THE    GHOSTS    OF    WILDER     HALL   Wilder is one of the dorms that has a ghost that lives in a picture. The picture of "The Girl in White" is hung over the fireplace. It shows a young woman in a flowing white ball dress from ca. 1900. Her figure has been seen gliding through the first floor halls on several occasions, but always coinciding with Wilder's formal parties and dances. She is said to have been a Mount Holyoke graduate whose lover promised her he would attend her graduation ball but who was killed shortly before the dance. Now she searches for him during all of Wilder's formal affairs. 1st story:   In the late 1800’s or early 1900’s the girl who lived in [one] room hanged herself. Later her roommate broke her leg. Every girl who lived in her room after that broke her leg also. Eventually the College decided to lock up the room. Told in 1977 by “Monica”.     2nd story:   Lynn, Val and Shirl were in the kitchenette that the girl killed herself in, and somehow the door closed behind them and they got locked in the room. It wasn’t that the door was locked, it was just that it was stuck, and so they finally found a knife that was in the kitchenette and pried the door open. They thought it could have been because the door had been painted over the summer and they thought maybe the doors were sticking together, but she said it was debatable and she wasn’t to say it was a ghost or what ... Told in 1977 by Debbie Hale, class of 1978     3rd story: In a letter written by a student in May 1916 to her fiance. She lived in Wilder that year. She told him she was awakened by noise outside the night before, and heard men's voices, but decided not to get up to investigate. In the morning, she found out that the man who owned the general store on College Street (it was located in what later was known as Woodbridge Hall; it was on the left side of Frances Perkins House, and it burned down in the 1960s) called Alvord's committed suicide by drowning himself in Lower Lake. He had closed his store a few weeks earlier because he had been sick. I think Kate Muertes' story about seeing a man having trouble breathing who disappeared when she tried to talk to him was very interesting ... a ghost who died by drowning might indeed go to Wilder. After all, at least one person in Wilder heard him die. And what if he didn't commit suicide, but was murdered, and those were the voices she heard ... wouldn't the man who was murdered seek a live human to help him get justice? Retold in 2002 by Donna Albino, class of 1983   ©Mount Holyoke College. Witten (1977), p. 9-10. Webpage created and maintained by Nancy Birkrem. Last updated Oct. 10, 2001.