“Where can one come in contact with ghosts?” I asked her.
This haunted tour guide was my last hope. I was 21 and had always kept the pathways open to the paranormal. No bites yet.
She told me about three locations close to us (in Lawrence, Kansas):
- Haskell Indian Nations University, where Native American children were “educated.” That’s oppressor-speak for “stripped of their culture and integrated into white society.” Many died from disease while living at the school.
- Stubbs Mansion, now home to the Sigma Nu fraternity. The maid of former Kansas governor Walter Stubbs is often seen walking down the halls of the fraternity.
- The Eldridge Hotel, home to the “elevator ghost,” who will sometimes redirect elevator patrons to the fifth floor. Room 506 has a piece of the original hotel, which burned down when William Quantrill and his pro-slavery forces raided Lawrence in 1865.
What happens when you find a ghost? I asked her.
“They can’t harm you,” she said. “And remember ghosts are not violent in nature. You can simply ask them to leave. They don’t belong here. We do.”
Oh.
For some reason, this answer was one of the great disappointments in my life – worse than Santa and the Tooth Fairy. As if the rules were just… made up.
Then came the clincher.
“What got you into ghost hunting?” I asked her.
Her fascination with the spiritual realm came while she was hosting a radio show in a small Kansas town. A group of ghost hunters came on to her show, with whom she later joined in their spectral scavenges.
She’s been leading haunted house tours around Kansas and Missouri ever since.
“Cocktails were involved,” she told me.
And just like that, I no longer had any interest in visiting those “haunted” places.