Western Kentucky University - Talisman Yearbook (Bowling Green, KY)

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he diego tacoma PA Mee HIGH ABOVE THE GROUND, Denis Kiely works to raise one of the logs near the top of the saddlebag cabin. Most of the August 27th morning was spent on the ground as the construction crew lifted and fitted each log. After an on-the-ground lunch the struggle began as skid poles and ropes were manipulated to raise the longer logs. A TIRED AND ACHING BUT PROUD CONSTRUCTION CREW rests in back of the restored 1822 saddlebag house they raised in approximately 10 hours. The yellow poplar house is located adjacent to Dr. Montell’s Woodburn home, 12 miles from campus. Approximately 40 individuals participated in the project.

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A NOTeH WN THE PAST cont. the cabin up. “I had read a lot about it but that was the first time I participated,” he said. “It was a good opportunity to get involved in mate- rial folk culture.” Gary Foster, a part-time graduate stu- dent, said he developed a respect for the house. “It almost had its own personality,” he said. “It didn’t look like much on the ground, but each log had a hole bored in it for a peg which didn’t fit any other one. The hole had been made by the first people who built the cabin and lived in it. We were giving it a new lease on life, like a reprieve from the dead.” Foster said the back-breaking manual work came in three stages. ‘First there was the lifting of a log,” he said. “Then higher poles were lifted with skid poles and ropes, and skid poles were used to raise the top logs. Tog by log, I had mentally constructed the house further than we did on the ground, but I think we got more done than I would have realistically expected.” Montell was a good foreman, according to the graduate student. “If something didn’t work, he worked around it,” Foster said. “And when he’d notch a log everyone would watch. I thought it was a lost art, but I guess it really isn’t.” Nana Farris of Henderson said she was impressed about the role women played. “The women weren't just watching or cooking,” she said. “They were carrying logs, reading tablets and climbing on logs. There was really no difference in abilities except for physical size. “I moved logs, sighted walls, consulted the plans to find what went where, braced, drove nails and took ample breaks.” She was pleased that Dr. Montell’s fam- ily and neighbors came as well as students and faculty. “Most of them had never met, but it didn’t inhibit them from working together and enjoying each other,” she said. “T remember how Dr. Montell’s father was overseeing the progress of the house and kept talking to one girl who was driv- ing nails,” Miss Farris said. “He’d walk around and ask others if they’d seen ‘that New Jersey girl hammer nails.’ ” The frayed and soiled legal pad of sketches was misplaced three times. “Everything would shut down and every- body would look for it,” she said. “There were a few moments of panic until some- one found it underneath something.” Miss Farris said the dirty, sunburned and sweaty group didn’t goof off and was genuinely concerned about making sure things were done properly. TATTERED AND TEMPORARILY LOST THREE TIMES, a yellow legal pad of sketches of the original cabin was a necessary reference tool. Liz Harzoff, Charles Wright, Judith Schottenfeld, Nana Farris and Brad Montell consider the next step. “T realized that we have a totally differ- ent way of life from the people who first built that cabin,” she said. “Those people cooperated and interacted on a level not present in day-to-day contacts we have.” Although Miss Farris said she barely produced the energy to crawl to her car for the drive to Bowling Green, she savors a feeling of accomplishment from the house- raising. Dr. Montell was also pleased. “I was sur- prised at how much we got done and the fact that it got done so skillfully when they hadn't done that kind of work before,” he said. “Everyone worked; no one just watched.” And when the neighbors, students and faculty members dressed in straw hats, Le- vis, boots, T-shirts and bandanas drove away in their Toyotas, Datsuns and Pintos, Dr. Montell sneaked back to the construc- tion site three times. “I just stood and looked at it and had one super good feeling,” he said. Connie Holman @ LATE AFTERNOON SHADOWS befriended the house-raising crew as they lifted the last logs on the one pen they completed. Half of the other side of the saddlebag house was also completed that day by more than 40 participants. WINDOW INSTALLATION IN LOG CABINS is somewhat different from the modern method. Dr. Lynwood Montell, director of folk studies and cabin owner, directed his crew when the first window was fitted. The process proved tricky as the crew inserted it upside down and had to try again. House-raising

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24 mors are alive and well on the Hill. Ranging from traditional boasts to ter- rifying ghosts, the stories make up part of Western's folklore. Some are “migratory legends” or “mi- gratory rumors,” according to Dr. Lyn- wood Montell, director of intercultural and folk studies. Common throughout the na- tion, these are localized for Western. Oth- ers contain familiar motifs, he said. Bors « folk beliefs and migratory ru- dorms have brought to Western the migratory legend that Montell called “the most popular of all horror stories or superstitions told on college campuses.” ‘Many years ago,” the legend goes, “two girls, Sarah and Jane, stayed in this dorm during spring break, when everyone else was gone. They were uneasy about staying alone, so Jane stayed in Sarah’s room. “One night Jane was walking down the dark upstairs hall to get something from her room. She turned a corner and gasped when she saw the dim outline of an escapee from an asylum. “Jane turned and ran, but the lunatic grabbed a fire ax and chased her. Just as she neared the stairs, he lunged, hitting her in the back with the ax. She dropped and he disappeared into darkness again. “Sarah began worrying but was too scared to look for Jane. Suddenly, she heard scratching at the door, like an anima clawing to get in. Sarah was terrified and hid. “When she opened the door the next morning, she looked down and screamed. There was Jane’s bloody corpse with a hand raised as it had been when she scratched on the door, hoping for help. “Girls who lived in the room later said they heard scratching in the night. They finally turned it into a storage room. No one’s lived there since.” E ate-night ghost story sessions in girls’ ago in telling the story of the Van Meter Ghost. Fonzole Childress, who worked in the department in the 1960s, recalled that some of Western’s “most fan- tastic acting went into telling it,” especially to freshman girls. It went like this: “Back at the beginning of the century when Van Meter Hall was being built, a man was working on the roof. An airplane flew by and the man, who had never seen a plane, stood and stared at the sight. Sud- denly, he lost his balance and fell through the skylight over the stage. He landed on the stage and died, but his body lay there for a weekend before it was found. It left a bloodstain that was scrubbed and washed, but wouldn't come off. It’s been there ever since. Though the telling of the legend slacked off after Russell Miller Theater was built, former actors’ tales linger. One actor said that once, when he was in the dressing room alone after a rehearsal, he happened to look up and see the reflec- tion of a man in the mirror. He turned, but ro heatre students delighted a few years. Folklore on the Hill w a } 4 j j no one was there. Other theatre people spoke of strange blue lights, mysterious occurrences with spotlights and supernatural feats during the years Van Meter Auditorium was the principal theater on campus. Central Hall when word was passed that famed psychic Jeanne Dixon had predicted the murder of a coed in a West- ern high-rise dormitory. Fortunately, it did not occur. Most of the fear came in the spring of 1976. “It was stupid,” said one resident. But she added, “If there had been a killer it would have been worse with a lot of girls in one room.” 5: slept six and seven to a room in Hl house on Chestnut Street claim they share living quarters with a female ghost, the spirit of a woman murdered in the house. Lambda Chis say one fraternity brother woke up in the night when he heard a noise in the next room. The door was pad- locked from the outside, but he claimed he heard typing and saw a light. Residents said that one night the lights in the house went out, but the stereo re- mained on. In a room they call the nursery, the alarm clock goes off at midnight when a person sleeps there for the first time, they claim. But, they said, “It’s a friendly ghost. It never hurt anyone.” Breese of the Lambda Chi Alpha