The crossroads where the paranormal and history meet.
Cottey College is haunted by 2 ghosts: (1) Vera: a student from long ago that was making candy in Rosemary Hall when her nightgown caught fire, and resulted in burning down the hall. Now she haunts the entire college, comforting some girls and tricking others (2) a man in black (or a black man) that haunts the college from slavery days, as the story goes, possibly looking for Vera.
From the Cottey College website:
Vera is the “ghost of Rosemary Hall.” Vera Alice Neitzert was a high school senior at Cottey
when she died on May 17, 1920. Vera was one of several students participating in a forbidden chafing dish party, making candy in a suite sitting room in Main Hall. The burns she suffered were fatal. In the 1970s, the legend of Vera the ghost took hold when students were in Rosemary Hall late at night studying and practicing piano. It is interesting to note that Vera did not die on campus, but in the American Sanitarium in Nevada, and the fire was in Main Hall, not Rosemary Hall. Rosemary Hall was razed in 1990 following the opening of the Haidee and Allen Wild Center for the Arts.
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Halloween is celebrated in the residence halls. Hall officers work together to plan this fun event. Whether a scavenger hunt or haunted house—you are sure to have frightful fun! Halloween might also be your best chance to see Vera, Cottey’s official ghost. In 1920, when Cottey had a high school for women, high school senior Vera Alice Neitzert died tragically on May 17 of severe burns received when her nightgown caught fire while she and friends were making candy in a chafing dish in a suite sitting room in Main Hall. Fifty years later the legend of Vera the ghost took hold when students practicing piano in Rosemary Hall heard strange noises. Even though Rosemary Hall has since been torn down, the fire occurred in Main Hall and Vera died in the hospital in Nevada. The legend of her ghost still remains.