Ghosts along the Texas Coast (19 page)

Nancy told me when she was just a small child, about 7 or 8 years old, she had a very frightening experience which she has never forgotten. The family was living in Florida at the time. One night Nancy was restless and couldn't sleep. She got out of bed and went into the living room and lay down on the couch with the family pet, a big dog named Homer. She gazed up at the portrait of Elvie, which was hanging over the mantel. Imagine her shock as she saw the chest heaving up and down, as if the portrait were breathing, and then the lips started moving, as if she were speaking to Nancy. Nancy was so terrified she ran back to her bedroom, dragging the dog with her to sleep with her the rest of the night! She said it was a long time before she told her mother, as she was afraid no one would believe her, but she is convinced to this day that what she saw that night was real and neither a dream nor a figment of her imagination.

Catherine, who today lives alone in the big house, says she isn't afraid of Elvie, and indeed, rather enjoys having her spirit around. She does find it a bit annoying when the ghost plays childish pranks, probably to gain attention. We must remember, Elvie was barely 15 when she died, and she had led an extremely sheltered life, in Victorian days, so she really was very much a child at the time she passed away.

To illustrate what Elvie's spirit will do to gain attention, Catherine said she often removes her red earrings when she talks on the telephone. When she takes them off, they usually disappear right away. They will always reappear a few days later, generally in the middle of the dining room table or in the butler's pantry. Also, her favorite sewing scissors frequently quit their usual spot in Catherine's sewing box, which is kept in the pantry. Sometimes they are gone for weeks at a time. Then they always reappear in the box after their sabbatical with Elvie.

Catherine showed us a dear little china tea set that belonged to Elvie. The saucers are in the shapes of faces of cats and dogs. It is displayed on an antique whatnot stand. Catherine often hears the clinking of the china dishes as Elvie rearranges the pieces of one of her beloved former possessions. After hearing this, Catherine often catches a brief glimpse of the bottom of a long white skirt flying up the stairs! She has never seen the full figure of Elvie. But Nancy has!

About two years ago, when she was visiting her mother, Nancy decided the carpet in the front entry hall needed vacuuming. She was busily at work when she chanced to glance upwards. There, in the upstairs hall, peering over the stair railing was a full-length figure of a young girl, smiling down at her. The face gazing at Nancy looked exactly like the face of the portrait, except she was smiling. The hair, which in the portrait is arranged in corkscrew curls, was brushed out loosely about the shoulders. The apparition wore a white gown which looked to be a peignoir or granny gown, instead of the lace-edged blouse of the portrait. Nancy stood staring at the figure for several seconds, utterly in shock at what she saw. She finally looked down at the floor. When she glanced up again, the figure had totally disappeared!

The figure Nancy saw was probably how Elvie looked at the time of her death. Her hair would not have been so carefully arranged in long curls during a long spell of sickness, and she would have probably been wearing a long nightgown, also. Nancy confessed that seeing Elvie so plainly was pretty frightening.

We had such a lovely visit with Catherine that we were sorry we could not have spent more time with her. Catherine is head of the English department at the high school in La Marque. She is very contented there in her lovely big home with a trio of friendly cats, lots of friends, and frequent visits from her children, all grown up now. And of course, there is the sweet, playful spirit of Elvie to keep her company!

The largest city in the Southwest and the fourth largest in the nation, Houston, Texas, is a great metropolis. Named for General Sam Houston, whose army on April 21, 1836, defeated the Mexican army under General Lopez Antonio de Santa Anna, Houston began as a small riverboat landing founded by the Allen brothers in August of 1836. At the time of the battle between the Texan and Mexican forces, no town had yet grown up around the Buffalo Bayou where the battle was fought.

Today, Houston ranks among the top three seaports in the nation in total tonnage. It is connected to the Gulf of Mexico by a 50-mile-long ship channel. It is also the home of Johnson Space Center. It is a city whose main industries include petroleum, steel, cotton, and shipbuilding.

As Texas' largest city, it would come as no surprise to find that Houston is home to a plethora of ghosts. These errant spirits have singled Houston out as a fine place to do their nocturnal roaming, and show no signs of moving elsewhere!

I am deeply indebted to the staff at the Houston Public Library (which, incidentally, is haunted) for assisting me in my research in the area, and to several property owners and building occupants who have kindly shared their personal experiences with me.

Houston is the home of Rice University, an old and venerable institution whose academic standards have stood at the highest caliber since its doors first opened in 1912. The founding force behind this fine university was Mr. William Marshall Rice, and his story is well worth the telling. I am indebted to Greg Marshall, a resident historian at the university, for sending me a book entitled
A University So Conceived, a Brief History of Rice
, by John B. Boles, and to Dr. Boles for giving me permission to mention part of what I read in his most interesting book.

William Marshall Rice was born on March 14, 1816, in Springfield, Massachusetts. Like many young men of ambition, he came to Houston in 1839 when it was just a small frontier town. This was just three years after the Battle of San Jacinto, which won Texas her independence from Mexican rule. Rice was a very astute merchant, and he recognized the opportunities of running an import-export business in a locale close by the Gulf Coast. By the time the War Between the States broke out, Rice had become one of the wealthiest men in Texas. During the war, he moved south of the border, to Mexico, where he continued to trade in cotton. After the war he moved back East, but he kept his business interests in the Houston area.

Lovett Hall at Rice University in Houston

The wealthy Rice loved Houston and the people he had met in Texas. He wanted to do something meaningful for the community that had helped him to prosper. He had been married twice but had no children, so there would be no heirs. He spoke with Mr. Cesar M. Lombardi, former president of the Houston School Board, about building a municipal high school. Later, he changed his mind and decided instead to endow an institution to be called “The William M. Rice Institute for Advancement of Literature, Science, and Art.” He instructed that the Institute would be open free of cost to both male and female white students and should be nonpartisan and nonsectarian.

Rice gave several parcels of land to the proposed institution, and in 1896 after the death of his second wife, he willed most of his vast fortune to the founding of the Institute.

On September 23,1900, the eighty-four-year-old multimillionaire Rice died, apparently in his sleep, in his New York Madison Avenue apartment.

The day after his death, an observant clerk at Mr. Rice's bank in New York noticed that a large check bearing Mr. Rice's signature had come through. It was made out to a local attorney, whose name had been misspelled. When the banker called Rice's residence to verify the check he was told the old gentleman had died the previous evening. Sensing something was just not quite right, the banker advised Rice's attorney and very good friend in Houston, Captain James Addison Baker, that “Mr. Rice died last night under very suspicious circumstances.” This was all Baker needed to decide to depart for New York immediately.

As soon as Baker reached New York, he notified the New York district attorney's office, and they immediately became involved in the investigation that ensued. The details that came to light would provide a good plot for an Agatha Christie mystery! It seems that a New York lawyer, one Albert T. Patrick, and Mr. Rice's valet, one Charles Jones, had become involved in a scheme to murder Mr. Rice and get all of his money. The pair had carefully planned the scheme together, practicing signing Rice's signature, then drawing up a bogus will with a forged signature. The check, which was written by Jones, made out to Mr. Patrick, might have looked just like the Rice signature, but the none-too-brilliant Jones misspelled the name of his partner-in-crime when he wrote the check! The will, which lawyer Patrick had drawn up, left him as the legatee, leaving most of the Rice property to Patrick, and none to the proposed Institute.

Jones finally broke down and confessed that he and Patrick had chloroformed Rice in his sleep after the steady diet of mercury pills they had given him failed to kill him. Misspelling Patrick's name on the check Jones wrote later sent Patrick to Sing Sing. Jones was never imprisoned because he provided state's evidence.

The money finally went to establish the institution that Mr. Rice wanted, thanks largely to the investigation set in motion by his friend Captain Baker. In 1930 a fine statue of Mr. Rice, by sculptor John Angel, was dedicated on the Main Academic Quadrangle, and Mr. Rice's ashes were permanently interred at the base of the pedestal.

The first building to be contracted for the new educational facility was the Academic Building (renamed in 1957 to honor Rice's first president, Dr. Edgar Odell Lovett) now called Lovett Hall. Dr. Lovett led the university through its formative years, 1910-12 until 1946. This beautiful building, built in Spanish Renaissance style, was designed by Ralph Adams Cram of Boston, a noted architect of the time.

There are some people who have said they think Lovett Hall is haunted. Others vehemently deny it. There were some reports at one time, by security guards and custodians, that they had heard unexplain-able noises such as voices and footsteps on the stairs at night. There were some reports at one time that typewriters could be heard clacking away in the former typing rooms on the third floor, where no classrooms had been for years. But old buildings have a habit of making noises as they settle down for the night, and vivid imaginations can turn evening shadows or reflections into something spooky. Today's security staff no longer patrols the hall on a regular basis, and the custodial staff says they haven't heard anything in a long while.

There is one thing we can certainly be assured of; the indomitable spirit of a great man, William Marshall Rice, is still leading Rice University into a new millennium!

The Julia Ideson Building at the Houston Public Library, located at 500 McKinney Street, was built in 1926. For many years it housed the entire public library until the present library structure was completed to replace it in 1976. The Ideson Building, a beautiful facility that reminds me of historic libraries I have visited in Europe, is still open to the public. The building, which has an interesting history, houses the Texas and local history departments, special collections, archives, and manuscripts.

Julia Ideson was the Houston city librarian in 1920. She was to become the driving force behind the building of the library facility that today bears her name. She had long complained about the size of the old Carnegie Library, then Houston's only facility, which was too small for its ever-growing collections of books. The cramped stacks, overstocked bookshelves, and dimly lit reading alcoves made research work in the building a nightmare. Ideson finally convinced the library board that a new facility was essential to the fast growing city, and she began to visit library facilities all over the country. She visited New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Detroit, just to name a few cities, looking for the best plans and ideas for Houston to implement. The Reverend Harris Masterson Jr., an Episcopal priest, a collector of art, and a member of a prominent Houston family, was appointed by the library board as chairman of the building committee, and the project was set into motion.

The leading architect of his day in the field of Gothic Revival design was given the contract. Ralph Adams Cram of Boston had designed the famous St. John the Divine Church near Columbia University in New York, the original Rice University buildings, and had done some outstanding work on the campuses of Princeton University and West Point. The designer chose to go with Spanish Renaissance to exemplify the historical background of the colonial part of the southwestern United States. The central portion of the building was designed after the facade of the University of Alcala de Henares, built in that Spanish city in 1537. This was the alma mater of the great writer Cervantes, who gave
Don Quixote
to the literary world.

The elegant building opened in 1926. It was many years later, in 1976, that the library building was renamed to honor the woman who dedicated so many years to its service.