The Jambar – 10/31/2006

Urban Legends Haunt YSU

October 31, 2006
By: Russell Howell

When we were kids, Halloween meant free candy. Each year, sticky children dressed as scary or cute as possible stop at every house with the porch lights on to get loaded on sugar. Halloween for college students may be a little bit different. Grave hunting, ghost stories, scary movies and urban legends help satisfy our curious taste buds. On today’s spooky holiday, Youngstown State University students sneak a creepy peek at some “urban legends” around campus.

When asked what their scariest moments are:

Angela DiLeo – “Someone robbed my house while I was there. He didn’t think anyone was in the house. He walked in my room, prepared to take something. He had a gun but ran off.”

Matt Chester – “My brother and I were driving back from West Virginia at about 2:30 in the morning and he fell asleep at the wheel, doing 80 mph, and hit a bridge. I was in the passenger side asleep and I woke up after the car crashed, scared.”

Brent Styer – “At John Carroll in my dorm, my roommate and I were sleeping. Previously strange things had happened such as the bed shaking, lights going on and off and the doors shutting by themselves. I was [laying] down on my stomach and was awoken by someone [patting] my legs. I got up and looked and no one was there. My roommate was on the other side of the room dead asleep.”

Kreepy Kilcawley House whistles with rumors

Youngstown State University has it’s own urban legend, right on the sixth floor of Kilcawley House. Students have passed the story of a janitor who fell and broke his neck on the stairwell.

According to ohioexploration.com, people have reported mysterious occurrences in the YSU dormitory. Three years ago, Brandi Veigh was a sixth floor resident of Kilcawley House.

“At 3 a.m. I got up to go to the restroom and heard scratching. I heard the wind whistling but all the windows were closed,” Veigh said.

Wick House flames with urban legends

“I but into the urban legend,” said Pat Shively, Center for Student Progress associate director.

The Wick House, or as it was once known as The Wick Mansion, was built in 1906 for Youngstown industrialist Col. George Dennick Wick and his wife Mollie.

It sits on the intersection of Wick Avenue and the eastbound U.S. 422 service road.

According to the urban legend, Mollie and her husband were aboard the Titanic. Mollie was rescued, but her husband wasn’t as fortunate. Years later, Mollie died on the second floor of the Wick House. She wanders “looking for her husband,” Shively said.

Rumors of a haunting by Mollie’s ghost first began when YSU purchased the building as a student housing facility in the 1980s, according to the Vindicator.

Jain Savage, coordinator for Disability Services, said she doesn’t really notice anything strange happening.

“She likes us,” she said, playfully joking.

Shively went into her basement shortly after her mother passed away and felt the same feeling when she was upstairs in the Wick House.

“I got a feeling like I was walking into a wind tunnel,” Shively said.

The third floor is unoccupied now. There are some strange occurrences like things falling, according to Shively.

“It’s a very peaceful place,” she added.

Copyright © 2006, The Jambar

Thank you to Russell Howell for mentioning the OES website in his article about YSU urban legends.