Sando the “Ghostbuster” — Westerville Historical Society

In the last issue of our blog, I wrote a brief sketch of Roscoe Briant Sando, 1913 graduate of Otterbein, chicken breeder, and eventually professional writer. To the many hats that Sando wore, we will add one more, that of ghostbuster. Although he lacked the lasers and fancy (fanciful) equipment of the 1984 Columbia Pictures film with Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray, Sando set in motion the investigation by people at Otterbein who believed they were dealing with a ghost.

In the December 15, 1910 issue of the Public Opinion, an article was headed by the portentous title “Strange Phenomena.” Let me quote from the third paragraph:

On West Main street stands a spacious, three-story brick building known as the Scott house which is occupied by the Coblentz family and half a dozen or more student roomers. In this house in the southwest room of the third floor something has been going on which borders upon the supernatural. This room is occupied by Alexander Newman and F. E. Williams of Chicago, O. For several days they had observed that their bed and chairs were moved from their regular places. . . .

Oddly, Newman and Williams did not investigate, as they busy with class work. Another boarder, however was R. B. Sando:

One day while he [Sando] was in his room n the second floor, hearing a noise in the room above him he went to inquire why the boys were moving their furniture so often. Imagine Sando’s amazement upon finding neither Newman nor Williams were in! The other roomers were also away. . . . .

Not surprisingly, the news that a student boarding house was, possibly, haunted spread like wildfire. The noise of furniture moving was heard the following day, and by the next day a crowd of about thirty people gathered in the house. By this time, the furniture had been tied down and the windows locked. Perhaps because college ghosts were assumed to be literate, someone had left a paper on the floor on which was written, “What does this?”

At 4:30 pm the noise began. All the listeners “made a lunge” for the door, only to find the ropes cut, the furniture moved, and a cryptic reply to the message: “Thou shalt not.” More than a few witnesses must have been left scratching their heads. The ghost apparently took a few days off, then began banging around on Saturday, this time in the basement.

It is unclear whether the change of venue was the specter’s undoing, for by late sunset of that same Saturday, an unnamed student confessed:

A guilty conscience so oppressed his ghostship that he was at last compelled to come forth and proclaim himself to the awe struck and inquisitive investigators. . . . The ghost was a student ably assisted by half a dozen confederates.

Folklorists sometimes differentiate between “real” ghosts and “sham” ghosts. Sham ghosts are those that end with a confession as to the unreality of said ghost.[i] Why these students played ghost is unknown. The final question for our sham ghost story might be: Did R. B. Sando know this was a sham? Was his conscience clear or cloudy? We can ask the question, but don’t know the answer!

[i] William Lynwood Montell, Ghosts Along the Cumberland: Deathlore in the Kentucky Foothills (Knoxville, 1975).

Kathryn Kaslow of the Westerville Public Library helped me with some of the research for this.