The Many Ghosts of Warriner Hall

Warriner Hall stands as the "symbol" building for Central Michigan University. It is the building one sees on flyers, in commercials and advertisements, and on billboards around Michigan. The architectural designs on its face--a 5 story tower topped with an attic and former bell tower--has been turned into a stylized logo for the school. It is CMU's main administrative building, as well, and has been for many years; most of CMU's major administrators, including the President and all of the various vice presidents, have offices there, as does the Registrar's office (those in charge of class schedules), Receivable Accounting (where CMU sends its money), and the Office of Undergraduate Studies (who determine who does and does not graduate from CMU).

In short, it's a place the average student fears anyway, so it is not surprising that several ghost stories have cropped up around the place. Below are the two major legends, in their most popular forms. There are variations on each one, which will be noted where possible.

IMPORTANT NOTE: in front of this building is the CMU seal, where another famous ghost story takes place, as well as the infamous Warriner pit.

The Elevator Ghost

There were many versions of this story, the most popular involving a beheaded janitor haunting the elevator shaft in Warriner. That story was likely inspired by the one below, the true story of the only elevator death at CMU.

In 1937, CMU was still Central State Teacher's College. Warriner Hall had borne the name of then-President Warriner for ten years (in fact, the building was only 10 years old--Warriner himself had raised funds to build it after a previous building at the site burned down). At the time, the hall was filled with classrooms, as well as the library, an auditorium, and a cafeteria.

On Saturday, May 29, 1937, a young food service worker, Theresa Elizabeth Schumacher, was bringing food down via the building's central elevator (this has been mistakenly reported in the past as a dumbwaiter). For some reason, Theresa opened a little window that existed on the old elevator door (perhaps she heard the elevator rise and stop, but upon looking into the shaft did not see it there) and stuck her head through it. She peeked into the shaft, to see if it has been stuck between floors, and it came rushing from the floor above. It has been suggested that perhaps Theresa accidentally leaned on the call button as she peered through the window, or that perhaps someone summoned the elevator from another floor. Whatever the reason, Theresa's head was squarely in its way.

According to the news report that appeared in the June 2nd edition of the Central State Life, a bar near the top of the car caught her head. Pinned in the small window and with her throat pressed on the ledge, she quickly suffocated; the official cause of death was strangulation. She was not, as is commonly reported in legend, beheaded.

Since that day, the halls in Warriner Hall have been full of "eerie feelings" and "presences" sensed but not seen, or seen briefly before they are gone. It is also said one can see lights in the storage rooms of Warriner--on the sixth floor, where she supposedly died, though such stories are untrue--even though the room is always locked, and only the janitors have keys (CMU has stopped using it as an active records room). At night, especially on the weekends, people walking campus at night have reported lights in the attic. Sometimes they move, sometimes they are static; never are they explainable.

The elevator, it is said, "has a mind of its own" and will sometimes break down mysteriously, or plunge those inside the car into darkness for no obvious electrical reason. Some attribute these frequent elevator problems on the interference of this ghost, though those people are oftentimes reciting the legend of the janitor and the elevator. A story sometimes reported from the late 1960s tells of a young DJ (the Hall once housed the campus radio station) working the midnight shift. He supposedly heard the elevator start, the doors open, and then found himself confronted by an apparition of a young girl. These stories are currently anecdotal and unverified.

The President's Wife

The following story has quickly fallen from the realm of legend into that of pure fiction, as the true account of Theresa Schumacher came to light. We keep it here as an interesting aberration of the legend of Warriner Hall.

This tale of ghostly lights takes place in the 1950's, assuming that the story involves former CMU President Charles Anspach, which it does in many tellings (some versions simply state it was "a President"). The story commences during Anspach's tenure as president, on a late-spring Friday, the kind of day when many of us skip out of work early. President Anspach did so, leaving work a good hour before 5pm; the reason usually given is that there was construction work going on in the building and his temporary office, up on the 3rd or 4th floor of the building, was stifling and muggy. For some reason Anspach did not go directly home (the stories do not say why).

Around five o'clock the President's wife stopped in to surprise him; by then the President had been gone about an hour. Unknowing, the President's wife trudged up three flights of stairs to his temporary office. She did not find him there, but knowing that her husband often stayed late doing paperwork, she thought he might be in the uppermost floor, where much of the school's records were kept at the time. So she went up two more flights of stairs in the stifling late-spring heat, to the storage room area 9technically the attic). By then, the President's wife--an older woman--was terribly winded, and she sat down to rest, disappointed she did not find him there. Her exhaustion, combined with her age and the heat, somehow overtook her; when she was found the following Monday, she was dead from a heart attack or stroke (both reasons are given).

Since her death, it is said one can see lights in the storage room where she died. The room is always locked, and only a very few people have keys (it has long since stopped being used as an active records room, and any files still kept up there are dusty with age). Yet, at night, especially on the weekends, people walking around campus at night have reported seeing lights in the attic. Sometimes they move, sometimes they are static; never are they explainable.

Special Thanks to Mary Hutter.