Can you imagine what it would be like if your school were haunted? The students who attend Chicago’s Horace Greeley Elementary School don’t have to wonder. None other than the ghost of Horace Greeley himself haunts their school. What’s more, they claim that Greeley’s ghost even followed them from the old school building when the new school was built!
An Eerie Teacher
Talk of the “Greeley Spirit” began at the old building during the early 1970s. That was when a new and strange woman began teaching at the school. Many kids believed that the new green-eyed teacher was a witch. Other teachers noticed that she seemed to possess an eerie, almost mesmerizing control over her students.
One day, two teachers and a student were talking in the hallway outside the library. The strange woman teacher and her class entered the hallway and walked into the library. Then something happened! An enormous “cloud” that looked like a huge ball of fog rolled out of the library.
The student and two teachers watched in horror as the cloud, floating several feet off the floor, passed by them. The cloud then snaked its way up the stairs and around the corner into the strange teacher’s classroom! Of course, none of the other teachers believed the story.
Even the strange teacher herself denied having anything to do with the bizarre incident. However, the student who had seen the cloud told her friends that she had seen a ghost. Then, the tale spread quickly through the school.
The Ghost of Horace Greeley
Somehow, a rumor began that said the ghost was that of the school’s namesake, Horace Greeley. In the 1800s, Greeley was a famous newspaper publisher in New York. The students were convinced that Greeley’s spirit haunted his portrait that hung in the school library. For many years, students and teachers alike reported creepy happenings, especially in the library. There, among other things, students saw books plop off the shelves.
No one knows for sure whether the ghost of Horace Greeley really haunted the old Greeley School. Students at the “new” Greeley school are sure, however, that the old phantom followed them to the current school. Strange things still occur. Students and teachers alike remain convinced that their school’s namesake is close by. If Horace Greeley himself is an honorary, invisible student, there is sure to be plenty of school “spirit” to go around!
