Spooks, Spirits, & SMU

Students at SMU don’t have to travel far to be scared thisHalloween. There are great, creepy places all over Dallas —you just have to have the guts to find them.

For a trip really close to home, students just need to go overto the local library. One of the stories about Fondren Librarytells the tale of a ghostly professor who haunts the eighth floorof the West stacks.

Colton Van Dusen, a junior computer engineering major, said heheard the story his freshman year from his resident assistant.

“I heard it was one of the old university presidents whodied in his office, and now the stacks are haunted by him,”he said.

Brian Fox, a junior electrical engineering major, said he is notsurprised there’s a legend about the stacks.

“It’s pretty spooky up there,” he said.”You can hear howling up there all the time.”

Marcella Stark, one of the librarians from Research Services,said she could not be sure if the story was more than an urbanlegend.

“I’ve talked to several colleagues, but no one canremember what actually happened. Most of us think the story wascreated by a local professor who just knew how to tell a goodstory,” she said.

Betty Friedrich, a librarian from DeGolyer Library, said shealso assumes the story is an urban legend. “The actual storymight be that back in the 50s, when President Umphrey Lee had anoffice in the West stacks. After he retired, he was in his officeand had a heart attack. But he didn’t die in thelibrary,” she said.

Stark said the wind was responsible for the howling noises heardby students. “It just whistles through the cracks in thewalls around the windows. I would doubt there’s a ghostrattling around up there.”

SMU’s local howler isn’t the only legend from aroundDallas, though. Snuffer’s Bar and Grill, a long-time favoriteof many SMU students, is also said to be haunted.

According to the Southwest Ghost Hunters’ Association,guests and employees have seen a ghost. The phantom supposedlyemerged after the remodeling of the restaurant and is said to beseen mostly in the hallway that connects the old building with thenew addition.

Before the remodeling of the restaurant, some legends say theold section of the restaurant attracted a rougher crowd.Supposedly, some woman was stabbed in the hallway and managed toget outside through the door before bleeding todeath. Several years later, the restaurant was bought andconnected to another café. The woman’s ghost haslurked around ever since.

While none of the current waiters or waitresses admit to seeingany suspicious activity, in 1998 SGHA documented several strangephenomena. Supposedly, the green hanging lamps in the old diningroom started to swing in unison, and no attempts to duplicate theevent were successful. Strange cold spots allegedly occur in thehallway and near the old doorway. According to several of thecurrent waitstaff, customers have often complained about the ACbeing on too high when seated close to the hallway, either inthe old dining room or the old bar.

According to SGHA and Lone Star Spirits, another Texas-basedparanormal research group, Snuffer’s has a high probabilityof being haunted.

A more scenic SMU hangout, White Rock Lake, is also allegedlyhaunted. According to The Dallas Morning News, several versions ofthe story have been developed over the years. A special report onthe newspaper’s Web site states the general story is of ahigh school couple that drove to the lake on prom night. When thecar’s emergency brake was accidentally released, the carrolled into the lake, and the girl drowned.

“Her ghost is said to appear dressed in the wet prom dresshitchhiking on streets near the lake. Good Samaritans mistake theghost for a person and give her a ride only to find that the ghostdisappears and leaves behind a pool of water,” the Web sitestates.

Other versions of the story place the initial tragedy in theearly 1920s. This account describes a bootlegger and his ladyenjoying an evening on his boat at the lake. The two had anargument during the evening, and when the boat docked, the lady ranfrom the deck, jumped into the man’s car and drove off. Theroads around the lake were not well maintained at the time, and thewoman was probably intoxicated. As she drove, she lost control ofthe car, it plunged into the lake, and the woman drowned.

According to SGHA, her spirit materializes as a young woman in asoaking wet evening dress. “She requests to be taken to acertain address, then disappears, leaving a wet seat. The lady hasbeen known to leave her wrap in the car, bear[ing] a 1920s styleNeiman Marcus label,” the organization’s Web sitestates.

According to Lone Star Spirits, the lake is reportedly haunted,though SGHA only admits that there appears to be sufficientevidence to warrant a more detailed search of the area.

Docia Schultz Williams, author of Best Tales of Texas Ghosts andZinita Fowler, author of Ghost Stories of Old Texas, both tell thestory of strange crying children in Carrollton. Sometime around theturn of the century, a new family moved into Carrollton.

Williams said, “They were a very serious family, and thechildren never laughed or played with the neighbor children. Then,one day the whole family just disappeared.”

Fowler writes that a concerned preacher initiated a search partyfor the family, but despite days of searching, the family was neverfound. Soon after the family’s disappearance, lighteningstruck the house, burning it to the ground.

According to Fowler, a peddler came into town months later. Onhis way, he passed the ruins of the house. Supposedly, he heard the”the unmistakable sobbing of a child … By the light of therising moon, he saw again the forms of three children, ghostlypale, standing by the ashes of the old house.”

Williams said people claim to this day, when they are walking inthat area around dusk, “they can hear the children, whoaren’t there, crying out in the fading twilight.”