Every senior class took a picture together outside the school.  One year in the early years of the school, there was a graduating class of around 8 girls.  They were very close to one nun and she promised them that she would be in their senior picture with them.  Unfortunately, she died 3 days before the picture was scheduled to be taken.  They took the picture as planned, but without their favorite nun.  Once the picture was developed it was hung in Main Hall along with the pictures of every graduating class since the beginning.  However, when you look at the picture, you can see a somewhat blurry nun standing in a window.  Right next to her is the dog that belonged to the nun the senior class was close too, the outline of the dog is completely clear.  Everyone says that the nun kept her promise, and returned to be in the picture with the class.

In Georgia, I went to an all girls school that was founded in 1825.  The school is in an old plantation home, as it has been since its start.  There are many stories about the house being haunted, and this is just one of them. Main Hall is the main wing of the house where most of the hauntings are centered, and no one will go into that wing after dark because of these hauntings. When you come to the school as a freshman, you are assigned a big sis, and there is a lock in at the school.  All the freshmen spend the night in the house, and it is then when their big sis tells them about all the hauntings.  At the lock in and especially during these stories, you are not allowed to use any electricity for light.

Haunting stories like this one are very common across the nation, but especially in the south.  This is because the south is one of the oldest parts of our country, but also because it has some of the most brutal history.  Much of the civil war was fought in the south, leaving many ghost stories behind.  Also, the presents of slavery and the brutality involved gave rise to many ghost stories.  Slavery becomes especially relevant in this instance because her school was in an old plantation home in Georgia.  The odds are very high that there were many slaves that worked on that plantation, and it is possible that they are responsible for the hauntings.

I found it interesting that the ghost stories involved the nuns.  I do not know much about the catholic faith, but even though they believe in saints and spirits, they usually look down upon ghost stories and similar superstitions. This brings up the idea of negotiating one’s beliefs.  On one hand the nuns disregard the idea of hauntings, but at the same time the nuns at Stephanie’s school would avoid Main Hall after dark.  Even though they denied belief in the hauntings they obviously believed enough of it to avoid the area.

The ghost stories were also a part of a right of passage at the school.  As Stephanie explained, part of being initiated as a member of the school was to be locked in the school at night with your big sis.  While locked in the school, they were told these ghost stories.  This was a way of developing the identity of being a member of her school.  Only those girls who went to the school actually knew what happened during the lock in, and knew all of the stories.