Speaker 1 (00:00): Coming up on Art Palace. Speaker 2 (00:02): Of course, when I told the other guards, they're like, what was that all about? Somebody went, oh, you saw the lady in Speaker 3 (00:07): White? Speaker 2 (00:08): And I went, okay. I've Speaker 3 (00:09): Been initiated. Speaker 1 (00:23): Welcome to Art Palace, produced by Cincinnati Art Museum. This is your host Russell eig. Here at the Art Palace, we meet cool people and then talk to them about art. Today's cool people are the staff of the Cincinnati Art Museum who are sharing their personal ghost stories. A year ago, we recorded a ghost tour episode, and if you haven't listened to it yet, you should go check it out. A few of the pieces are no longer on view, but it's definitely a good listen for this spooky season. This episode is a little different because I wanted to hear new stories directly from the people who experienced them. Most of the employees I asked had never actually experienced anything that they believed to be supernatural, but those who did remembered them quite vividly. Speaker 3 (01:18): I am Mary Casey Ster. I'm a visitor services assistant. I was using the sink, washing my hands in the ladies' restroom, the older one that's in the Great Hall. As I was washing my hands, I saw two or a white orb, circle the ceiling twice, and then the sinks came on one at a time. The automatic electric sinks came on of their own accord, and I simply said, don't bother me ghost. I'm just washing my hands. So for the next four years, I did not enter that restroom. About the same year we had a guard, and the morning I came to work, people were asking about him and nobody had seen him and he wasn't the sort not to show up for work. So that morning I was walking through the Cincinnati wing, filling up the brochure racks, and in a distance I saw from a distance, I saw him sitting on a guard stool in one of the galleries. So I thought, oh, well, there he is, all is well. So I went back to my desk and opened my emails and there was an email saying that he had passed away the day before. Speaker 3 (02:24): I have one other creepy guard story. Some may recall. Years ago, I shared an office in the back of the old library where the Rosenthal Education Center is now. And on many, many occasions I felt like somebody was watching me from behind and I turn around and nobody would be there. While sometimes Kristen Spangenberg was there, but most often nobody was there. And this happened at least on a monthly basis, and it just gave me the chills. Well, I finally shared that story with someone, and then I found out that a guard making their rounds on a night shift had passed away very near my doorway. So I believe that's who was making sure I was at my desk and working. Speaker 4 (03:04): Now, I Speaker 1 (03:04): Used to work in that library, and if I'm not mistaken, the story I heard was that the guard was coming up the stairs from the old archives and had a heart attack. Is that what you heard? Speaker 3 (03:14): That is exactly what I had heard. Same guy. Speaker 1 (03:17): Yeah. Okay. So that always kind of creeped me out about that area too. So Speaker 4 (03:29): Here I've had three experiences, what we call post two, which is the antiquities post two, post three, where the Japanese stuff is. I was walking by where they have the touch and learn thing, and I had this tapping on my shoulder. It was early in the morning, so I come Speaker 1 (03:54): In at like Speaker 4 (03:55): Eight Speaker 1 (03:55): 30, Speaker 4 (03:56): Walk around, didn't hear anything or see anything, was just put a definite tap on the shoulder as I was walking by it. The only other time was in 2 0 5, which is the room with the paneling. I saw a shadow go over one of the paintings, but it was a middle painting and it didn't go over the other two paintings. It was the one with the guy that's got the bagpipe and a cow. So I saw that, and then I heard my voice whisper Rick. A week ago or two weeks ago, I was upstairs with Andrew Manning and I saw a woman dressed in like 18 hundreds clothes with a hat, gray hat, and she was real pale, but I only saw her from the knees up when she went by one of the stained glass windows up there on what we call two 14. And then I said to Andrew, I said, did you see that? And he goes, what? I said, this woman just went by. And he says, I didn't see it. So he didn't see it, but I saw it. So those are the three experiences I've had here. Speaker 1 (05:17): So I remember you saying though, you also, did you see sort of other sort of shadowy figures in the Great Hall before? Speaker 4 (05:24): Oh, yeah. Forgot about that. That typically happens on Mondays. When we were doing the construction, the first phase when they were putting in the African room and where the offices used to be back where the antiquities is now, guards would have to sit out there and escort workers, contract workers to use the elevator or whatnot. So you'd be sitting in the great hall and you'd just see a shadow on the stairway. Speaker 1 (05:59): And that would happen all the time on Mondays. But just on Mondays, it'd seemed like just a shadow. Just for a second. I was like, what was that? Sometimes moving down the stairs, sometimes going, went up the stairs. You were mentioning that you saw something while somebody with you didn't see anything. Do you think since you have all these ghost stories, do you think you're just more susceptible to them or? Yeah, I think it's more of a curse than a blessing. I wish that I didn't see 'em, him. Speaker 5 (06:38): I'm Jordan Rolfe and I'm part of the visitor support team at the Cincinnati Art Museum, and I've been here, it'll be 10 years in February, we had a temporary exhibition of art, Novo jewelry, and we were closing up for the day, and I was the one in charge of locking up that gallery. And we went ahead and took care of all our closing procedures. And I noticed as I was locking the door, I was hearing this angry exasperated breath behind me, and I look around and nobody is around me. And I had no idea what that noise possibly could have been, but it was definitely human and definitely upset. It was a temporary exhibition on lone from a museum in Boston. So sometimes I think energies or supernatural elements can attach to a certain object that's coming into our museum. So sometimes the energy isn't with the place necessarily, and sometimes it's with the actual object. And again, I'm not saying for certain it was definitely a ghost, but I can definitely say it was a very angry sound and I do not have a logical explanation as to what it could Speaker 1 (07:56): Have Speaker 5 (07:56): Been. Speaker 6 (08:00): You remember Suzanne? Speaker 1 (08:02): So wait, so what about Suzanne? Speaker 6 (08:04): So she was one of my training guards when I first started, and she walked me through post eight and showed me where all the ghost stories were. Speaker 1 (08:11): Oh, you're right. And Speaker 6 (08:12): Where that stool sits in the corner, she used to tell me that the ghost would come and pull her hair. And the one day I was sitting there and there was nobody in the gallery and my hair was just down not attached to anything, and I could feel like the tiniest hair being pulled. Oh my gosh. If my hair had been in a ponytail, I would've just thought it was tangled in that, but it wasn't. It was just down and there was nothing there. Speaker 1 (08:33): So wait, this post eight, you guys speak in post? I don't know, post. Speaker 6 (08:36): That's Gallery 2 0 4, I believe. The one with the wood paneling. Speaker 1 (08:40): Oh, okay. Okay. So the Dutch, the Dutch gallery, or that's 2 0 5? Yeah, that's a good idea. I should, I wonder if I could, I need to record Suzanne. Speaker 6 (08:53): Hello, it's Suzanne. Speaker 1 (08:54): Hi, Suzanne. Is Russell, how long were you a guard here? Speaker 2 (08:59): Oh, I was there almost three years I would say. Speaker 1 (09:02): Okay. And so in that time you definitely had some spooky encounters. Speaker 2 (09:08): Oh, absolutely. Speaker 1 (09:11): What would you say was I, do you remember which one happened first or Speaker 2 (09:15): I don't remember time-wise which one happened first, but one of the most memorable ones, and it may have been my first experience, was sitting at the front desk at the front entrance and we were getting ready to close down the museum. So all the guards were calling in their different posts saying this and such, post is clear. So when it was time for me to call over my radio that my post was clear, I had glanced up and I saw a woman's skirts up on a balcony above the front area. And so I called and I said, I'm sorry, post one is not clear. And I called to the post up on that balcony area, and I asked the guard in that area to go and check and make sure that the woman was spotted and then that she was escorted out. And so the guard came out and looked on the balcony and I can see him and he calls down to me and he says, where was this woman? And I said, I saw her on the balcony above where guest services had been at that time. And he looks over there and he says, Suzanne, there's a wall there. Nobody can get out onto the balcony. I said, okay, nevermind. Speaker 2 (10:40): That kind of freaked me out. Then of course when I told the other guards were like, what was that all about? Somebody went, oh, you saw the lady in white? And I went, okay, I've been initiated. Oh, I do remember the first incident. My friend Kim Cedar rest her soul was taking me on orientation and showing me through the museum, and she takes me through a doorway on the second floor, and it's not locked, but it was a big heavy wooden door that made a very distinctive sound when you went through it. So we went through the wooden door and I'm standing there talking to Kim and she's showing me the supply closet where we have our sign in, sign out board, and she shows me which key to use. And just then I see a woman come from behind me through the wooden doors and I said, oh, excuse me. Speaker 2 (11:33): And I stepped up closer to Kim and then I glanced over my shoulder to see who it was thinking she's an employee or a volunteer and to see where she was going. And there was no one there. And there were only three routes that she could have taken, and they were all within five feet of me. She did not go down the stairs. I peered down the stairs and you could see all the way down the stairwell from the second floor down into the basement. She was not on the steps anywhere. She had not taken the elevator because you couldn't hear the elevator door open or close. And she had not gone into the private offices. That door was locked, and I would've seen her already putting her key into the lock. At that time, she never had been there, but Kim had seen her out of the corner of her eye and I said, did you see somebody coming behind me? She said, I thought I did. And we had also heard the distinctive sound of the door. So that was interesting. And that was my first experience, and that was within my first week of hire. So I was initiated. Speaker 1 (12:41): Were there any others? Speaker 2 (12:42): Oh yeah. Down in the DeWitts women's room, I had gone down to use the bathroom, and as I walked in, both sinks have a automatic feature on the faucet, so it's motion sensor and you wave your hands in front of it and the faucet will turn on. And as I walked in the door, both faucets were running and I thought, oh, that's weird. And then I thought, oh, well, the maintenance guy has been playing with the faucets and turned it on, and now they're just super sensitive. And they saw me come in the door and that triggered the motion sensor. Speaker 2 (13:22): But then again, in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, this is the hunch bathroom. So I chuckled and I said, hi, I'm here. It's just me. And I go into the bathroom and I do my thing. And when I come out of the stall, both of them turned on again as soon as I walked out of the stall, and I went, okay. So I walked over and I thought, yeah, definitely the sensors are too sensitive. So I'm washing my hands and just then I feel a hand at the crown of my head and it strokes down my hair and my hair is pretty long, and it goes down below my shoulder blades. And it did at that time too, and my eyes immediately darted into the mirror to see who is petting me. And there was no one's reflection in the mirror, so I just stopped washing my hands and I went, thank you. And I went right out the door. I don't know why I said thank you, but it was definitely a friendly gesture, and that's all that came to my mind. I guess. Speaker 1 (14:32): Melissa said you had also experienced someone playing with your hair maybe in the Dutch Gallery Speaker 2 (14:39): All the time. I would be sitting there and I would feel someone pull up one or two strands of hair from the top of my head and just tug on it. And I can't remember who I was talking to at one time. It was one of the guys I remember, and I said, do you see my hair moving? It feels like somebody's pulling on my hair, but I don't remember if they saw it or not, but it happened in front of somebody at one point. But yeah, that used to happen a lot either in the Dutch gallery or Schmid lap or sometimes across from the cafe. Speaker 1 (15:15): It's funny, several people have mentioned the both, well, you mentioned the ladies' restroom downstairs and then the ladies' room. I've heard the ladies' room in the Great Hall as well, the Speaker 2 (15:25): One Oh, yeah. Yeah. Speaker 1 (15:27): And then lots of people also see this female ghost. I wonder if there's some connection there. I don't know. Speaker 2 (15:37): Well, the ladies' rooms would be a bastion of femininity and safety for someone of the feminine persuasion who wants to avoid men. So I can understand that. Well, I can tell you in the other lady's room off of the main hall, I was doing my thing in there and heard the door open and close and heard one of the stall doors open and close. And when I came out to wash my hands, this was during closing time, so I peered under the stall to see if there were feet so I could remind somebody, yes, we're closing and this is the way to the exit. And no one was there and you had not heard the door open and close, so nobody had left. Speaker 2 (16:22): So that was odd. And when I had walked into that restroom, it was empty. I remember sitting on the bench in the Miro Gallery outside the cafe, and there was a wedding going on, and that was my particular post. So I could see up and down Thero Gallery and the wedding was going on in the Great Hall, but the doors were closed. So I'm sitting there and I'm just making sure that if anybody comes through, I can direct them in the right place and make sure they stay where they're supposed to stay. And it's pretty lonely there. There's not a whole lot going on. It's pretty much a closed gallery. I'm just making sure everybody is contained in the right area. So I'm whistling under my breath. And I still remember the song I was whistling was someone to watch over me, and I'm whistling it very softly. And when I stop the last note in my left ear, I hear just one note being whistled very clearly. And I literally jumped off my stool and my head whips around and nobody of course is standing there. There was nobody in the galleries behind me and nobody in that whole area. There was no one around. The person was another guard who would've been at least a hundred feet away. And there are multiple walls in between us. So I remember saying after I jumped off the stool, I said, oh, did you hear me whistling? I heard you whistle. It's like, I know you heard me and I heard you. Speaker 1 (18:16): So I had asked, I kind of asked Rick the same question, and you kind of alluded to this, like you sort of maybe asked some people if they saw something when you didn't. And I talked to a lot of guards who never experienced anything. And then you've experienced a lot. Rick has experienced a lot. Why do you think that is? Why do you think certain people experience it and certain people? Speaker 2 (18:41): Well, I grew up in a house that was over 150 years old and it was haunted, and I think that sort of primed the pump. And some of my other siblings are gifted and our grandmother was gifted, and we have Irish and Native American bloodlines, and my mom likes to think that gave us a double whammy. So I may just have been sensitive to begin with. And then you put me in this atmosphere that's ripe. And then I'm one of the ones who is tuned in to pick up on those frequencies like a radio. Speaker 1 (19:15): Okay, Speaker 2 (19:16): I'm just tuned into the right channel. Speaker 1 (19:33): You just heard Mary Casey Stir, Rick Young, Jordan Rothfus, Melissa Jessop, and Suzanne Trombley. While recording this episode, I had something of a mysterious incident. I recorded Jordan RO office, but when I got back to my desk and plugged in my recorder, the file was missing. I would've chalked it up to user error, but the recorder numbers, the files as they're created. I had file 2 69 and 2 71, but two 70 had been deleted, and I certainly did not delete anything. Perhaps the heavy breathing ghost did not want his story heard by tens of listeners. Thank you for listening to Art Palace. We hope you'll be inspired to come visit the Cincinnati Art Museum and have conversations about the art yourself. General admission to the museum is always free, and we also offer free parking special exhibitions on view right now are Iris v Ur transforming fashion, Ana England Kinship and William Ridge, more sweetly Play the Dance. Speaker 1 (20:47): Join us for creativity and growth on November 11th from 1130 to 1:00 PM. This collaboration with Indigo Hippo focuses on wellness, mindfulness, and self-improvement through calming gallery activities and art making. It's open to audiences of all ages. And the best part, it's free. For program reservations and more information, visit Cincinnati art museum.org. You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and even join our sort of new Facebook group. Our theme song is Aron Music, Al by Becca Lau. And this week we also feature music by the king of royalty Free music. Kevin Mic Lode. If you like this episode, why not share it with a friend or go and give us a nice review on iTunes. All of those things really help us find new listeners. I'm Russell, and this has been Art Palace produced by the Cincinnati Art Museum.