Haunting of the Hall: A Tale of Breckinridge
Title
Haunting of the Hall: A Tale of Breckinridge
Subject
Centre College (Danville, Ky. : 1918- )—Anecdotes
Centre College (Danville, Ky. : 1918- )—Buildings
Centre College (Danville, Ky. : 1918- )—History
Centre College (Danville, Ky. : 1918- )—Students
Ghosts—Kentucky—Danville
Haunted places—Kentucky—Danville
Haunted universities and colleges—Kentucky—Danville
Centre College (Danville, Ky. : 1918- )—Buildings
Centre College (Danville, Ky. : 1918- )—History
Centre College (Danville, Ky. : 1918- )—Students
Ghosts—Kentucky—Danville
Haunted places—Kentucky—Danville
Haunted universities and colleges—Kentucky—Danville
Description
An interview with Ann Young about her experiences with Sutcliffe and Breckinridge Hall
Creator
Young, Ann
Date
2021_01_11
Contributor
Malloy, Madison
Rights
All Rights Reserved
Format
MP4
Language
English
Type
Oral History Literary Work
Interviewer
Malloy, Madison
Interviewee
Young, Ann
Location
Breckinridge Hall, Centre College, Danville, KY
Sutcliffe, Centre College, Danville, KY
Transcription
Madison Malloy [00:00:01] Okay, to start off, where do you work on Centre's campus?
Ann Young [00:00:08] Now, I work in Nevin, I've worked in student life since I came, so I worked in Sutcliffe, Carnegie, the Breeze Beta House, the Campus Center, and now I'm in Nevin.
Madison Malloy [00:00:20] And what are the typical responsibilities for your job?
Ann Young [00:00:26] Mostly housing and residence life, now. But I've done volunteer service, campus activities, the administrative job, the building manager of Sutcliffe. Way, way, way back, it was one of my first jobs. So, I have had a lot of them.
Madison Malloy [00:00:45] And what is a typical day like for you? I know you've been doing all the move in stuff.
Ann Young [00:00:51] You know, one thing I've learned with this job is that you better be about a week ahead on what needs to be done on time because you never know what's walking in the door. Which, you know, the best part is it's never boring and the worst part is it's never boring. So, you know, a typical day usually involves at least one or two meetings. Seems like spring term. Like everybody's so hectic. It's…it could be 10 a week, depending on what is going on and also the time of the year move ins, move outs. And we have really struggled with those this year.
Madison Malloy [00:01:31] I'm sure.
Ann Young [00:01:31] You know, with the testing, everything with COVID is like triple your work. Nothing is...nothing is easy anymore right now. So, a typical day, and then there's the typical day with COVID-19, so very different right now.
Madison Malloy [00:01:50] So you do work a lot in the residence buildings. So, what have you experienced that has been unexplained or strange on Centre's campus, during your time here that you've experienced?
Ann Young [00:02:03] During my time here in Nevin, nothing. That's where our office is now. It's a fairly new building. Opened in sixty three, sixty four, I think. So I've not had any weird things in Nevin. Back when I was in Sutcliffe, the old Sutcliffe, before the Buck room was added on. That was kind of strange, but you came right in on ground level and you either went upstairs or downstairs. If you went down, you went into a snack bar that had wonderful food, a TV room, a game room, and then on back into the athletic part of the building. If you came up, there was a big ball room to the right, which used to be the gym, where the first Kentucky state basketball championship was played. Big, big, big room, just fairly empty with a stage where they showed movies, big dances. It was a lot of fun, actually. It was over to the right, like where the Buck room would have been, but further around. And then you went down a hallway and you went into the gym, what is now the same hallway into the gym. Then over to the left, which now is all up and over Hazelrigg, was our office and then intertwined around to the post office. And then what's now the Hicks Bowman gym, Hicks practice fields - practice courts. So... That was kind of the layout of that building, so my office was literally open to the hall. There was no door.
Madison Malloy [00:03:37] Wow.
Ann Young [00:03:37] Kind of crazy in the summer, especially, I would be the only person in the building, theoretically, most of the time. And several times I could hear basketballs bouncing and I'd go and get my keys, go open the ballroom. No basketballs. That's where they sounded like they were. But they weren't in there, so I go through the ball room and look into the window, into the gym. Nobody in there. Get my key out, go into the gym, no basketballs. No basketballs anywhere. And I'm like, "Okay," I'm just..."What is up with this? I know I hear basketballs. There must be kids outside or something." So I go look outside the window, no. So, periodically, you would just hear basketballs bouncing. Once I heard them bounce one other time in there, heard them bounce, no bouncing balls. But one time, a ball was just rolling across the court. So, I go in the gym, we didn't have DPS, so you're just on your own.
Madison Malloy [00:04:45] Yeah.
Ann Young [00:04:45] And so I just opened the door and yelled, "Hi, is anybody in here?" And, you know, the gym, you can tell everybody is in there or not, except for the entrances into the locker room. And, nope, nobody was there, and those really just go down the steps, so. Those were two kind of weird things in Sutcliffe. Probably my weirdness was in Breck and this is where I discovered Peter.
Madison Malloy [00:05:12] And I think I've heard some of this...
Ann Young [00:05:14] [Laughter] Yeah!
Madison Malloy [00:05:14] But I haven't heard it from you.
Ann Young [00:05:18] [Laughs] Years ago, we were able to spend a lot of time going back through our rooms with facilities folks, inspecting, looking for damage. Really we didn't host as many camps. So we had a lot of time to go in and out of them, quickly, into each room and get everything written down. We divided up the campus and the other maintenance director and our administrative assistant took one, and I was with Wayne King, who just retired, and we took some others. We got back about four to twelve (o'clock) and Karen said, "Okay, Wayne is going to tell you the same thing. You've got to go look at this wall in Breck. We're not going to tell you the room. But, you got to go in there." And I said, "OK. So what's wrong with it?" So you just got to go look at, oh, hell what have they done? And so we went in after lunch and we went all up and down a couple of floors, I won't say which one. And anyway, we come to the room and we open the door and on the wall to the right, which would be east wall, there is this enormous face takes up - like if you look at this wall behind me, which is a dorm sized room - it covered that wall.
Madison Malloy [00:06:29] Wow.
Ann Young [00:06:30] I mean, whole male face, hair, eyebrows, nose, ears, the whole caboodle.
Madison Malloy [00:06:35] That's crazy!
Ann Young [00:06:35] I'm like "Holy crap, Wayne! That's really good. What? Somebody-" And he said, "Well, somebody, we got us the artist in here.".
Madison Malloy [00:06:42] [Laughter].
Ann Young [00:06:42] And so he does...he does this number, you know, and he just kind of spits on his finger and goes over, starts to rub it off and he can't rub it off. He said, "Well, they've used some kind of...something different than charcoal. So he said, "I'll be right back." So he goes to get in the supply closet, gets some paper towels and some wet stuff and some squirt stuff and he squirts on there. He cannot... nothing budges off this, can't get it off. He said, "Well, I don't know what's on here." So he's - we didn't have radios then either, no cell phones. Really showing my age, but he gets the paint crew and he said, "Well, I'm going to send them up here tomorrow. We'll just paint over this wall. He said "I don't know what on earth they have used." And for Wayne to not ever know something was really highly unusual. Anyway, he calls me about nine o'clock the next morning before we got ready to go out to do some more buildings. He said "Ann," he said "the paint crews up there in Breck and I've been up there, that, that face is gone. There is no face on the wall. And so I say, "Are you all sure you got the right room?" So we've been over the whole floor. And so all four of us saw it. I mean, they thought it was tree shadows because we had more trees of Breck beach when they saw it in the morning. When we went back at lunch, it was clear as day, Madison, clear as day. Next day, gone. Totally, completely, gone. So anyway, they were just still talking about this and about a year or two later that became the story of Breck ghost. And Wayne had other stories of Breck. He had heard, windows open and shut, other things from his time before me. But our communications director got wind of this and they were doing stories...from Channel 27 WKYT with Barbara Bailey, she just retired...about who had anything haunted on a campus.
Ann Young [00:08:39] [Interruption].
Ann Young [00:09:02] Anyway, Barbara Bailey decides, she picks up on this story, because they did that Transylvania thing, and that was what it was. She said, "I want to bring a psychic down there." I'm like, "Well, okay." So, you know, communications is eating this up, free publicity for a Halloween story, whatever...So I thought, "Oh my gosh! We're just going to get some kind of crazy person or something." I don't know what I had in my mind. Danville had a psychic at the time, a lady who lived in a purple house and just kind of had a reputation. So anyway, this woman gets out of the car with Barbara Bailey, Channel 27, the camera guy, the whole bit, and very tall, very well-dressed, very refined lady named Elizabeth. And Elizabeth lived on the other side of Lexington on a horse farm. We met her and we go into the lobby and she said, we told her what we'd seen. All four of us were there, a couple of other people. And she said, "Okay." Now she said, "Now that I've heard the story, you can't go up here with me because I'll feel vibes from you...as we go up and down the halls." I'm like, "Okay, whatever, you know, it seems a little strange, but-". So we're all sitting there just kind of on pins and needles. Barbara Bailey was up there with her, the camera guy, and, sure enough. She had dowsing rods, sure enough, the guy has his camera pointed at the room number and these dowsing rods just split. Completely and totally split.
Madison Malloy [00:10:41] Wow.
Ann Young [00:10:42] And we are like "Oh my God, oh my God! She's She has done it. She's found it!" She comes back down and we're just in a state of shock and...kind of like...Oh. I mean, none of us gave this number away. There were only four of us knew it.
Madison Malloy [00:10:57] Yeah.
Ann Young [00:10:58] We are gone now. So it's just me at this point. [Laughter] But it's just dawned on me. Since Wayne retired. But she said well, she said, here's what it is. She said, this is Peter. Peter is a ghost who lives in this building and he's a good one. He was very young and worked on the grounds and passed away and lives in the attic because he can look out over the campus and see everything.
Madison Malloy [00:11:27] Wow.
Ann Young [00:11:28] He sees the grounds this way and at the time Breck had all women and she said, "I think he likes that because his mother died when he was young and this way he feels like he's being cared for." Anyway, we dug all the way back into payroll records, everybody's eating this up at this point on campus. So they dug back all the way back that they had, you know, that they could get back into and couldn't find anybody named Peter that worked here. But she did say it was a long time ago. And I just thought, "But there's just - this is just kind of hokey. I'm not sure about this." But anyway, our administrative assistant was in there and she was thinking about changing jobs, just had a whole lot of other things going on in life. And she was also very tall. And I don't know, they just bonded way about a foot above me.
Madison Malloy [00:12:18] [Laughter]
Ann Young [00:12:18] And I mean, I just thought "This lady is a joke." And then she just starts talking to her. And the more she's pulling out of her is like all this stuff that was going on in her life. And she's all totally freaked out. She said "I just feel like you're, you know, you have the sense to do something else in your life." And I'm like "Holy crap!" Sure enough, I mean, she just nailed it off of her so I'm convinced every bit of it is true.
Madison Malloy [00:12:42] Yeah. Wow. So when you first saw that face, was it scary or was it more of like you said, you were just kind of like, "Wow, that's an interesting thing."?
Ann Young [00:12:52] It looked like just somebody, you know, like in Sheldon Tapley's art class, had just really drawn someone they knew or, you know, relative, friend, boyfriend or something and just taken it up on the wall, you know, just like instead of on a canvas. So it was just bizarre. It was huge.
Madison Malloy [00:13:11] Do you remember like was it really detailed?
Ann Young [00:13:14] Very detailed.
Madison Malloy [00:13:15] Really?
Ann Young [00:13:17] Very detailed. Yes. I mean, down to like eyebrows and eyelashes. The whole bit. Yeah.
Madison Malloy [00:13:20] Wow.
Ann Young [00:13:21] It was very detailed. I do remember that. Yeah.
Madison Malloy [00:13:25] Has that experience and like all the experiences, especially with like Sutcliffe and…has that shaped the way you think about Centre or the campus?
Ann Young [00:13:35] No, I just think it... I just think we have... You know, we're just an old campus and we've got a lot of heritage there and people that have been around here and people love the place then and they're still here. I've never been afraid, I'll put it that way. And so I will say some students came for GSP one summer in the library and called me and she said she said they are in here trying to do research on the breck ghost. [Laughter] And we don't have anything, but your brain. So she said, could I just come talk to you? Because somebody swears that their orange juice is getting moved every day. And I said, sure, you know, but I had to kind of reassure them, because they were freaked out. We don't have anywhere else to move them. But, you know, so I have this candle in my office and I hold on...
Ann Young [00:14:33] And it's the prayer for protection that Elizabeth gave me.
Madison Malloy [00:14:37] Uh huh.
Ann Young [00:14:39] So that if Peter really does act up and starts causing all kinds of problems that are bad ones, we can... Peter's just hung. He's not... He's never moved on to the afterlife. So we can light the candle, have a little service for Peter, say this prayer, and that will move him on to the afterlife.
Madison Malloy [00:14:59] Have you ever thought about doing it?
Ann Young [00:15:01] No, because he's never caused any more problems?
Madison Malloy [00:15:05] Yeah.
Ann Young [00:15:05] We really haven't and he seems content. We're all happy. And, you know, we kind of like having Peter, seems to be protecting that building and looking over things.
Madison Malloy [00:15:17] It kind of sounds like you kind of believe in ghosts then.
Ann Young [00:15:21] Oh, totally.
Madison Malloy [00:15:23] You totally believe in ghosts?
Ann Young [00:15:24] Yes, absolutely.
Madison Malloy [00:15:25] Yeah, that's crazy.
Ann Young [00:15:26] After that experience, yes.
Madison Malloy [00:15:28] Wow.
Ann Young [00:15:30] Completely and totally.
Madison Malloy [00:15:30] And psychics too?
Ann Young [00:15:32] I believe in her. [Laughter] I don't know about all of them, but I've certainly..
Madison Malloy [00:15:37] There are some of them that make you question... [Laughter] but...
Ann Young [00:15:39] I certainly believe in Elizabeth after that because - and I'm not sure I really would have if she hadn't...really just nailed the person who was with us.
Madison Malloy [00:15:50] Mhmm.
Ann Young [00:15:51] In everything that was going on with the family, going on with her and her background, and I'm like, she don't know this lady. So I'm like, "What is up?".
Madison Malloy [00:16:01] Yeah, that is crazy.
Ann Young [00:16:03] So that's the story of Peter, the ghost. And those are the bulk of my ghost stories.
Madison Malloy [00:16:09] Well, thank you so much that's...
Ann Young [00:16:10] You're welcome.
Madison Malloy [00:16:11] You're okay with this being put into the archives?
Ann Young [00:16:14] Oh, yeah, I'm fine. Yeah.
Madison Malloy [00:16:16] Okay, awesome.
Ann Young [00:16:16] Yep. And Wayne would tell - was starting to kind of tell a different story, but that's the real one.
Madison Malloy [00:16:23] Hey, sometimes memories change, its fine.
Ann Young [00:16:25] They do, you know, it was a long time ago. So...
Madison Malloy [00:16:27] Yeah. But I think the fact that you can still remember the face is kind of...
Ann Young [00:16:30] Oh completely and vividly.
Madison Malloy [00:16:32] That's just crazy, I can't imagine..
Ann Young [00:16:36] It's kind of crazy, yeah. It's just one of those weird things you can't exactly explain.
Ann Young [00:16:40] Yeah. Wow. All right. Well, I'll let you go. I know you have stuff.
Ann Young [00:16:44] Thank you. This was kind of fun. The fun part of the day.
Madison Malloy [00:16:47] I hope it was a good break from your stressful...
Ann Young [00:16:51] It was a good break believe me. And have a good day and good luck with your class. .
Madison Malloy [00:16:54] Thank you. Bye.
Ann Young [00:16:55] Okay, bye bye.
END OF INTERVIEW
Ann Young [00:00:08] Now, I work in Nevin, I've worked in student life since I came, so I worked in Sutcliffe, Carnegie, the Breeze Beta House, the Campus Center, and now I'm in Nevin.
Madison Malloy [00:00:20] And what are the typical responsibilities for your job?
Ann Young [00:00:26] Mostly housing and residence life, now. But I've done volunteer service, campus activities, the administrative job, the building manager of Sutcliffe. Way, way, way back, it was one of my first jobs. So, I have had a lot of them.
Madison Malloy [00:00:45] And what is a typical day like for you? I know you've been doing all the move in stuff.
Ann Young [00:00:51] You know, one thing I've learned with this job is that you better be about a week ahead on what needs to be done on time because you never know what's walking in the door. Which, you know, the best part is it's never boring and the worst part is it's never boring. So, you know, a typical day usually involves at least one or two meetings. Seems like spring term. Like everybody's so hectic. It's…it could be 10 a week, depending on what is going on and also the time of the year move ins, move outs. And we have really struggled with those this year.
Madison Malloy [00:01:31] I'm sure.
Ann Young [00:01:31] You know, with the testing, everything with COVID is like triple your work. Nothing is...nothing is easy anymore right now. So, a typical day, and then there's the typical day with COVID-19, so very different right now.
Madison Malloy [00:01:50] So you do work a lot in the residence buildings. So, what have you experienced that has been unexplained or strange on Centre's campus, during your time here that you've experienced?
Ann Young [00:02:03] During my time here in Nevin, nothing. That's where our office is now. It's a fairly new building. Opened in sixty three, sixty four, I think. So I've not had any weird things in Nevin. Back when I was in Sutcliffe, the old Sutcliffe, before the Buck room was added on. That was kind of strange, but you came right in on ground level and you either went upstairs or downstairs. If you went down, you went into a snack bar that had wonderful food, a TV room, a game room, and then on back into the athletic part of the building. If you came up, there was a big ball room to the right, which used to be the gym, where the first Kentucky state basketball championship was played. Big, big, big room, just fairly empty with a stage where they showed movies, big dances. It was a lot of fun, actually. It was over to the right, like where the Buck room would have been, but further around. And then you went down a hallway and you went into the gym, what is now the same hallway into the gym. Then over to the left, which now is all up and over Hazelrigg, was our office and then intertwined around to the post office. And then what's now the Hicks Bowman gym, Hicks practice fields - practice courts. So... That was kind of the layout of that building, so my office was literally open to the hall. There was no door.
Madison Malloy [00:03:37] Wow.
Ann Young [00:03:37] Kind of crazy in the summer, especially, I would be the only person in the building, theoretically, most of the time. And several times I could hear basketballs bouncing and I'd go and get my keys, go open the ballroom. No basketballs. That's where they sounded like they were. But they weren't in there, so I go through the ball room and look into the window, into the gym. Nobody in there. Get my key out, go into the gym, no basketballs. No basketballs anywhere. And I'm like, "Okay," I'm just..."What is up with this? I know I hear basketballs. There must be kids outside or something." So I go look outside the window, no. So, periodically, you would just hear basketballs bouncing. Once I heard them bounce one other time in there, heard them bounce, no bouncing balls. But one time, a ball was just rolling across the court. So, I go in the gym, we didn't have DPS, so you're just on your own.
Madison Malloy [00:04:45] Yeah.
Ann Young [00:04:45] And so I just opened the door and yelled, "Hi, is anybody in here?" And, you know, the gym, you can tell everybody is in there or not, except for the entrances into the locker room. And, nope, nobody was there, and those really just go down the steps, so. Those were two kind of weird things in Sutcliffe. Probably my weirdness was in Breck and this is where I discovered Peter.
Madison Malloy [00:05:12] And I think I've heard some of this...
Ann Young [00:05:14] [Laughter] Yeah!
Madison Malloy [00:05:14] But I haven't heard it from you.
Ann Young [00:05:18] [Laughs] Years ago, we were able to spend a lot of time going back through our rooms with facilities folks, inspecting, looking for damage. Really we didn't host as many camps. So we had a lot of time to go in and out of them, quickly, into each room and get everything written down. We divided up the campus and the other maintenance director and our administrative assistant took one, and I was with Wayne King, who just retired, and we took some others. We got back about four to twelve (o'clock) and Karen said, "Okay, Wayne is going to tell you the same thing. You've got to go look at this wall in Breck. We're not going to tell you the room. But, you got to go in there." And I said, "OK. So what's wrong with it?" So you just got to go look at, oh, hell what have they done? And so we went in after lunch and we went all up and down a couple of floors, I won't say which one. And anyway, we come to the room and we open the door and on the wall to the right, which would be east wall, there is this enormous face takes up - like if you look at this wall behind me, which is a dorm sized room - it covered that wall.
Madison Malloy [00:06:29] Wow.
Ann Young [00:06:30] I mean, whole male face, hair, eyebrows, nose, ears, the whole caboodle.
Madison Malloy [00:06:35] That's crazy!
Ann Young [00:06:35] I'm like "Holy crap, Wayne! That's really good. What? Somebody-" And he said, "Well, somebody, we got us the artist in here.".
Madison Malloy [00:06:42] [Laughter].
Ann Young [00:06:42] And so he does...he does this number, you know, and he just kind of spits on his finger and goes over, starts to rub it off and he can't rub it off. He said, "Well, they've used some kind of...something different than charcoal. So he said, "I'll be right back." So he goes to get in the supply closet, gets some paper towels and some wet stuff and some squirt stuff and he squirts on there. He cannot... nothing budges off this, can't get it off. He said, "Well, I don't know what's on here." So he's - we didn't have radios then either, no cell phones. Really showing my age, but he gets the paint crew and he said, "Well, I'm going to send them up here tomorrow. We'll just paint over this wall. He said "I don't know what on earth they have used." And for Wayne to not ever know something was really highly unusual. Anyway, he calls me about nine o'clock the next morning before we got ready to go out to do some more buildings. He said "Ann," he said "the paint crews up there in Breck and I've been up there, that, that face is gone. There is no face on the wall. And so I say, "Are you all sure you got the right room?" So we've been over the whole floor. And so all four of us saw it. I mean, they thought it was tree shadows because we had more trees of Breck beach when they saw it in the morning. When we went back at lunch, it was clear as day, Madison, clear as day. Next day, gone. Totally, completely, gone. So anyway, they were just still talking about this and about a year or two later that became the story of Breck ghost. And Wayne had other stories of Breck. He had heard, windows open and shut, other things from his time before me. But our communications director got wind of this and they were doing stories...from Channel 27 WKYT with Barbara Bailey, she just retired...about who had anything haunted on a campus.
Ann Young [00:08:39] [Interruption].
Ann Young [00:09:02] Anyway, Barbara Bailey decides, she picks up on this story, because they did that Transylvania thing, and that was what it was. She said, "I want to bring a psychic down there." I'm like, "Well, okay." So, you know, communications is eating this up, free publicity for a Halloween story, whatever...So I thought, "Oh my gosh! We're just going to get some kind of crazy person or something." I don't know what I had in my mind. Danville had a psychic at the time, a lady who lived in a purple house and just kind of had a reputation. So anyway, this woman gets out of the car with Barbara Bailey, Channel 27, the camera guy, the whole bit, and very tall, very well-dressed, very refined lady named Elizabeth. And Elizabeth lived on the other side of Lexington on a horse farm. We met her and we go into the lobby and she said, we told her what we'd seen. All four of us were there, a couple of other people. And she said, "Okay." Now she said, "Now that I've heard the story, you can't go up here with me because I'll feel vibes from you...as we go up and down the halls." I'm like, "Okay, whatever, you know, it seems a little strange, but-". So we're all sitting there just kind of on pins and needles. Barbara Bailey was up there with her, the camera guy, and, sure enough. She had dowsing rods, sure enough, the guy has his camera pointed at the room number and these dowsing rods just split. Completely and totally split.
Madison Malloy [00:10:41] Wow.
Ann Young [00:10:42] And we are like "Oh my God, oh my God! She's She has done it. She's found it!" She comes back down and we're just in a state of shock and...kind of like...Oh. I mean, none of us gave this number away. There were only four of us knew it.
Madison Malloy [00:10:57] Yeah.
Ann Young [00:10:58] We are gone now. So it's just me at this point. [Laughter] But it's just dawned on me. Since Wayne retired. But she said well, she said, here's what it is. She said, this is Peter. Peter is a ghost who lives in this building and he's a good one. He was very young and worked on the grounds and passed away and lives in the attic because he can look out over the campus and see everything.
Madison Malloy [00:11:27] Wow.
Ann Young [00:11:28] He sees the grounds this way and at the time Breck had all women and she said, "I think he likes that because his mother died when he was young and this way he feels like he's being cared for." Anyway, we dug all the way back into payroll records, everybody's eating this up at this point on campus. So they dug back all the way back that they had, you know, that they could get back into and couldn't find anybody named Peter that worked here. But she did say it was a long time ago. And I just thought, "But there's just - this is just kind of hokey. I'm not sure about this." But anyway, our administrative assistant was in there and she was thinking about changing jobs, just had a whole lot of other things going on in life. And she was also very tall. And I don't know, they just bonded way about a foot above me.
Madison Malloy [00:12:18] [Laughter]
Ann Young [00:12:18] And I mean, I just thought "This lady is a joke." And then she just starts talking to her. And the more she's pulling out of her is like all this stuff that was going on in her life. And she's all totally freaked out. She said "I just feel like you're, you know, you have the sense to do something else in your life." And I'm like "Holy crap!" Sure enough, I mean, she just nailed it off of her so I'm convinced every bit of it is true.
Madison Malloy [00:12:42] Yeah. Wow. So when you first saw that face, was it scary or was it more of like you said, you were just kind of like, "Wow, that's an interesting thing."?
Ann Young [00:12:52] It looked like just somebody, you know, like in Sheldon Tapley's art class, had just really drawn someone they knew or, you know, relative, friend, boyfriend or something and just taken it up on the wall, you know, just like instead of on a canvas. So it was just bizarre. It was huge.
Madison Malloy [00:13:11] Do you remember like was it really detailed?
Ann Young [00:13:14] Very detailed.
Madison Malloy [00:13:15] Really?
Ann Young [00:13:17] Very detailed. Yes. I mean, down to like eyebrows and eyelashes. The whole bit. Yeah.
Madison Malloy [00:13:20] Wow.
Ann Young [00:13:21] It was very detailed. I do remember that. Yeah.
Madison Malloy [00:13:25] Has that experience and like all the experiences, especially with like Sutcliffe and…has that shaped the way you think about Centre or the campus?
Ann Young [00:13:35] No, I just think it... I just think we have... You know, we're just an old campus and we've got a lot of heritage there and people that have been around here and people love the place then and they're still here. I've never been afraid, I'll put it that way. And so I will say some students came for GSP one summer in the library and called me and she said she said they are in here trying to do research on the breck ghost. [Laughter] And we don't have anything, but your brain. So she said, could I just come talk to you? Because somebody swears that their orange juice is getting moved every day. And I said, sure, you know, but I had to kind of reassure them, because they were freaked out. We don't have anywhere else to move them. But, you know, so I have this candle in my office and I hold on...
Ann Young [00:14:33] And it's the prayer for protection that Elizabeth gave me.
Madison Malloy [00:14:37] Uh huh.
Ann Young [00:14:39] So that if Peter really does act up and starts causing all kinds of problems that are bad ones, we can... Peter's just hung. He's not... He's never moved on to the afterlife. So we can light the candle, have a little service for Peter, say this prayer, and that will move him on to the afterlife.
Madison Malloy [00:14:59] Have you ever thought about doing it?
Ann Young [00:15:01] No, because he's never caused any more problems?
Madison Malloy [00:15:05] Yeah.
Ann Young [00:15:05] We really haven't and he seems content. We're all happy. And, you know, we kind of like having Peter, seems to be protecting that building and looking over things.
Madison Malloy [00:15:17] It kind of sounds like you kind of believe in ghosts then.
Ann Young [00:15:21] Oh, totally.
Madison Malloy [00:15:23] You totally believe in ghosts?
Ann Young [00:15:24] Yes, absolutely.
Madison Malloy [00:15:25] Yeah, that's crazy.
Ann Young [00:15:26] After that experience, yes.
Madison Malloy [00:15:28] Wow.
Ann Young [00:15:30] Completely and totally.
Madison Malloy [00:15:30] And psychics too?
Ann Young [00:15:32] I believe in her. [Laughter] I don't know about all of them, but I've certainly..
Madison Malloy [00:15:37] There are some of them that make you question... [Laughter] but...
Ann Young [00:15:39] I certainly believe in Elizabeth after that because - and I'm not sure I really would have if she hadn't...really just nailed the person who was with us.
Madison Malloy [00:15:50] Mhmm.
Ann Young [00:15:51] In everything that was going on with the family, going on with her and her background, and I'm like, she don't know this lady. So I'm like, "What is up?".
Madison Malloy [00:16:01] Yeah, that is crazy.
Ann Young [00:16:03] So that's the story of Peter, the ghost. And those are the bulk of my ghost stories.
Madison Malloy [00:16:09] Well, thank you so much that's...
Ann Young [00:16:10] You're welcome.
Madison Malloy [00:16:11] You're okay with this being put into the archives?
Ann Young [00:16:14] Oh, yeah, I'm fine. Yeah.
Madison Malloy [00:16:16] Okay, awesome.
Ann Young [00:16:16] Yep. And Wayne would tell - was starting to kind of tell a different story, but that's the real one.
Madison Malloy [00:16:23] Hey, sometimes memories change, its fine.
Ann Young [00:16:25] They do, you know, it was a long time ago. So...
Madison Malloy [00:16:27] Yeah. But I think the fact that you can still remember the face is kind of...
Ann Young [00:16:30] Oh completely and vividly.
Madison Malloy [00:16:32] That's just crazy, I can't imagine..
Ann Young [00:16:36] It's kind of crazy, yeah. It's just one of those weird things you can't exactly explain.
Ann Young [00:16:40] Yeah. Wow. All right. Well, I'll let you go. I know you have stuff.
Ann Young [00:16:44] Thank you. This was kind of fun. The fun part of the day.
Madison Malloy [00:16:47] I hope it was a good break from your stressful...
Ann Young [00:16:51] It was a good break believe me. And have a good day and good luck with your class. .
Madison Malloy [00:16:54] Thank you. Bye.
Ann Young [00:16:55] Okay, bye bye.
END OF INTERVIEW
Original Format
MP4
Duration
16:55
Citation
Young, Ann, “Haunting of the Hall: A Tale of Breckinridge,” Ghosts at Centre College, accessed May 17, 2024, https://centreghosts.omeka.net/items/show/34.