Most Haunted Places in America: Strawberry Hill Mansion
Strawberry Hill Mansion in Kansas City, Kansas was built in 1887, by Margaret E. Kerstetter Cruise and her husband John B. Scroggs. The house, perched atop Splitlog’s Hill, afforded a view of both the Kansas and Missouri Rivers. Eugene, their eldest son, died young in the mansion while the other three children left and started lives of their own. In 1890, one daughter, Emma, got married and came home to share the mansion with her parents. John Scroggs died nine years later, and Margaret’s death followed in 1915. Emma and her husband inherited the mansion.
Then came the flu epidemic of 1918. The illness devastated the population, spiking the number of orphans in the community. The Sisters of St. Francis of Christ the King were tasked with opening an orphanage, and it so happened that Emma was ready to sell her family’s mansion and move on, and in 1919, The St. John the Baptist Children’s Home was opened. It stayed active until the 1980s. In 1987 the property was bought by the Strawberry Hill Ethnic Cultural Society, who turned it into a museum.
There seem to be at least two adult spirits manifesting in Strawberry Hill. The first is a male entity, thought to be somehow connected to the Cruise family, who appeared to a caterer who was exploring a third floor closet. When she opened the closet door she saw the figure of a man, seemingly agitated, waving her away. She ran down the stairs with the spirit following her, touching her back and making it icy cold before vanishing.
The other identifiable entity is called “the Lady in Red”. Legend has it that she was a homeless woman who was taken in by the sisters. It was discovered that she was pregnant, and died when from complications following a botched abortion. She appears as a full-bodied apparition, stopping people to ask “Where’s the house of the priest?”, and then disappearing. She wears a red dress in the style of the 1940s, and is sometimes seen trailing blood behind her, though this is not always the case. She has been spotted all over the house, always asking the same question.
Other reported paranormal activity includes the ghost of a child who appears in a rocking chair on the first floor, in the tower room. Lights will sometimes turn themselves off and on, and footsteps can be heard on floors where there are no people present. There are reports of disembodied voices in what is called the Nuns’ Hallway, along with the phantom scent of baby powder.
One anecdote even has a holiday theme. At Christmas one year, Pope’s Room on the second floor was found mysteriously unlocked, when it had been previously secured. At the same time, the Nativity scene in the Children Dormitory had been tampered with. The hay was spread over the floor, and a second Christ child was found in the manger.
Strawberry Hill Mansion seems to be a place where the dead are simply sharing space with the living, with the occasional paranormal prank thrown in to keep things spicy. If anything, it serves as a reminder that with all the history that some of our old buildings and homes have, there might come some tangible residue of the past. After all, it was someone else’s home once, too.
Related posts:
