Marguerite Du Pont Lee and Virginia ghosts

 

Currently on eBay, there is a copy of Virginia Ghosts and Others by Marguerite Du Pont Lee. This is the William Byrd Press original 1932 version. It’s $125 and I keep toying with the idea of purchasing it, not that I need another book in my possession but this one is part of our Virginia history-- our history of ghost stories. 

If you’re around my age and from the area, you’re probably familiar with the author L. B. Taylor, Jr. of Williamsburg, Virginia. Taylor was an author of 50 non-fiction books, including 25 books on Virginia ghosts.Taylor wasn’t someone that others would consider a typical ghost story writer. After all, he had a degree in journalism even worked as a writer for NASA. Taylor published his first volume on Virginia ghosts in 1983, which some scholars argue is the reason regional ghost tours in the Commonwealth are so popular today. But Taylor also wasn’t the first writer to focus on the topic. He was following in the tradition of documenting Virginia folklore from writers such as Marguerite DuPont Lee.   

And, well, Marguerite DuPont Lee certainly wasn’t someone we would think of as a ghost story writer. She was born into the wealthy DuPont family and married into the Lee family (by marrying her cousin, which wasn't so unusual) to become part of the elite society of Washington, D.C. 

From her obituary, one would not gleam what an interesting life she had, only that she was surrounded by family.

The Baltimore Sun Nov 3, 1936

 

Perhaps from other newspaper articles, including this one that includes a quote just months before her death, readers can intuit a bit of her personality.

The Selma Times Journal May 25,1936

When her husband died, Marguerite DuPont Lee proved that she was not going to follow society’s standards and she certainly was not going to do what was expected. She somewhat snubbed society folks, she sold her home, and she moved to Georgetown, which at the time was not at all elite. 

There, she started a settlement house that provided educational opportunities for the poor in the city. Marguerite DuPont Lee involved herself in the local women’s suffrage movement and marched in the 1913 Women’s Suffrage Parade in Washington, D.C. She was deeply engaged in the cause of women's rights and the rights of those from various socioeconomic groups.

Marguerite DuPont Lee was also a Spiritualist, which was not so uncommon at that time period. But, she was fascinated with the supernatural and spent a good amount of time collecting regional ghost stories that she compiled in one of Virginia’s first books of ghost stories. Marguerite DuPont Lee knew that she was compiling legends but her belief system supported life after death and the belief in the spirit world.

Today, readers still reach for her stories, which were republished after her death.  She is buried in Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C. along with several other Spiritualists.

 

...sisters in black, and true crime...

 

I have a writing project underway and today's story is more of an aside to that work.

This tree is sort of spooky but not really.

It has piqued my interest enough so that I am reading Three Sisters in Black: The Bizarre True Case of the Bathtub Tragedy (1968) by Norman Zierold, which was an Edgar Award Nominee for Best Fact Crime (1969).

The story concludes with one of the most notorious criminals in 1910 being interred in an unmarked grave at Sunset Cemetery in Christiansburg, Virginia. 

While I'm not supposed to side with a killer, I have to admit that the wardrobe of the sisters is what originally interested me.

Known as the "Black Sisters," the women were seen as a peculiar family of sisters who wore all black clothing and black veils to hide their faces. As someone who wears black, I don't find this peculiar. There were other strange aspects to the sisters. They had odd eating habits where they wouldn’t touch any food until it was a day old. As someone who likes food, I find this very odd.

Newspaper: The Standard Union, August 12, 1910.

In 1909, a bathtub drowning in New Jersey became one of the most bizarre criminal cases in American history when police discovered the emaciated and abused body of Ocey Snead. The young woman was face down in the bathtub. Her death was said to be an apparent suicide by drowning. There was even a suicide note left behind. 

Ocey’s alleged suicide note, 1909, Public Domain Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Newspaper: The Knoxville Journal, April 21, 1946.

As the truth slowly came out, and hundreds of suicide notes written in the same handwriting were discovered, it became clear that Ocey’s mother and aunts, "The Black Sisters" were involved in the crime.

One of these sisters, Virginia Wardlaw ran the Montgomery Female Academy in Christiansburg. She was said to possess "hypnotic control" over young girls. Investigators believed that the murder was planned and intentional since Wardlaw, at the time she inquired about renting the house, asked specific details about the size of the bath tub.

Wardlaw also insisted that once she took possession of the house, she did not want the owners visiting the space. She also wished to move all of her belongings at night.

Wardlaw and her sisters, Caroline and Mary, were accused of murdering family members for insurance money.

In order not to be convicted, Virginia Wardlaw starved herself to death before the judge in the case could rule against her. 

Wardlaw's body was sent back to Christiansburg, Virginia to be buried in a private family funeral. 

Today the grave is not marked, or perhaps over the years it was damaged. I've seen various stories about that and about the place being haunted. Virginia Wardlaw's Find A Grave profile includes some spooky stories in the biography, which aren't included in this write up as I could not find a source. Trust me, I really wanted to find an old newspaper article about the sisters going to the cemetery "making gestures skyward and murmuring incantations" but I did not find a thing in the papers.