Haunted Normal (Ghost Story I)

To access a picture of Angeline Milner, go to the Illinois State University History Archive

The year is 1929, and the place is Williams Hall. The ghost is the well-known Ange Milner, a ghost that has been attached Normal and ISU’s history for a very long time. Rumor has it her obsession with books led her to become a bachelorette or a “spinster,” and a very silent one at that. Milner valued silence and enforced it in her library. It is said that she spent most of her career repairing, re-shelving and re-organizing over 40,000 books for the college library and died with the nickname of “Catalog” Milner.  Most of the so-called sightings follow the same lines. A cold draft; a white glow moving just beyond the corner of your eye; a shushing sound if you become too loud or the feeling of someone standing right next to you. To help you understand the true nature of this leering librarian I have a story that may give you an all too real experience without stepping foot in her library.
1997: A young man moves slowly up the stairs and tries with much effort to navigate past some temporarily placed stacks of books and paper work. The smell in the air is of dust and old glue. There isn’t very much light, but he tells himself he won’t need much. He knows where the book he wants is. He knows that all he had to do was make it down the book-cluttered stairs and grab it. Rare books are kept behind glass paneling, but he has the key. He is on a mission.
It takes the young man no time at all to reach the right bookcase. He jostles the key, turns it with a faint jerk of his wrist and slides the glass to the side. He skims the spines of the books and can feel the excitement that such old things hold as they wait to see who will be chosen. Who will see sunlight again? Whose pages will be gently remembered? The young man’s finger stops on a book that is faded blue with gold lettering and a black leather cap on the spine.
“There ye be, matey!” the young man says with a little too much zeal.

“Shhhh.”
The young man jerks his head up and looks to the end of the row. It is empty, not even a retreating shadow or the sound of dimming footsteps. He hesitates a moment longer, straining to hear any other noise. None come so he quietly shuts the glass panel, carefully locking it and then heads down the isle at a snails pace. He tries to glance between the bookshelves, even stopping a moment to move a book in order to peer into the next isle. It appears he truly is alone and that the prudent shush was a figment of his imagination.
According to the story, the silence grows deafening and the young man begins to whistle. He needs some sound as the thick silence of the books starts to suffocate him. He places his foot on the first stair as a cold chill runs up his spine. Right next to his ear he hears an shockingly forceful, “SHHHHHHHHH!!!!!”
The young man runs down the stairs and just barely makes it as a pile of books falls, creating a book-slide down the stairs behind him. He grits his teeth as he looks at the attendant. The young man assumes he is in trouble but the attendant only smiles. “She shushed you, didn’t she?”

-- Christina Renner