The Sigma Nu fraternity house, 1501 Sigma Nu Place, is supposedly haunted by a ghost named Virginia, according to house legend.
Matt Flickner / KANSAN
Tricks, Ghost Tales Beat Treats
Sometimes true, ghastly stories of hauntings and pranks prevail as Halloween traditions at the University of Kansas
By Craig Lang
Kansan staff writer
It's Halloween, a night of traditions.
It's the one night of the year when traditions influence children and adults to roam the streets dressed in costumes, pranksters to play tricks on those who won't give them treats and storytellers to pass on tales of ghosts that haunt area residents.
Two fraternity houses at the University of Kansas have stories of ghosts that haunt their rooms: the Sigma Nu house, 1501 Sigma Nu Place, and the Beta Theta Ppi house, 1425 Tennessee St.
The Sigma Nu house was built in 1907 for Kansas Gov. Roscoe Stubbs. The governor employed several maidservants to keep his house tidy, including one 17-year-old named Virginia. Karen Daeschmer, Sigma Nu house director, said Stubbs had an affair with Virginia.
The governor's wife eventually found out, and one day while Stubbs was in Topeka on business, his wife strangled Virginia. When Stubbs returned home, he found Virginia hanging by the light fixture in the ballroom and his wife sitting comatose in the corner.
Daeschmer said Virginia's ashes were placed in the wall by the fireplace, behind a plaque that reads, "The world of strife shut out, the world of love shut in."
Brian Hensyel, Topeka senior and Sigma Nu president, said that since Virginia's death, students and alumni had shared stories of strange happenings in the house.
Andrew Schauder, Green Bay, Wis., sophomore, said he had a run-in with Virginia when he was up late studying last fall. While he was studying, Schauder was listening to music from his multiple-compact disc player. All of a sudden, the CD player would skip discs by itself, playing the sixth song of every CD, Schauder said.
"I would turn the power off, and it would come back on," he said. "This went on for about 20 minutes."
Daeschmer said that Mildred Hayes, former house director, claimed that some nights she could feel Virginia's presence over her bed.
"She said she could smell her perfume," Daeschmer said.
Hensel said he did not believe in the ghost of Virginia, but it made for interesting stories when alumni came to visit. He said that every year, the fraternity turned the house into a haunted house for the Boys and Girls Clubs.
Hensel said that even though they did not share the ghost stories with the children, believing the house was haunted did motivate them to make the house as scary as possible.
"It gets people in the mood." he said.
Heck said that he did not know the origins of the ghost stories, and he did not believe the room was haunted. But he said it had given members the opportunity to scare others, such as sneaking up behind people when they walked into the room.
The Beta Theta Pi house has one room that is believed to be haunted. Brian Heck, Baldwin City senior, said some stories had been passed down, but none were as frightening as those at the Sigma Nu house.
"Nothing particularly unusual has happened," he said. "Just stuff like lights flicking on and off."
The citizens of Lawrence were often victims of Halloween pranks in the late 1920s to the mid-1940s. Soaping windows and stealing street signs were common practices of the times. The Lawrence police department often would have to
"I think they're just stories people made up about the house," Heck said. "But I'm sure there are a few guys who believe."
Tricks and treats
hire extra police to patrol the area on this night.
In 1941, the Kappa Alpha Theta house was the victim of another Halloween prank. This time, the women awoke the next morning to find a Model A coupe parked in their lawn, the Journal-World reported. They spent the next day trying to move the car, but could not get it to budge.
Pranks among the fraternity and sorority houses also were a Halloween tradition in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1937, the members of Kappa Alpha Theta woke on the morning of Nov. 1 to find an imitation grave on their lawn, complete with a mound of dirt and an authentic stolen headstone from 1886, the Journal-World reported. The culprits were believed to be members of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.
In 1929, the University Daily Kansan reported that a masked Halloween prankster entered a couple's home five miles south of Lawrence. The man gagged the couple and thrust them into a closet. He left without taking anything.
In 1933, two students on the way to the library on Halloween night were pounced on and stuffed into a stadium ticket booth turned upside down, the Kansan reported. The students finally were able to break one of the boards on the booth and escape by pushing their weight against it.
In 1945, the *Kansan* reported that the Chi Omegas had to dress in the dark on the morning of Nov. 1 after pranksters found the main electrical switch at 1:20 a.m. Cars in the front of the house also were covered with soap and "For Sale" signs. Chi Omegas found a straw shoe in the aisle.
In 1940, the domes of Fraser Hall were decorated with the white numerals '44, the Lawrence Daily Journal-World reported. A wire also was stretched across 14th Street from Templin to Carruth halls but was discovered before a car or individual collided with it. However, the most unusual trick of that evening was a chair left balancing on the high school's flag pole.
pong room of their house on the morning of Nov. 1, 1947, the Journal-World reported.
The Chi Omegas found a stray sheep in the ping.
The number of pranks among the greek houses and in the town of Lawrence decreased in the mid-1940s after many children caught on to the tradition known as trick-or-treating.
Carey Stuckey, Hutchinson senior and president of Kappa Alpha Theta, said pranks still continued among the fraternity and sorority houses, but when someone came up with a good idea, they did not wait for Halloween to come around anymore.
"When they get a funny idea," she said. "they do it right then."
Some tricks go too far
Sgt. Richard Nickell of the Lawrence police said Halloween pranks still occurred but not as frequently as they did in the 1930s and 1940s. He said that people were more likely to commit crimes on Halloween since many people would be away from their homes.
"Unfortunately, last year we had several incidents of people being robbed," he said.
Rozmilarek said to be aware that people would be walking around in large numbers, and several people would be wearing costumes with masks that could obstruct their vision. She said students needed to keep that in mind when they were on the road.
Sgt. Rose Rozmiarek of the KU police said that in the last few years, the number of crimes committed on campus had not increased on Halloween compared to the amount of crime committed on any other day of the year.
"We don't anticipate any more crime," she said.
"But we're always alert because it is Halloween."
"If they are driving, they have to be careful," she said.
Lead Story
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New rights
A Superior Court judge in Danbury, Conn., ruled in July that middle-school teacher Nancy Sekor was wrongly dismissed. She has been found incompetent in two of the three courses she teaches (English and social studies) but competent in business courses and thus, said the
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