November 28, 2022 • 25 mins
On this episode of Indiana Stories:Jeff Townsend talks to Arrika Taylor, Director at the Willard Library in Evansville, Indiana. They discuss the history of the haunting of the Grey Lady Ghost. In friendly fashion, she has haunted the library since her first sighting in 1937. Arrika shares the history of the haunting, unexplained occurrences, personal experiences and additional information about the library.Thanks for listening to the podcast, listen to more episodes to hear more Indiana Stories.Indiana StoriesCheck out The Ghost of the Grey Lady at the Willard Library.Visit Evansville Indiana!Supporters of the Podcast:Theme music provided by the ElmsUse Poddin for your podcast transcript, they've got all the tools that make it easy and great!Use PodcastPage to create a professional website for your content. Use the code INDIEPODCASTER to get 15% off!
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
This podcast is a Jeff Townsend Mediaproduction. This is Jeff Townsend. Thank
you for joining us for another episodeof Indiana Stories. Welcome to Indiana Stories.
(00:23):
Of course I am the host,creator, founder, Jeff Townsend.
This episode today is going to bepretty neat. We're gonna take a little
bit of a turn to the paranormalside. Actually, we're going to talk
to Erica Taylor from the Willard Librarydown in Evansville, Indiana, the famous
Gray Lady, the hauntun of thislibrary has been on national television, has
been on ghost Hunters and some ofthe really huge popular paranormal ghost hunting shows,
(00:46):
etc. All sorts of great stuff. But not only that, this
library is a pretty neat place.This is a fun conversation. We talk
about, of course, the libraryitself and then the Gray Lady. This
story has always been intriguing to me. They actually have a camera that they
running all the time and people watchit to catch the Gray Lady and see
her on camera. It's a veryneat thing. This is like a not
(01:06):
necessarily something that's super scary or likea violent thing going on. It just
seems to be a reoccurring event there, and she seems to live there the
Gray Lady, and everybody's kind ofadapt to that situation, so I found
that interesting. If you want tolearn more about some of these different locations
in Indiana that we're sharing, youcan go to our website Indiana Stories dot
com. You could find the newsletterthere, blogs, and of course and
(01:29):
transcription of the episode. So there'sa lot more stuff on that website.
To go there and check out therereally is. I suggest you do it.
There's a contact form on there aswell if you want to talk to
me about something, whether it befeedback or a suggestion, maybe if something
we talk about in the future.I do want to think three different supporters
of this podcast, like I doevery episode. It's important to me that
I do this for them because theydo a lot for me. Bloom Caster,
(01:49):
podcast page, dot io and podondot io three resources I used to
make this podcast and all my othercontent I create. Bloom Casters the go
to for recording on interviews and conversations. It's way better than zoom. Zoom
is not really designed for that,it's just designed for conference calls. Boomcaster
is the best quality, So goto boomcaster dot com, Podon dot ao,
best transcription most accurate by far,not even close. Podon dot ao
(02:10):
go check it out. And thenpodcast page dot Io. Tom and the
team there are amazing. You canget a website up and running in like
five minutes literally, and the team'svery hands on and helpful. I actually
use it for things that aren't podcasteither, so something you should look into.
Podcast page dot io. All right, let's get past all this and
we'll go ahead and jump into thisconversation that I have with Erica. I
hope you enjoy it. My guesttoday is Erica Taylor. She I guess
(02:34):
I'm gonna say. I'm not gonnasay, director at Willard Library in Evansville,
Indiana, screaming eagle land. Isthat correct? That is correct?
Are you? Are you a screamingeagle? I'm not, but I am
a fan. Go USI and wehave two challenges here, that's right,
the purple aces and then the divisiontwo one, the scream any I've never
heard of screaming eagle, but damnit, it sounds cool. No,
(02:59):
So obviously have you on here totalk about the library. Before we get
into that, we'll talk about thelibrary a little bit in general. But
this is obviously a notable place that'sbeen featured on I think it was actually
like ghost Hunters, right, Like, I mean, like this place has
been on significant platforms for its knownhaunting. So I think this is all
yeah, yeah, I mean allsorts of different things, from local to
(03:19):
national. So I'm excited to talkabout the library and the experience that people
are having there. Yeah, thanksfor having me, Jeff, I appreciate
it. Just kind of start offtell us about the library. I know
it's it's beautiful. It has thislike Gothic style. I don't know,
I'm not sure exactly when it wasbuilt, but it's a beautiful looking place.
Yes, it is a beautiful place. So it was built in eighteen
eighty five. It's Victorian Gothic style. It's actually the longest consecutively running library
(03:47):
in the state of Indiana, sowe've been around a long time. But
we've tried to keep all the originalwoodwork intact. If you walk in,
you'll see like these individual little tinytiles on the floor. We're all late
in eighteen eighty five. So there'sa whole lot of history there and it's
a beautiful place to be. Yeah, Willard Library does a beautiful. It's
(04:08):
always operated you just said as alibrary. Is that correct? That is
the longest one in the state.That's fascinating. I actually did not know
that. So I'm learning. I'mlearning along with everybody else here. So
that's that's awesome. Ye are comingand registered. This is a registered place
right then. On the from ahistorical standpoint, yes, that's correct.
We are a historic place. We'realso a nationally recognized haunted place. So
(04:29):
yeah, yeah, all kinds ofcool things. So now the answered that
first question that it's been operating asa library the whole time, which is
super cool. When the library firstopened, it was open to all people
of all races, religions, backgrounds, which is kind of unheard of at
the time, and that's kind ofbeen our stands ever since. So we
(04:51):
are a public library, um,and we welcome everyone from everywhere. You
live in the state of Indiana.You can get a card at Willard for
free. You just have to presentyour ID and your home library card and
we can get you set up.If you're at a state we can get
you a card for a small feeas well. So yeah, I wanted
to make sure we get that inthere. But it does seem like you
(05:12):
guys have a lot of activities andthings that you do in addition to just
hey, look at the library,look at some books, like a stereotypical
library. You guys have a lotof other things you're doing with the community
too as well. Right, that'sright. So we do a lot of
public programming. We have a coupleof different departments here at Willards. So
we have a genealogy department, sowe focus on family history. We also
have an archives department, so wehave a lot of old photos and records
(05:36):
and things like that from the area. And then we have of course a
children's department in an adult department,So lots of things going on all the
time. Yeah, it sounds likeit's a really good community place. It
is. It is. And alsoon this haunting note, it is by
no means like a demonic haunting byanyone. Is a lighthearted haunting here,
(06:00):
that is correct. Think of castfor the ghost, like a cast for
the ghost. So no, Jeff'snot covered anything crazy, you know.
But this is super cool because frommy research, it looks like this first
documented experience was clear back in nineteenthirty seven. I think I saw with
a custodian or something. Is thatcorrect? That is correct. So it
happened in nineteen thirty seven. Likeyou said, we had a night janitor
(06:24):
or a night custodian that would comein and there was a big furnace,
so he would come in and stokethe furnace and get the building ready for
the following day. One night hecame in and he sees this woman.
She's dressed in a long Victorian gown. She's got a veil over her face,
and he was supposed to be theonly person there in the building at
the time, so he yelled ather. She disappeared. The following day,
(06:46):
he told his boss, and itwas the library director at the time,
and his director kind of played itdown and said, you know,
you were probably tired, it wasthe middle of the night, and just
kind of brushed it off. Butthis poor guy just kept seeing this in
the middle of the night. Hewas actually the only person that we have
on record as quitting his job hereat Willard because it's the Gray Lady ghost,
because nobody would believe him. Butit wasn't until years later that other
(07:10):
people started seeing the same apparition.So so when did you say it was
built built in eighteen eighty five.It's not like this place was one hundred
years old or something when when thisguy saw this ghost, it was about
fifty years old or something, whicha lot of times you find with like
live or I want to say,locations like this that as they kind of
age and like significant things happened there, that's when people start to see things
(07:34):
here, things and these hauntings happen. So there's like not even like a
known reason why the lady in thegray dress, right, is that?
How the great what do we callher the gray lady or the lady in
gray? Yeah? Either why?Okay, But there's not like a reason
that would be known why the graylady would be there though, right,
Like it's not like, hey,somebody or is there is somebody die here?
(07:57):
Like usually somebody died, something significanthappened to the person. So not
necessarily we do get that question allthe time, did somebody die here?
And no nobody ever died at thelibrary. But there is a story kind
of goes that the founder of ourlibrary, his name was Willard Carpenter.
He dedicated his life to this placeand he was actually here building it in
(08:18):
his eighties. He was very dedicatedto it, and it kind of was
his baby. He was not somuch of a family man, more of
a workhorse. And so when hepassed, he unfortunately passed right before the
library opened, so he didn't getto see it. But when he passed,
he left a lot of his wealthto the building, not as much
to his family as they would haveliked. Some of his family members actually
(08:39):
sued the library board because they feltlike they he wasn't in sound mind when
he made his will, and theylost that suit. And so some people
believe that the Lady in Gray orthe Gray Lady, is his youngest daughter,
Louise Carpenter kind of hanging out tokeep an eye on things around here.
That's just one story. We don'tknow for who she is. That's
(09:01):
kind of the general idea. Well, it's interesting though, because like we
were saying, like nothing happened inthe building, which like this, this
happens. Of course, it's notunheard of, but it seems like it's
less documented. Maybe it's because it'snot as intriguing, right, like trying
to sell some crazy story could.But it's almost like fixated on a place
for an unknown reason. Which Ifind super interesting. Yeah, yeah,
(09:26):
you're right. So what are someother events that have happened, Because,
like we talked about earlier, thisthis library has been featured on Ghost Hunters.
You implemented a ghost camera leading upto all that before. What were
some other things that were kind ofhappened And when did this library like officially
have a tie end? Like publicknowledge of this gray lady? Right,
(09:48):
So it really just happened started outby word of mouth. People were reporting
the same sightings over and over again. The people who have seen the apparition
describe her as a Victorian woman wearingthis like long dress with a high collar,
and then sometimes she has a veilover her face. Other people have
described her as like a gray mistor like a cloud sort of walking down
(10:11):
the hallways. We've also had peoplesay that they feel like a cold chill
come over them. She's what wecall a poltergeist, so she likes to
move things around in the building andpeople have reported like feeling like someone's breathing
down their neck, touching their hair, playing with jewelry, that sort of
thing. So just all of thesedifferent stories that just kept overlapping over time.
(10:35):
It wasn't until I would say maybethe late eighties early nineties that she
really became kind of I don't wantto say a mascot, but something that
was associated with the library that peopleidentified with, and she became more and
more well known. We started doingghost tours about the mid nineties every year
in October, and that really helpedus to spread the word about her.
(10:56):
And yeah, people just seemed veryinterested in her, which is really cool
for us. There's a very famousfor this library video of a book.
Right this brook just kind of likegets lifted then moves and just falls to
the floor. Am I correct?That's correct. So there's a there's a
story that kind of goes along withthat. Is we used to have We
(11:18):
still do have schools come in withthe field trips, stay here, is
that kind of kind of thing.Usually when we have small children here,
we tell them how important the libraryis and you know, how they can
get a library card and encourage themto read, and we usually just kind
of touch on the ghost and justsaying, you know, this is a
there's a friendly ghost that hangs outhere. Well, one time this little
(11:39):
kid went home and told his momthat they told their class about a ghost
at the library, and he wasreally upset about it. So his mom
got upset too, and she marchesdown to the library and tells the director,
you know, you can't be tellinglittle kids about a ghost. You're
giving my kid nightmares. At thatpoint, the director said, Okay,
I've had enough of this, andhe tells his staff. He said,
(12:01):
we're going to tell people that thegray Lady is not here anymore. She
has moved on. We're going totalk about her anymore. So his staff
did what they were instructed, andthe next time somebody asked about the gray
Lady, they said, oh,she's not here. We haven't seen her
heard anything from her for a while. As soon as they said that,
a book flies across the room likeit was chucked. So she definitely makes
(12:24):
her presence known, even if wetried to deny it. Yeah, and
this video was it was it onthe ghost cam or was it on just
that? Is that why the ghostcam got put up? I'm trying to
recall exactly. So we do that. We have multiple ghost camps. There's
one on every floor and they runtwenty four hours a day, seven days
a week. And there was aThis was fairly recently there was a book
(12:46):
that was caught falling off of ashelf in the middle of the night.
So bill of the lights are out, but you can see this book falling.
We came back the next day andkind of tested it to try to
figure out like what would cause thatto happen, and we honestly don't know.
There's gravity of it. I mean, it was leaned up against a
wall, so there's really no reasonfor it to fall forward. We even
(13:07):
check to see if there was asmall earthquake that night and there was nothing.
So Yeah, there are things likethat that happened all the time that
are just kind of unexplainable. Yeah, I encourage everybody to look up this
video that I'm talking about, though. I think that's like the one that's
most widely circulated probably. So whatabout you, how long have you worked
there? Have you had experiences atall? Or Yeah? So I've worked
(13:28):
here about seven years. I'll behonest, I've been a skeptic. I
didn't want to believe in anything paranormalgoing on because you know, it freaks
me out a little bit. Yeah, but I have had I've never seen
the Great Lady, but I havehad experiences the most notable would probably be
about two years ago. I washolding a book club in our Bayard room,
(13:52):
which is our boardroom, so it'san enclosed room on the upstairs floor.
We had our book club, everyoneleft and I was there cleaning up
refreshments and stuff, and I hadmy hair back in a ponytail, and
I was cleaning some things off ofa table and I feel someone tug on
my ponytail, just kind of likea playful tug, like twice, and
(14:13):
so I turned around to see.I'm thinking it's maybe some one of the
people that went into the book clubor one of my co workers and a
dren. Then there's no one there, and I was nowhere near a wall
or anything. I mean, therewas nothing that it could have been caught
on. So it really freaked meout. But that's happened. I've also
seen, you know, books falloff the shelves by themselves a lot of
(14:35):
times. The elevator doors will openand close and there's no one on there.
We just have like weird things likethat all the time. The faucet's
run by themselves, that sort ofthing. So what did you do when
that happened? Do you like,what was your reaction to you just like
calmly go about your business or Igot the heck out of there really quick.
Yeah, but I went and Idouble checked with the staff that was
(14:56):
working on that floor, so itdid anybody come in here? No?
So yeah, I told a fewco workers about it, but not a
fond memory for me. It's alittle creepy. Is it common for your
co workers? Like, is everybodyor most that the people had an experience
or I would say yes and wellyes and no. So there are some
(15:16):
people on staff that swear up anddown that you know, the gray Lady
is not a thing. Other peopleswear up and down that she is and
they've seen her. So it reallyjust depends on who you ask. But
I do think everyone would agree thatstrange things do happen around here all the
time. And with our ghost camps, I mean we have people reporting sightings
and just odd, odd stuff happening, you know, every day. Who
(15:39):
has to review that footage that soundslike a heck of it? That?
Yeah, no kidding, Who doyou do that? Is that your job?
Erica? You review all this ghostcamera from I wish, I wish.
No, that's not my job.But we do have a great following
and people on Facebook chatting back andforth about the sightings they scene. So
(16:00):
yeah, we appreciate all those ghosthunters out there watching keeping an eye on
things for us. Yeah, it'simportant to note that that's a super cool
interactive thing that you guys are doing. In regards to that camera, you
can go online on I think yourwebsite see it. There's other places to
see it. So like when thebook fail recently, was that reported by
somebody watching, or like how didyou like know, did you like go
(16:21):
in the morning and you saw thebook on the floor or like that I
believe was a security footage shot.But we have this is an interesting story
too. So last summer we havethis gigantic portrait painted portrait of George Washington
that hangs in the stairwell. It'smassive, it's like ten feet tall.
And one night someone on ghost campssaw it fall off the wall and it
(16:47):
was attached really well, I meanit was professionally hume and it falls off
the wall falls forward as somebody caughtit on the cams and notified the library.
So we were this was after hours, so we were able to go
and get it taken care of.But that was another thing. We don't
know why that happened or what,but yeah, somebody, somebody caught it,
and there is footage of it falling. But has there been anything document
(17:08):
as far as a picture or anything. So um, yeah, there have
been photos taken up her. Oneinteresting thing about her as she likes to
cover her tracks. So we'll havepeople in all the time that say,
oh, I caught this awesome pictureof the Gray Lady. Then they go
to look on their phone and it'sgone. The same thing has happened with
we've had news stations here. Onetime a new station was here and the
(17:32):
Gray Lady actually, well we saythe gray Lady, she pulled multiple books
halfway off the shelf. No onewas around. It really freaked the staff
out. The news crew comes andthey get footage of these books pulled out,
and they interviewed the staff, andwhen they get back to the studio
to put their their segment together,all that footage had been wiped away.
(17:55):
So it's really interesting how people tryto try to capture her on home,
you know, on their phones,and she just doesn't allow that to happen.
But we do have a few picturesof her. They're floating around the
internet. There's one very clear onethat we got a couple of years ago
of her walking down the stairs andyou can actually see her long dress.
She's holding a book. So yeah, it's it's a really cool picture.
(18:18):
How long did it take you tostart believing that, you said you're a
skeptic. I mean, yeah,I mean you can only deny for so
long. Yeah, but yeah,I mean there's definitely strange, strange energy
around here. But I mean it'snot it's not like a scary feeling.
It's more of just something strange goingon. And that's why I kind of
started off with that. It's notlike there's some there's not some crazy story
(18:41):
here, there's not some crazy eventhere. It's just an interesting thing going
on at a historical place. Soyes, yes, just another coworker almost,
Yeah, another cowhere. Like Isaid earlier, ghost Hunters, which
it's still probably one of the mostpopular ever for sure as far as those
kind of television shows. But theyat the time, I'm definitely hands down,
we're I don't remember why year,it was probably over ten years now,
(19:03):
easily. They came to the librarywith the whole production set, which
I know people do I know,people do that a lot there, but
this was a big ordeal, likea national thing. They came there,
they set everything up. I knowyou probably weren't working there then, but
do you hear a lot about that, because that's that's a pretty big deal.
They've only done so many episodes,right, this library is one of
them. That's right. It wasin two thousand and five when they came,
(19:26):
and that was before my time.It wasn't the most exciting episode of
those Hunters ever. But they saidthat they could not confirm or deny that
she existed here at Willard A littlestory about that though she m That night,
their whole crew was here. Theyall kind of used our boardroom as
kind of their hangout space. Sothe middle of the night they were they
(19:48):
were walking through, they decided totake a little break. They go up
in the in the boardroom and they'reall sitting around our boardroom table, and
this mist appears above the table andso like ten people saw it all at
the same time. Unfortunately, noone got it on camera, but they
did say that they all saw something. Did they say that, I'm trying
to remember. They say that onthe episode itself. I don't know,
it's been a while since I've seenit. Yeah, it's been a while.
(20:11):
That's a big deal though, forthem to come there and do that.
Like I said, one hundred episodesthey've done or something, and this
library is one of them. SoI assume that part of the thing that
lured them there is probably that wasat that book incident, or it could
have been. I think they mayhave played that on the show like that,
Like we're talking about that book goingacross the room. Yeah, I
(20:32):
think that's kind of like Locally itwas probably known, like you said,
going into the nineties, but nationallyspeaking, I'm sure that helped contribute to
it. Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah, and we get we get
calls and people from all over thecountry coming to visit us, and it's
really helped to promote the library itself. So you probably hear that every day,
(20:52):
right, like, oh yeah,especially in October exactly. So to
segue into that, this time ofthe year, you guys do a lot
of different things as far as tours, investigate like activities going on to library.
That's right. So we do publictours the three weeks leading up to
Halloween. This year, we havetwenty one different tours scheduled, and all
(21:15):
of these tours are led by staffmembers who are here every day and have
had experiences. So it's just afun little It's more of a historic tour
than a haunted house, so it'skind of People come in, we tell
a little bit history about the building, and then we walk through and visit
all the different spots where the GreatLady has been seen, tell different stories.
(21:36):
So it's a family friendly thing.It gives people the creeps, which
is always fun. But yeah,it's it's always a good time. We
enjoy it. Again, this isa lighthearted event. Nobody's coming to work
terrified every day, That's right.I think most of the times we hear
about these kind of stories, it'slike that, right, because that's a
cool story. I guess I wastoo afraid to even go on to work.
(21:56):
The cool thing about this, though, is it's just such a nonchalant
sort of thing, right, Like, she's here, it's fine, We're
all going to go about our business. Yeah, right. To me,
that the legitimacy of that is highfor me because you always hear about crazy
things. But it's just a partof everyday life for the staff and the
people in the library. Right,Yeah, you kind of get used to
(22:18):
it, you know, if you'reif you're in the bathroom in the water
turns itself on, it's like okay, hey, yeah, I see you.
And it's probably not even something likeI know people come in and talk
about it, but I know it'sprobably not something you guys even talk about
every day. It's such, likeI said, just such a common thing
it is. Yeah, yeah,you kind of just come to accept it.
So yeah, beautiful place. Definitely, everybody should check it out.
(22:44):
Even if you don't want to seethe Ghost Lady, you can check it
out in person or I also wantto let you share the details of online
some information about the library. Thenthen obviously the ghost cameras are rolling all
the time, right, that iscorrect. So our website is called Willard,
so I'll give you the like,it's www dot Willard dot lib dot
(23:06):
i N dot us. It's kindof a mouthful, but on there there
is a link to our ghost site. We also have merchandise that features the
Gray Lady, so you can youcan check that out. And yeah,
you can log on there and seeour ghost camps twenty four seven. They're
always running. So yeah, it'sjust a really cool voice. Not to
mention we have all kinds of youknow, historic resources and e books and
(23:29):
that kind of stuff. So yeah, definitely check out our website and come
visit us if you're ever in thein southern Indiana. What do they call
it the Tristate area, that's correct, Yes, across the bridge from Henderson,
Kentucky. You guys. Yeah again, Erica is awesome for you to
take the time to do this withme. And I can't encourage everybody enough
(23:49):
to check out the things you're doingdown there, not only at the library,
but Evansville itself is a very coolcity. Would you agree with that?
Absolutely? It is all kinds ofstuff going on down here. You
got a little zoo, you've gotcasinos. It's like a yeah, well
more could you need many Indianapolis goingon down there? There? You go.
(24:10):
It is kind of like I forget, like it's I think it's forgotten
about a lot. It's kind oflike that town off to the side,
down in the corner and until recently, I don't even think it had an
interstate from Indianapolis going there. Andyeah, it's is it the third most
populated city in the state, right, that's my understanding. Yes, but
it didn't until recently, did noteven have a freaking interstate from the capital
(24:33):
to there. So it is kindof like a little forgotten town in the
corner. I feel like it's aIt's a great place to visit, even
better place to live. So thereyou go. We got all the plugs
in and like I said, I'llhave all this in the show notes of
course, And again I appreciate youtaking the time to do this absolutely,
Thanks so much for having me,Jeff, Thank you for listening to this
(24:53):
episode of Indiana Stories. If youlike what you heard, you can go
to Indiana Stories dot com for moreepisode and other stories relating to Indiana.
Also, if you're enjoying this podcast, there's several things you can follow,
the podcast itself, the newsletter,and various other things. Thanks again for
listening, and we will be backwith another episode and I hope you join
(25:14):
us for another Indiana Story Anya.And the question is do I stay here?
(25:44):
Will you be back? Are yougonna come back? Will you be
back? Are you coming back
This podcast is a Jeff Townsend Mediaproduction. This is Jeff Townsend. Thank
you for joining us for another episodeof Indiana Stories. Welcome to Indiana Stories.
(00:23):
Of course I am the host,creator, founder, Jeff Townsend.
This episode today is going to bepretty neat. We're gonna take a little
bit of a turn to the paranormalside. Actually, we're going to talk
to Erica Taylor from the Willard Librarydown in Evansville, Indiana, the famous
Gray Lady, the hauntun of thislibrary has been on national television, has
been on ghost Hunters and some ofthe really huge popular paranormal ghost hunting shows,
(00:46):
etc. All sorts of great stuff. But not only that, this
library is a pretty neat place.This is a fun conversation. We talk
about, of course, the libraryitself and then the Gray Lady. This
story has always been intriguing to me. They actually have a camera that they
running all the time and people watchit to catch the Gray Lady and see
her on camera. It's a veryneat thing. This is like a not
(01:06):
necessarily something that's super scary or likea violent thing going on. It just
seems to be a reoccurring event there, and she seems to live there the
Gray Lady, and everybody's kind ofadapt to that situation, so I found
that interesting. If you want tolearn more about some of these different locations
in Indiana that we're sharing, youcan go to our website Indiana Stories dot
com. You could find the newsletterthere, blogs, and of course and
(01:29):
transcription of the episode. So there'sa lot more stuff on that website.
To go there and check out therereally is. I suggest you do it.
There's a contact form on there aswell if you want to talk to
me about something, whether it befeedback or a suggestion, maybe if something
we talk about in the future.I do want to think three different supporters
of this podcast, like I doevery episode. It's important to me that
I do this for them because theydo a lot for me. Bloom Caster,
(01:49):
podcast page, dot io and podondot io three resources I used to
make this podcast and all my othercontent I create. Bloom Casters the go
to for recording on interviews and conversations. It's way better than zoom. Zoom
is not really designed for that,it's just designed for conference calls. Boomcaster
is the best quality, So goto boomcaster dot com, Podon dot ao,
best transcription most accurate by far,not even close. Podon dot ao
(02:10):
go check it out. And thenpodcast page dot Io. Tom and the
team there are amazing. You canget a website up and running in like
five minutes literally, and the team'svery hands on and helpful. I actually
use it for things that aren't podcasteither, so something you should look into.
Podcast page dot io. All right, let's get past all this and
we'll go ahead and jump into thisconversation that I have with Erica. I
hope you enjoy it. My guesttoday is Erica Taylor. She I guess
(02:34):
I'm gonna say. I'm not gonnasay, director at Willard Library in Evansville,
Indiana, screaming eagle land. Isthat correct? That is correct?
Are you? Are you a screamingeagle? I'm not, but I am
a fan. Go USI and wehave two challenges here, that's right,
the purple aces and then the divisiontwo one, the scream any I've never
heard of screaming eagle, but damnit, it sounds cool. No,
(02:59):
So obviously have you on here totalk about the library. Before we get
into that, we'll talk about thelibrary a little bit in general. But
this is obviously a notable place that'sbeen featured on I think it was actually
like ghost Hunters, right, Like, I mean, like this place has
been on significant platforms for its knownhaunting. So I think this is all
yeah, yeah, I mean allsorts of different things, from local to
(03:19):
national. So I'm excited to talkabout the library and the experience that people
are having there. Yeah, thanksfor having me, Jeff, I appreciate
it. Just kind of start offtell us about the library. I know
it's it's beautiful. It has thislike Gothic style. I don't know,
I'm not sure exactly when it wasbuilt, but it's a beautiful looking place.
Yes, it is a beautiful place. So it was built in eighteen
eighty five. It's Victorian Gothic style. It's actually the longest consecutively running library
(03:47):
in the state of Indiana, sowe've been around a long time. But
we've tried to keep all the originalwoodwork intact. If you walk in,
you'll see like these individual little tinytiles on the floor. We're all late
in eighteen eighty five. So there'sa whole lot of history there and it's
a beautiful place to be. Yeah, Willard Library does a beautiful. It's
(04:08):
always operated you just said as alibrary. Is that correct? That is
the longest one in the state.That's fascinating. I actually did not know
that. So I'm learning. I'mlearning along with everybody else here. So
that's that's awesome. Ye are comingand registered. This is a registered place
right then. On the from ahistorical standpoint, yes, that's correct.
We are a historic place. We'realso a nationally recognized haunted place. So
(04:29):
yeah, yeah, all kinds ofcool things. So now the answered that
first question that it's been operating asa library the whole time, which is
super cool. When the library firstopened, it was open to all people
of all races, religions, backgrounds, which is kind of unheard of at
the time, and that's kind ofbeen our stands ever since. So we
(04:51):
are a public library, um,and we welcome everyone from everywhere. You
live in the state of Indiana.You can get a card at Willard for
free. You just have to presentyour ID and your home library card and
we can get you set up.If you're at a state we can get
you a card for a small feeas well. So yeah, I wanted
to make sure we get that inthere. But it does seem like you
(05:12):
guys have a lot of activities andthings that you do in addition to just
hey, look at the library,look at some books, like a stereotypical
library. You guys have a lotof other things you're doing with the community
too as well. Right, that'sright. So we do a lot of
public programming. We have a coupleof different departments here at Willards. So
we have a genealogy department, sowe focus on family history. We also
have an archives department, so wehave a lot of old photos and records
(05:36):
and things like that from the area. And then we have of course a
children's department in an adult department,So lots of things going on all the
time. Yeah, it sounds likeit's a really good community place. It
is. It is. And alsoon this haunting note, it is by
no means like a demonic haunting byanyone. Is a lighthearted haunting here,
(06:00):
that is correct. Think of castfor the ghost, like a cast for
the ghost. So no, Jeff'snot covered anything crazy, you know.
But this is super cool because frommy research, it looks like this first
documented experience was clear back in nineteenthirty seven. I think I saw with
a custodian or something. Is thatcorrect? That is correct. So it
happened in nineteen thirty seven. Likeyou said, we had a night janitor
(06:24):
or a night custodian that would comein and there was a big furnace,
so he would come in and stokethe furnace and get the building ready for
the following day. One night hecame in and he sees this woman.
She's dressed in a long Victorian gown. She's got a veil over her face,
and he was supposed to be theonly person there in the building at
the time, so he yelled ather. She disappeared. The following day,
(06:46):
he told his boss, and itwas the library director at the time,
and his director kind of played itdown and said, you know,
you were probably tired, it wasthe middle of the night, and just
kind of brushed it off. Butthis poor guy just kept seeing this in
the middle of the night. Hewas actually the only person that we have
on record as quitting his job hereat Willard because it's the Gray Lady ghost,
because nobody would believe him. Butit wasn't until years later that other
(07:10):
people started seeing the same apparition.So so when did you say it was
built built in eighteen eighty five.It's not like this place was one hundred
years old or something when when thisguy saw this ghost, it was about
fifty years old or something, whicha lot of times you find with like
live or I want to say,locations like this that as they kind of
age and like significant things happened there, that's when people start to see things
(07:34):
here, things and these hauntings happen. So there's like not even like a
known reason why the lady in thegray dress, right, is that?
How the great what do we callher the gray lady or the lady in
gray? Yeah? Either why?Okay, But there's not like a reason
that would be known why the graylady would be there though, right,
Like it's not like, hey,somebody or is there is somebody die here?
(07:57):
Like usually somebody died, something significanthappened to the person. So not
necessarily we do get that question allthe time, did somebody die here?
And no nobody ever died at thelibrary. But there is a story kind
of goes that the founder of ourlibrary, his name was Willard Carpenter.
He dedicated his life to this placeand he was actually here building it in
(08:18):
his eighties. He was very dedicatedto it, and it kind of was
his baby. He was not somuch of a family man, more of
a workhorse. And so when hepassed, he unfortunately passed right before the
library opened, so he didn't getto see it. But when he passed,
he left a lot of his wealthto the building, not as much
to his family as they would haveliked. Some of his family members actually
(08:39):
sued the library board because they feltlike they he wasn't in sound mind when
he made his will, and theylost that suit. And so some people
believe that the Lady in Gray orthe Gray Lady, is his youngest daughter,
Louise Carpenter kind of hanging out tokeep an eye on things around here.
That's just one story. We don'tknow for who she is. That's
(09:01):
kind of the general idea. Well, it's interesting though, because like we
were saying, like nothing happened inthe building, which like this, this
happens. Of course, it's notunheard of, but it seems like it's
less documented. Maybe it's because it'snot as intriguing, right, like trying
to sell some crazy story could.But it's almost like fixated on a place
for an unknown reason. Which Ifind super interesting. Yeah, yeah,
(09:26):
you're right. So what are someother events that have happened, Because,
like we talked about earlier, thisthis library has been featured on Ghost Hunters.
You implemented a ghost camera leading upto all that before. What were
some other things that were kind ofhappened And when did this library like officially
have a tie end? Like publicknowledge of this gray lady? Right,
(09:48):
So it really just happened started outby word of mouth. People were reporting
the same sightings over and over again. The people who have seen the apparition
describe her as a Victorian woman wearingthis like long dress with a high collar,
and then sometimes she has a veilover her face. Other people have
described her as like a gray mistor like a cloud sort of walking down
(10:11):
the hallways. We've also had peoplesay that they feel like a cold chill
come over them. She's what wecall a poltergeist, so she likes to
move things around in the building andpeople have reported like feeling like someone's breathing
down their neck, touching their hair, playing with jewelry, that sort of
thing. So just all of thesedifferent stories that just kept overlapping over time.
(10:35):
It wasn't until I would say maybethe late eighties early nineties that she
really became kind of I don't wantto say a mascot, but something that
was associated with the library that peopleidentified with, and she became more and
more well known. We started doingghost tours about the mid nineties every year
in October, and that really helpedus to spread the word about her.
(10:56):
And yeah, people just seemed veryinterested in her, which is really cool
for us. There's a very famousfor this library video of a book.
Right this brook just kind of likegets lifted then moves and just falls to
the floor. Am I correct?That's correct. So there's a there's a
story that kind of goes along withthat. Is we used to have We
(11:18):
still do have schools come in withthe field trips, stay here, is
that kind of kind of thing.Usually when we have small children here,
we tell them how important the libraryis and you know, how they can
get a library card and encourage themto read, and we usually just kind
of touch on the ghost and justsaying, you know, this is a
there's a friendly ghost that hangs outhere. Well, one time this little
(11:39):
kid went home and told his momthat they told their class about a ghost
at the library, and he wasreally upset about it. So his mom
got upset too, and she marchesdown to the library and tells the director,
you know, you can't be tellinglittle kids about a ghost. You're
giving my kid nightmares. At thatpoint, the director said, Okay,
I've had enough of this, andhe tells his staff. He said,
(12:01):
we're going to tell people that thegray Lady is not here anymore. She
has moved on. We're going totalk about her anymore. So his staff
did what they were instructed, andthe next time somebody asked about the gray
Lady, they said, oh,she's not here. We haven't seen her
heard anything from her for a while. As soon as they said that,
a book flies across the room likeit was chucked. So she definitely makes
(12:24):
her presence known, even if wetried to deny it. Yeah, and
this video was it was it onthe ghost cam or was it on just
that? Is that why the ghostcam got put up? I'm trying to
recall exactly. So we do that. We have multiple ghost camps. There's
one on every floor and they runtwenty four hours a day, seven days
a week. And there was aThis was fairly recently there was a book
(12:46):
that was caught falling off of ashelf in the middle of the night.
So bill of the lights are out, but you can see this book falling.
We came back the next day andkind of tested it to try to
figure out like what would cause thatto happen, and we honestly don't know.
There's gravity of it. I mean, it was leaned up against a
wall, so there's really no reasonfor it to fall forward. We even
(13:07):
check to see if there was asmall earthquake that night and there was nothing.
So Yeah, there are things likethat that happened all the time that
are just kind of unexplainable. Yeah, I encourage everybody to look up this
video that I'm talking about, though. I think that's like the one that's
most widely circulated probably. So whatabout you, how long have you worked
there? Have you had experiences atall? Or Yeah? So I've worked
(13:28):
here about seven years. I'll behonest, I've been a skeptic. I
didn't want to believe in anything paranormalgoing on because you know, it freaks
me out a little bit. Yeah, but I have had I've never seen
the Great Lady, but I havehad experiences the most notable would probably be
about two years ago. I washolding a book club in our Bayard room,
(13:52):
which is our boardroom, so it'san enclosed room on the upstairs floor.
We had our book club, everyoneleft and I was there cleaning up
refreshments and stuff, and I hadmy hair back in a ponytail, and
I was cleaning some things off ofa table and I feel someone tug on
my ponytail, just kind of likea playful tug, like twice, and
(14:13):
so I turned around to see.I'm thinking it's maybe some one of the
people that went into the book clubor one of my co workers and a
dren. Then there's no one there, and I was nowhere near a wall
or anything. I mean, therewas nothing that it could have been caught
on. So it really freaked meout. But that's happened. I've also
seen, you know, books falloff the shelves by themselves a lot of
(14:35):
times. The elevator doors will openand close and there's no one on there.
We just have like weird things likethat all the time. The faucet's
run by themselves, that sort ofthing. So what did you do when
that happened? Do you like,what was your reaction to you just like
calmly go about your business or Igot the heck out of there really quick.
Yeah, but I went and Idouble checked with the staff that was
(14:56):
working on that floor, so itdid anybody come in here? No?
So yeah, I told a fewco workers about it, but not a
fond memory for me. It's alittle creepy. Is it common for your
co workers? Like, is everybodyor most that the people had an experience
or I would say yes and wellyes and no. So there are some
(15:16):
people on staff that swear up anddown that you know, the gray Lady
is not a thing. Other peopleswear up and down that she is and
they've seen her. So it reallyjust depends on who you ask. But
I do think everyone would agree thatstrange things do happen around here all the
time. And with our ghost camps, I mean we have people reporting sightings
and just odd, odd stuff happening, you know, every day. Who
(15:39):
has to review that footage that soundslike a heck of it? That?
Yeah, no kidding, Who doyou do that? Is that your job?
Erica? You review all this ghostcamera from I wish, I wish.
No, that's not my job.But we do have a great following
and people on Facebook chatting back andforth about the sightings they scene. So
(16:00):
yeah, we appreciate all those ghosthunters out there watching keeping an eye on
things for us. Yeah, it'simportant to note that that's a super cool
interactive thing that you guys are doing. In regards to that camera, you
can go online on I think yourwebsite see it. There's other places to
see it. So like when thebook fail recently, was that reported by
somebody watching, or like how didyou like know, did you like go
(16:21):
in the morning and you saw thebook on the floor or like that I
believe was a security footage shot.But we have this is an interesting story
too. So last summer we havethis gigantic portrait painted portrait of George Washington
that hangs in the stairwell. It'smassive, it's like ten feet tall.
And one night someone on ghost campssaw it fall off the wall and it
(16:47):
was attached really well, I meanit was professionally hume and it falls off
the wall falls forward as somebody caughtit on the cams and notified the library.
So we were this was after hours, so we were able to go
and get it taken care of.But that was another thing. We don't
know why that happened or what,but yeah, somebody, somebody caught it,
and there is footage of it falling. But has there been anything document
(17:08):
as far as a picture or anything. So um, yeah, there have
been photos taken up her. Oneinteresting thing about her as she likes to
cover her tracks. So we'll havepeople in all the time that say,
oh, I caught this awesome pictureof the Gray Lady. Then they go
to look on their phone and it'sgone. The same thing has happened with
we've had news stations here. Onetime a new station was here and the
(17:32):
Gray Lady actually, well we saythe gray Lady, she pulled multiple books
halfway off the shelf. No onewas around. It really freaked the staff
out. The news crew comes andthey get footage of these books pulled out,
and they interviewed the staff, andwhen they get back to the studio
to put their their segment together,all that footage had been wiped away.
(17:55):
So it's really interesting how people tryto try to capture her on home,
you know, on their phones,and she just doesn't allow that to happen.
But we do have a few picturesof her. They're floating around the
internet. There's one very clear onethat we got a couple of years ago
of her walking down the stairs andyou can actually see her long dress.
She's holding a book. So yeah, it's it's a really cool picture.
(18:18):
How long did it take you tostart believing that, you said you're a
skeptic. I mean, yeah,I mean you can only deny for so
long. Yeah, but yeah,I mean there's definitely strange, strange energy
around here. But I mean it'snot it's not like a scary feeling.
It's more of just something strange goingon. And that's why I kind of
started off with that. It's notlike there's some there's not some crazy story
(18:41):
here, there's not some crazy eventhere. It's just an interesting thing going
on at a historical place. Soyes, yes, just another coworker almost,
Yeah, another cowhere. Like Isaid earlier, ghost Hunters, which
it's still probably one of the mostpopular ever for sure as far as those
kind of television shows. But theyat the time, I'm definitely hands down,
we're I don't remember why year,it was probably over ten years now,
(19:03):
easily. They came to the librarywith the whole production set, which
I know people do I know,people do that a lot there, but
this was a big ordeal, likea national thing. They came there,
they set everything up. I knowyou probably weren't working there then, but
do you hear a lot about that, because that's that's a pretty big deal.
They've only done so many episodes,right, this library is one of
them. That's right. It wasin two thousand and five when they came,
(19:26):
and that was before my time.It wasn't the most exciting episode of
those Hunters ever. But they saidthat they could not confirm or deny that
she existed here at Willard A littlestory about that though she m That night,
their whole crew was here. Theyall kind of used our boardroom as
kind of their hangout space. Sothe middle of the night they were they
(19:48):
were walking through, they decided totake a little break. They go up
in the in the boardroom and they'reall sitting around our boardroom table, and
this mist appears above the table andso like ten people saw it all at
the same time. Unfortunately, noone got it on camera, but they
did say that they all saw something. Did they say that, I'm trying
to remember. They say that onthe episode itself. I don't know,
it's been a while since I've seenit. Yeah, it's been a while.
(20:11):
That's a big deal though, forthem to come there and do that.
Like I said, one hundred episodesthey've done or something, and this
library is one of them. SoI assume that part of the thing that
lured them there is probably that wasat that book incident, or it could
have been. I think they mayhave played that on the show like that,
Like we're talking about that book goingacross the room. Yeah, I
(20:32):
think that's kind of like Locally itwas probably known, like you said,
going into the nineties, but nationallyspeaking, I'm sure that helped contribute to
it. Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah, and we get we get
calls and people from all over thecountry coming to visit us, and it's
really helped to promote the library itself. So you probably hear that every day,
(20:52):
right, like, oh yeah,especially in October exactly. So to
segue into that, this time ofthe year, you guys do a lot
of different things as far as tours, investigate like activities going on to library.
That's right. So we do publictours the three weeks leading up to
Halloween. This year, we havetwenty one different tours scheduled, and all
(21:15):
of these tours are led by staffmembers who are here every day and have
had experiences. So it's just afun little It's more of a historic tour
than a haunted house, so it'skind of People come in, we tell
a little bit history about the building, and then we walk through and visit
all the different spots where the GreatLady has been seen, tell different stories.
(21:36):
So it's a family friendly thing.It gives people the creeps, which
is always fun. But yeah,it's it's always a good time. We
enjoy it. Again, this isa lighthearted event. Nobody's coming to work
terrified every day, That's right.I think most of the times we hear
about these kind of stories, it'slike that, right, because that's a
cool story. I guess I wastoo afraid to even go on to work.
(21:56):
The cool thing about this, though, is it's just such a nonchalant
sort of thing, right, Like, she's here, it's fine, We're
all going to go about our business. Yeah, right. To me,
that the legitimacy of that is highfor me because you always hear about crazy
things. But it's just a partof everyday life for the staff and the
people in the library. Right,Yeah, you kind of get used to
(22:18):
it, you know, if you'reif you're in the bathroom in the water
turns itself on, it's like okay, hey, yeah, I see you.
And it's probably not even something likeI know people come in and talk
about it, but I know it'sprobably not something you guys even talk about
every day. It's such, likeI said, just such a common thing
it is. Yeah, yeah,you kind of just come to accept it.
So yeah, beautiful place. Definitely, everybody should check it out.
(22:44):
Even if you don't want to seethe Ghost Lady, you can check it
out in person or I also wantto let you share the details of online
some information about the library. Thenthen obviously the ghost cameras are rolling all
the time, right, that iscorrect. So our website is called Willard,
so I'll give you the like,it's www dot Willard dot lib dot
(23:06):
i N dot us. It's kindof a mouthful, but on there there
is a link to our ghost site. We also have merchandise that features the
Gray Lady, so you can youcan check that out. And yeah,
you can log on there and seeour ghost camps twenty four seven. They're
always running. So yeah, it'sjust a really cool voice. Not to
mention we have all kinds of youknow, historic resources and e books and
(23:29):
that kind of stuff. So yeah, definitely check out our website and come
visit us if you're ever in thein southern Indiana. What do they call
it the Tristate area, that's correct, Yes, across the bridge from Henderson,
Kentucky. You guys. Yeah again, Erica is awesome for you to
take the time to do this withme. And I can't encourage everybody enough
(23:49):
to check out the things you're doingdown there, not only at the library,
but Evansville itself is a very coolcity. Would you agree with that?
Absolutely? It is all kinds ofstuff going on down here. You
got a little zoo, you've gotcasinos. It's like a yeah, well
more could you need many Indianapolis goingon down there? There? You go.
(24:10):
It is kind of like I forget, like it's I think it's forgotten
about a lot. It's kind oflike that town off to the side,
down in the corner and until recently, I don't even think it had an
interstate from Indianapolis going there. Andyeah, it's is it the third most
populated city in the state, right, that's my understanding. Yes, but
it didn't until recently, did noteven have a freaking interstate from the capital
(24:33):
to there. So it is kindof like a little forgotten town in the
corner. I feel like it's aIt's a great place to visit, even
better place to live. So thereyou go. We got all the plugs
in and like I said, I'llhave all this in the show notes of
course, And again I appreciate youtaking the time to do this absolutely,
Thanks so much for having me,Jeff, Thank you for listening to this
(24:53):
episode of Indiana Stories. If youlike what you heard, you can go
to Indiana Stories dot com for moreepisode and other stories relating to Indiana.
Also, if you're enjoying this podcast, there's several things you can follow,
the podcast itself, the newsletter,and various other things. Thanks again for
listening, and we will be backwith another episode and I hope you join
(25:14):
us for another Indiana Story Anya.And the question is do I stay here?
(25:44):
Will you be back? Are yougonna come back? Will you be
back? Are you coming back
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