Ghosts of UR: legendary Spider tales
CAMPUS LIFE
Rumors of ghosts on campus always surface, especially near Halloween.
“Everyone likes the suspense and mysteries of ghost stories,” said Dywana Saunders, research and digitization associate at Boatwright Memorial Library. She has been with the University for more than 30 years, and is the keeper of many of its stories.
“If there’s anyone haunting our campus, they are here because they loved the University,” she said.
One of the most common stories is about May Keller, the first dean of Westhampton College. What was originally her house is now the Westhampton Deanery, and her former bedroom is now Dean Mia Reinoso Genoni’s office. Keller died there in 1964.
“May Keller loved this place, but she ran a tight ship,” Saunders said. “Even up until a few days before she died, she would reprimand people for cutting down trees.”
She was under 5 feet tall, and her hair was almost as long as she was. She wrote her dissertation on medieval weaponry, threw Halloween parties on campus for the students, and was a suffragette in Richmond.
“If May Keller does haunt the campus, she would be walking the grounds and looking after her gardens,” she said.
Keller, along with the school’s first female physical education faculty member, Fanny Crenshaw, fought for decades to get a pool added to campus. It was installed after Crenshaw’s retirement in 1964, and at 75, Crenshaw was known for swimming in it three times a week.
In 1992, the pool was drained and filled with hundreds of hanging racks of costumes from the theatre department. Some even hang a bit lopsided, as they sit on the steep ramp from the shallow end to the deep end. The Modlin Center for the Arts is just above the former natatorium.
But since the renovation, the space has had multiple bouts with water damage, which some say may be Crenshaw’s efforts to refill her beloved pool from beyond the grave.
Other areas of campus some say host spiritual visitors are Bottomley House, which was built in 1915, but moved to the University of Richmond campus in 1995, and North Court, which housed World War I veterans as a debarkation hospital from 1918-19.
“All of these people are part of our history,” Saunders said. “May Keller is a pillar of the University of Richmond and Westhampton College. She dedicated her life to this place, and it’s important that we remember that.”