be their old roommate coming back to her true home.
PHOTO: Courtesy, Unsplash
