didn’t see where the voices were originating. “I started freaking out,” she said, “and ran back and closed the office door and pushed a chair against it.” Nancy Roberts, in her book South Carolina Ghosts, recounts an incident in 1982, reported in the December 19th issue of Anderson’s Independent Mail, in which a boy who is conveniently given the pseudonym of Richard Hedgepeth went to practice in the music hall and encountered Anna sitting at a piano. The two proceeded to have a supernatural conversation in which Anna revealed she was searching for Francis, her fiancé. The protection of the source raises questions about the authenticity of the story. There are multiple leads in this convoluted myth, all of which end in dead ends and provide
no facts to support the legend. The story of the so-called Ghost of Sullivan remains interesting at Anderson University, though, perhaps because of the ambiguous nature of its facts. Multiple versions of the events have spawned a local urban legend, and the idea of supernatural occurrences has fascinated students for generations. Greg Allgood, who claims to have known people who said they saw things at night, simply states, “I’ve worked here all day long for several years now and I’ve never seen anything.” Whatever students may hear about Anna’s haunting of the Sullivan Building, this ghost story offers no proof. It is entirely possible that Katrina experienced the creakings of an old house or that her latenight working was beginning to play tricks
on her mind. Could not the voices also have come from outside the chapel? Another disappointment in the story is the absence of any records at Anderson University’s Thrift Library of Anna’s suicide. According to Nancy Roberts, Paul Talmadge, the vice president of the college, denied the suicide by stating, “Nothing tragic has ever happened on this campus or in the music building” (60-67). Perhaps that is true. The absence of evidence suggests it might be. But it is certainly true that Anna’s spirit, if not necessarily the facts of her story, continues to engage the imagination of class after class of AU students, students prone to exploring mysterious attics in the hope of uncovering romantic secrets, but finding instead a tradition.
WORKS CITED
“Such a myth begs to have questions answered, but like any good ghost story, many of these questions remain darkened.”
”
Allgood, Greg. Personal interview. 7 April 2009. Allgood, Greg. Personal interview. 19 April 2009. Boyanoski, John. Ghosts of Upstate South Carolina. Mountville: Shelor, 2006. Hester, Hubert Inman. They That Wait: A History of Anderson College. Anderson: The Quality P, 1969. Johnson, Katrina. Telephone interview. 7 April 2009. Roberts, Nancy. South Carolina Ghosts. Columbia: U of South Carolina P, 1983. 13