The legend of the Sigma Nu house involves a 17-year-old girl, (mistress?) a governor of Kansas (adulterer?) and a murderous wife (ghost?)
By JL Watson Kansan staff writer
The Sigma Nu fraternity house, 1501 Sigma Nu Place, is said to be haunted by the ghost of Virginia, Stubby, adopted daughter, who was strangled there in 1911.
Photo illustration by Susan McSoadden/KANSAN
The SigmaNu house sits high atop a hill at 1501 Sigma Nu Place, just another old house full of fraternity tradition to those who don't know of the legend held within its walls.
The house, once named Wind Hill, belonged to the governor of Kansas in the early 1900s. For reasons unknown, Governor Walter Roscoe Stubbs adopted a 17-year-old girl, Virginia Rackham-Stubbs. His wife protested the adoption.
Legend has it that in April 1911, while Stubbs was away in Topeka, Virginia was strangled in the house. He returned to find her body swinging in the third-floor ballroom.
The tragedy turned to mystery when rumors of an illicit love affair, a jealous wife and a murder made to look like a suicide surfaced. It is no wonder then that maybe, just maybe, the ghost of Virginia still roams the halls.
Fraternity members have passed along the legend that Virginia was buried in the massive stone fireplace that bears a plaque with the eerie message: "The world of strife shut out, the world of love shut in."
"It wasn't suicide at all," said Millie Hayes, Sigma Nu house mom. "When he came back and found Virginia, his wife was huddled in the corner in a comatose state. He had Virginia cremated, and later, he put his wife in an institution."
Hayes thinks that the ghost of Virginia haunts the house, but she does not think that Stubbs and young Virginia were involved romantically, she said.
"As far as he was concerned, she was his daughter. He adopted her, so she had probably lived a world of strife." Haves said.
As for the plaque above the fireplace, fraternity members said, a group of curious members removed it in 1978 to see what was behind it. They found a crypt large enough to hold two funeral urns, but the crypt was empty. If Stubbs put Virginia's ashes in the crypt, he took them with him when the house was sold to Sigma Nu in 1922.
Sigma Nu member Justin Tidwell, Topeka
sophomore, isn't sure Virginia's ghost exists,
but he does agree that strange things happen in
the house, he said.
"One time I went to Minnesota for spring break and came back in the middle of the week. No one else was here. I came in to get a drink, and I heard a radio playing downstairs." Tidwell said. "I was with a friend and her parents, and they heard it, too. At first, I thought someone left a clock radio on or something, but we searched the whole house, and nothing was on. When we came back downstairs, the music had stopped."
Hayes said that one year, during the annual Governor's Ball, a young woman had been in the third-floor hallway. She saw the vague figure of a woman in what she described as an old-fashioned dress. The young woman was so frightened that she ran down the stairs to the house.
Through the years, fraternity members have reported strange events and sounds.
mother's quarters. Hayes said.
"There's also another story that happened a couple of years ago," Hayes said. "One of the boys was here doing some work on his room upstairs. He had all the doors open. He got tired and decided to take a nap. As he was about to go to sleep, he heard the doors from all the way at the other end of the hall start closing, one right after the other. There wasn't any wind. He told me about it later, and I asked him what he did. He said, 'Mom, Iran!'"
"I would like to think it's all a bunch of crap," said Justin Morrison, Topeka senior. "But there have been too many things that couldn't have happened that have. I wig up one time and thought I saw her (Virginia) sitting Indian style in front of me. But when something like that happens, you think it's just your mind playing tricks. We haven't had any major thing in the past couple of years."
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OCTOBER 28,1993
PAGE 7
People and places at the University of Kansas.
calendar
NIGHTLIFE
Benchwarmers Sports Bar & Grill
1601 W. 23rd St.
Deep Blue Something, 9 tonight
Band Du Jour, 9 p.m. tomorrow
L.A. Ramblers, 9 p.m. Saturday
The Crossing
1.2th Street and Oread Avenue
Deb Girius and Bill Bauphine, 9 tonight
Toe Truck, 9 p.m. tomorrow
King Trash, 9 p.m. Saturday
Dos Hombres
814 New Hampshire St.
Eight Men Out, 10 p.m. tomorrow
Full Moon Cafe
803 Massachusetts St.
Nathan Meckel and Jordan Shelton 8:30
tonight
Tim Cross Jazz Group, 8:30 p.m. tomorrow
Arkansas White Trash Express, 8:30 p.m. Saturday
The Jazzhaus
926 1/2 Massachusetts St.
Tiny Tim, 9:30 tonight
Soul Shaker, 9:30 p.m. tomorrow
Soul Shaker, 9:30 p.m. Saturday
Costume Party with'L.A. Ramblers, 9:30 p.m.
Sunday
Rick's Neighborhood Bar & Grill
Ricky Dean Sinatra, 9:30 p.m. Saturday, $3
The Bottleneck
737 New Hampshire St.
Palladins, 8 p.m., Monterey Jack, 10:30
tonight, $6—18 and over only
Eve's Plum with Eleven, 8 p.m., Punkinhead,
10:30 p.m. tomorrow, $5—18 and over only
Baghdad Jones, 10:30 p.m. Saturday, $4
Halloween Bash: Baghdad Jones and Lonesome Hound Dogs, 9:00 p.m. Sunday, $5
Granada Theater
1020 Massachusetts St.
1020 Massachusetts St.
Dance Night with D.J., 8 tonight
Halloween Party: International Students Association, 9 p.m. tomorrow
Costume Party with D.J., 8 p.m. Saturday
'80s Night with D.J., 8 p.m. every Wednesday,
$2
Hockenburv's Tavern
1016 Massachusetts St.
1016 Massachusetts St.
Motherwell and Slam Jammy, 10 tonight, $3
Lonesome Hound Dogs, 10 p.m. tomorrow, $3
See CALENDAR, Page 8.
D