Two years ago, newly acquired video camera in hand, some friends and I set off around Dundee to film a horror movie. It was to be called "The Legend of the Axe Murderer of Dundee". As we shot footage at the cemetery, little did we know that Dundee already had a ghost story... and she was buried only a few feet away from where we stood...
In 1983, City Hall moved from the Fire Hall into what is now A***** Winery, but the employees were soon to realize that they were not the only one's to reside there.
"You knew something strange was happening because you'd get a sudden breeze that smelled like a sweet, floral scented perfume," former City Administrator Molly recalled, "Odd noises, footsteps where no one was walking, lights would go on and off, so we started looking into the history of the house. We started talking to a long-time resident of Dundee, Emil Sander, and that's when we learned about Lena."
Lena was born October 19, 1883 to Zachariah and Hannah Imus. Her father owned a feed and grain store until being appointed postmaster in 1898. She attended Portland Business College until she was asked to return home to assist in the post office while her father was ill. He died shortly thereafter.
Lena continued to work in the post office and live in the house we now know as A***** Winery, however it would seem that the years were not happy for her and there were rumors of an unmarried pregnancy. On December 17, 1908 she drank carbolic acid and died two days later. She was 25 years old.
"We figured that she didn't like men very much. Especially red-headed men!" Molly said.
I asked her if she could give an example. "I remember that we needed to have the repair man in to fix the photocopy machine. His suitcase of tools was sitting on the floor while he looked at something on the machine and all of the sudden it tipped over. Not so it fell down, but it upended itself so that all of his tools fell out."
"Yeah, Chris looked at him and said, 'Oh, don't worry. That's just our ghost.'" Todd chuckled remembering, "That guy never came back."
Todd recalled another event. "We kept the letters for the reader board upstairs in the hallway. In order to put the letters up, it required a long pole with a suction cup at the end, which was with the letters leaning up against the wall. It was leaning in such a fashion that it wouldn't be able to tip over and accidentally hurt someone.
The Chief at the time, who was also a redhead, brought his little dog Tweezer into the office. They went up the stairs and walked down the hall, like they had a thousand times before. When they got to the end of the hallway and were getting ready to go into the Police Department, the pole jumped away from the wall and landed on the floor with a smack… barely missing the dog."
There were other stories of odd things happening, such as the back door opening and shutting long after it had been nailed shut and no longer an entry to the building and footsteps occurring in rooms where there were no people.
"I just remember that we teased the girls a lot about it, not wanting to believe them." Alan said. "It made a set up for the perfect practical joke."
Todd, a new Public Works employee at the time, recalls. "I remember that the girls in the office had it all figured out. Where the coffee pot was located in the building was where she drank the acid, and by the door was where she collapsed."
"I was cleaning out one of the shelves at Public Works about two days before the anniversary of Lena's death and I came across an old bottle of carbolic acid. When I showed it to the other guys we came up with a plan."
Molly remembered the day. "On the anniversary of her death, we came into the office and went to the coffee pot, the location where she drank the poison, and got ready to make a pot of coffee and there stood a bottle of carbolic acid. I remember that for a few minutes it set our hair on end and freaked us out… but we knew those guys too well."
"Yeah, they figured it out pretty quick." Alan recalled, with a laugh. "I kept waiting for them to say something. In the end, I had to ask if anything odd had happened so I could find out what they thought, but they already knew it was us."
***
Lena's obituary states that before she died she told her mother that she longed to be at rest, but stories from City Workers both past and present tell a different story. Her tombstone eerily states "Not dead, but gone before."
In the time since Rob and I had the first conversation about including stories of old Dundee, and specifically an October tale we could tell, odd things have started to happen at City Hall. Doors open and shut, lights turn on and off, and cups rattle on the shelves. Has Lena's spirit returned once again to walk the halls of a new City Hall?
I, for one, hope I never find out.
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