Donna Albino, class of 1983

In a letter written by a student in May 1916 to her fiance. She lived in Wilder that year. She told him she was awakened by noise outside the night before, and heard men's voices, but decided not to get up to investigate. In the morning, she found out that the man who owned the general store on College Street (it was located in what later was known as Woodbridge Hall; it was on the left side of Frances Perkins House, and it burned down in the 1960s) called Alvord's committed suicide by drowning himself in Lower Lake. He had closed his store a few weeks earlier because he had been sick. I think Kate Muertes' story about seeing a man having trouble breathing who disappeared when she tried to talk to him was very interesting ... a ghost who died by drowning might indeed go to Wilder. After all, at least one person in Wilder heard him die. And what if he didn't commit suicide, but was murdered, and those were the voices she heard ... wouldn't the man who was murdered seek a live human to help him get justice?

[2002]