Hauntings at DeSales Heights Convent & Academy
Once infamous among ghost hunters as the “most intensely haunted building in Parkersburg, West Virginia” the DeSales Heights Academy was named after the “Sisters of the Visitation” that was founded in France in 1610 by Saint Francis of DeSales, a bishop who was canonized by the Pope. This particular order of nuns established a religious school the United States in 1816. In 1864, eight nuns or Sisters of the Visitation opened one of Parkersburg’s first schools called the DeSales Heights Academy which was also acted as a monastery for cloistered nuns. They began to have some troubles while located on 5th and Avery Streets. The nun’s 17th Century attire was startling to the local people who believed the nuns were a religious cult and the monastery was discouraged by noisy saloon opened beside the school.
By 1900 a new building to house DeSales Heights Academy was opened overlooking Murdoch Avenue. The academy was a massive structure that included an interior garden and a chapel carved from the same marble in Italy that Michelangelo used for his masterpieces in the 15th Century.
Soon daughters of the heads of state in Central and South American countries traveled to Parkersburg to enroll in the school. For many years DeSales Heights offered a Catholic education for girls all over the United States and beyond. As years went by, DeSales Academy also offered Montessori classes (Montessori is an approach to educating children based on the research of Italian physician and educator Maria Montessori in the first part of the 20th Century.)
As the twentieth Century progressed the future numbers of students at the school declined. The actual school closed in the 1980s. DeSales Heights Academy came to an end but a dozen elderly nuns continued to live in the monastery until a vote was taken in 1992 to close the 130-year old monastery and school. The furnishings to the school were sold at auction and the coffins of nineteen nuns who had been interred at the school were re-buried in a local Catholic cemetery (although some of the nun’s bodies were returned to their families).
For a number of years DeSales Heights remained abandoned. Such a large, spooky structure was sure to attract ghost hunters and they came in droves to set up their weekend investigations. In the windows of DeSales Heights, ghost hunters snapped pictures of ghostly-white apparitions staring out of the second floor windows. It was rumored that once a nun fell down an elevator shaft but would not scream for help since this would be “breaking silence” at a time the other nuns were in prayer. Unfortunately the nun died of her injuries without ever crying out. Her body was found clasping her rosary. Many claimed her ghost continued to haunt the immense structure, floating near the area of the basement with while issuing muffled moans.
Investigations by ghost hunters recorded the constant sound of closing doors and footsteps. A door shut on its own was captured on videotape. It was popular for local High School students to sneak into the building and spend the night. Some felt their heads being whacked by what seemed like a board or ruler as a disembodied voice hissed “Get out!”
There is another tale of a young boy who stole a gold cross from the altar and took it home with him. He began to experience bad luck such as being plagued by night terrors, screaming ghosts not to mention getting beat up at school and being accused of acts he never committed. When the boy returned the gold cross to the altar, his misfortune soon ended.
Images of black mists were captured in the confessional booths as well as huge glowing orbs drifting over the altar. Ghostly figures holding lanterns were seen floating past the windows after the building had been abandoned. At times, neighbors close to the school heard what sounded like the ringing of dinner bells and then a woman’s scream. The voices of children seemed to emanate from the former courtyard to the DeSales Heights Academy.
But no tales were as eerie as those who claimed they were scratched after going inside the building when they weren’t supposed to be there. On one summer day a local artist noticed the front door ajar at DeSales. At that point the building was abandoned and was scheduled to be torn down shortly so the artist decided to walk in and explore the old building. She heard echoing sounds of children at play in the courtyard and was surprised to find the kitchen mostly intact. She only stayed about fifteen minutes inside DeSales Height s. When she walked outside into the sunlight, she saw a red mark on her arm.
Thinking perhaps it was red paint, she rubbed the area only to discover it was her own blood and she had been scratched. The long claw mark looked similar to a cat scratch. She later found out a number of other people who entered DeSales Heights would exit the building only to find they had been scratched.
There is such a thing as scratching ghosts, and these types of spirits only occur in areas where the spirits are unhappy. After closing DeSales Heights was often vandalized and one night was set on fire. It was then St. Joseph’s Hospital (which owned the property) held and auction and sold all of its furnishings, (except for sacred objects). The decision was made for the old monastery to be demolished in the summer of 2002 and thus, it was razed. But the DeSales Heights hauntings did not end there.
For a while a large pile of bricks was the only thing left at the DeSales Height’s property and some alumni collected bricks from DeSales as a memento of their former days at the school. Within days, they began to hear scratching in the walls of their homes, children’s toys playing all on their own along with disembodied voices. Some people in a fright threw the bricks in the Ohio River. The remaining bricks were dumped at a location on Parkersburg’s Southside.
The woman, who was also psychically sensitive, and her husband collected around one hundred bricks and built a nice sidewalk around their home. In no time, they began to see a shadowy dark form float over the bricks about six o’clock every evening and then the form would disappear. They could not help but notice the shape resembled that of a nun in her dark habit.
Later, a Catholic friend reminded the couple that six o’clock was the time the dinner bell was rung for evening meals at DeSales Heights. This was in keeping with the story of a nun who fell to her death down an elevator shaft during dinner hour, and she did not want to cry out for help to break the silence at dinner hour.After a lifetime of studying and communicating with spirits, living outside of time and memory seems to be the center of all hauntings.
It is popular to write off such ghosts as "imprints," however, the question remains, why imprint when there is no consciousness involved? The Egyptians may have been right in their beliefs we have a number of spirit bodies, apart from the Western idea of "soul" and "spirit."
Author and medium Susan Sheppard, creator and main tour guide of the Haunted Parkersburg Ghost Tours. You can contact Susan at ssheppard825@gmail.com
As a former student, I experienced many odd things over the years. Slamming of doors was common, as were shadows, especially of a very young nun who was often seen at the statue of Our Lady. But the nun seen at 6pm was Sr. Mary Angela, who could never resist a last weeding of the roses before dinner.
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