Tragic Love Story

Two students of Western Maryland College were very much in love. Betsy was a young woman who had fallen in love with the academically top ranking senior in his class. This young man was given the enormous dorm room at the very top of Elderdice because of his prize winning GPA.

Betsy and her boyfriend had to meet in secret to perform certain activities that would be frowned upon by the faculty and the parents. They met in the college’s ice house—which is now the gazebo. After becoming sexually active in the ice house, Betsy discovered that she was pregnant. In a time where an unwed young woman would suffer the cruel rejection of society because of pre-marital sex and a baby on the way, Betsy became horrified at the prospect of telling her boyfriend about his unborn baby. Betsy killed herself in her dorm room.

Betsy’s boyfriend was madly in love with her. He had all sorts of plans post college for himself and Betsy. He planned to marry her and dreamed they would have a happy life. His friends informed him that Betsy had committed suicide. The young man was distraught and it was determined that Betsy had been pregnant. He was heartbroken. He wished she had told him—he would have married her in a heartbeat! He went to his room in Elderdice and killed himself. His ghost still haunts the room at the top of Elderdice. He bangs things and throws things around. Students who live in Elderdice report that there are sometimes screams and groans heard from the direction of the haunted dorm room. The young man is still enraged over Betsy’s suicide. No one is allowed up in that room because the steps leading to it are crumbling and are very dangerous for someone to walk on. Betsy can be seen wearing all white and just walking back and forth between McDaniel and the gazebo. She is waiting for her lover to come back to the gazebo.