Floorboards creek in what seemed to be the empty Memorial Union, lights flipped on long before motion sensors were installed, hairs raise as realization sets in. Campus might be haunted.
Rumors have spread across Emporia State over time to create a long standing legend of hauntings. Roger Heineken, a former long-time Memorial Union employee, has heard plenty of tales over the 40 years he worked at ESU.
The Memorial Union was built in 1925 to honor the 21 students killed in the Spanish-American War and World War I. Women lived on the building’s third floor and campus was a training ground at one point for the Army Air Corps during World War II, said Heineken. Though he never had any personal experience with the supernatural in the Union, his understanding of this history illustrates a unique look at the campus legends.
“The (paranormal) activity in our building is largely in the oldest parts of our building,” Heineken said. “Part of the stories that are associated with what I know is that in the south wing, there’s a lot of activity, including the ballroom, which was built in 1929 in addition to the building. We call our spirit Martha, but we don’t know if the spirit has a gender. We just coined the name, it’s alliterative, as Martha of the Memorial Union.”
Martha is believed to be the cause of some of the building’s mysterious occurrences.
“Our student building manager for nights and weekends had closed the building down for the day and the Union Activities Council was showing a film out on the lawn. This was before streaming. They had equipment outside after the building closed and the night manager was to stay to move everything in after he had locked the building down,” Heineken said.
The building manager closed up the Memorial Union, making sure the building was empty, turning off lights and locking doors. Afterward, he went outside to wait for the movie to conclude and bring the equipment inside.
“And upstairs in (The Bulletin’s office), the lights came back on. And this is before motion sensor light switches … even today, if you’re out on campus at night, lights are on in the Senate chamber when that’s rarely used,” he said. “It’s not like it’s an office or anything where someone’s working late. Now, of course, they do have the motion sensor lights. But again, what’s in there to (signal) motion?”
The bookstore was a major subject for hauntings, Heineken told The Bulletin, something Bookstore Manager Michael McRell affirmed—multiple stories of adding machines going haywire, lights coming back on after being fully shut off and other “playful” schemes McRell attributes to Martha.
But since the renovation of the bookstore, activity from Martha has rarely been seen by McRell, only activity from his plant of the same name.
“We called (the plant) Martha because (the ghost) was back here by my desk,” McRell said. “I did name her after the ghost, but I was the one who planted that plant … When we were renovating, I didn’t have the heart to just get rid of Martha altogether, so we transplanted it into a pot. Now Martha sits back there (in the employee only section). She’s a beautiful plant. She was huge, though, huge, but we saved part of Martha.”
“Maybe Martha (the plant) did placate (Martha the ghost), that we named a plant after her, and we take very good care of Martha. Martha thrives here,” said McRell.
With the university’s rich history and 1865 opening, Heineken believes he will never know who Martha truly is or was. He only hopes they had a connection to the history the Memorial Union building has endured.
“I’ve wondered over the years is it the spirit of one of the female faculty that lived on the top floor? Is it an Army Air Corps Cadet that got killed in World War Two and liked Emporia and returned here? Is it some of our World War One casualties that have found a home back in the building that honors their service?” he said. “I want to believe it’s someone who had a relationship with the building in one way or the other.”
