Haunted by the Ghosts of Nuns? Kenosha, Wisconsin’s Kemper Center

Kenosha, Wisconsin’s Kemper Center, formally Kemper Hall, is host to numerous events and outings every year, but behind all the fun and festivities lies a dark, haunting secret. I’m going to explore some of the history and paranormal activity surrounding this nesting-ground for ghost stories. Come, join me…

Before the haunted sightings, the Kenosha Kemper Hall was an Episcopal girls’ school from 1870 until 1975 when the school closed down. Many of the ghosts that haunt these sprawling buildings and halls originate from these years, and especially around a certain nun who took over at Kemper Hall by the name of Sister Margaret Clare, who ruled Kemper Hall with an iron fist. One ghostly legend claims that the Sister was either pushed, or fell, from an observatory tower on the grounds and fell to her death, causing her ghost to haunt the grounds. This has been established as urban legend as Sister Margaret Clare died in 1921 due to chronic illness, though, that does not mean the ghost sightings could not be her ghost, haunting the grounds she once presided over.

Another famous, and more historically accurate, story involves the ghost of a young girl that committed suicide instead of leaving her love behind and joining the all girl school. In 1900, Sister Augusta came from Chicago to attend an annual retreat at the seminary. She vanished without a trace, while in Kenosha, and left behind nothing except her handbag, crucifix, and her insignia of holy Sisterhood. Telegrams were sent to Chicago and St. Louis to alert family of Sister Augusta of the disappearance. On January 5^th, a notice came from the Kenosha Kemper Hall saying that the mysterious disappearance had been solved. They told newspapers that she was found in Springfield, Missouri, but these statements turned out to be lies.

Around noon, on January 8^th, a little girl by the name of Bertha Smith, was playing on the beach on the east end of Seminary Street, which is now 65^th Street, with her younger brother. They spotted the tattered robes of Sister Augusta floating in the water of Lake Michigan and ran home to tell their mother. The robes clinging to the lifeless body of the missing nun, and the police started an inquest into the mysteries surrounding the disappearance. This uncovered secrets about her strange behavior around the time of the disappearance and the fact that Kemper Hall, and Sister Margaret Clare, covered her strange behavior. According to testimony, Sister Augusta had become “mentally deranged from her work, which had been exceedingly hard during the last few months”. Two young girls testified that they had seen her walking on the beach on the night of January 2 and this was the last time that she was seen alive. The coroner’s jury ruled her death a suicide and she was laid to rest in her habit. The body was then taken to St. Louis, where her sister and her family buried her in Bellefontaine Cemetery. It is possible that Sister Augusta’s ghost may still be haunting the Kenosha Kemper Center to this very day, also.

There have been many recorded ghost sightings and haunting activity at the Kenosha Kemper Center. In the 1930’s, a bakery worker at the school spotted a ghost dressed in a brown skirt clutching the railing of a stairwell. She ran to tell the other kitchen employees of her encounter and then returned to the staircase, the ghost was gone. In 1985, a member of the Lakeside Players, a Kenosha theater group, had a strange, haunting encounter in Kemper Hall, which is still the name of the main and largest building in the Center. She was standing inside of the old gymnasium when she sensed a presence in the back of the room, as if someone were watching her. When she turned, she caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye and then the sound of scraping and footsteps climbing up the balcony staircase. The stairs were empty at the time, and a search of the building revealed that no one else was present. Even the media has felt the strange, haunting presences at the Kemper Center. In October, 1997, a crew from the local television news station filmed a story inside of Kemper Hall. According to a source, the photographer who edited the tape began to experience bizarre problems with the tape that was shot. He was inside of the editing bay and each time that the tape would reach a portrait of founder Charles Durkee, the tape would go berserk. It would roll, and begin flashing with static, and then return to normal when the shot changed. Several co-workers came in to observe the problem and it happened every time. No one could explain why it happened.