The name Merrehope is derived from three words: Meridian, Restoration, and (not altogether surprisingly) Hope. There is nothing in the name to suggest the presence of otherworldly spirits, but tales of phantoms abound at the partially antebellum home.

The 150 year old mansion, located at 905 Martin Luther King Dr, has gone through eight owners and scores of residents who have given it a rich and interesting history. In its earliest years, Merrehope was a three room cottage built for the use of a businessman’s daughter named Juriah Jackson. It was bought in 1868 by a Mr. John Gary, who added most of the rooms and whose daughter, Eugenia, is thought by many to haunt the house to this day. Over the decades, Merrehope has served as, among other things, an apartment house, headquarters to a Confederate General, and home to a family of 15. With so many past residents it’s no wonder that some spirits are said to linger there.

The home was purchased in 1968 by the members of nine ladies clubs who would later form the Meridian Restorations Foundation, Inc. The house, which was then divided into many apartments, underwent numerous renovations before it was opened to the public as a kind of architectural museum.

Decades after the refurbishment of the home, rumors of ghost sightings began to circulate. It’s not surprising that it took so long for the rumors to get out; the house, richly furnished and painstakingly cared for, does not look or feel spooky at all and the bright, cheerful rooms would sooner to bring to mind wedding receptions than discontented spirits. Yet numerous people claim to have seen the ghost of Eugenia Gary, daughter of the home’s second owner, John Gary, wandering the rooms and corridors of the home. According to Donna White, Merrehope hostess and distant descendant of the Gary’s, Eugenia died of consumption as a teenager and was buried in Livingston, Ala., never having lived at Merrehope. However, her father, who is buried at Rose Hill cemetery, lived at Merrehope for many years and had his funeral service there.

The first reported sighting of Eugenia, according to White, was made by a former hostess who recognized Eugenia in the portrait that hangs in the Museum room. Since then, sightings of the ghost have become more frequent; according to White, her favorite haunt is the museum room window, but she has also been seen in the downstairs library, through the kitchen window, and walking in through the front door.

The strangest sighting of Miss Gary actually occurred in a photograph. “Several years ago,” says White, “They brought a senior







citizens group from another town, and they took pictures downstairs in the double parlor of the Christmas trees. They didn’t see her then, but after they got the film developed, they could see her! She was standing there beside the tree!”

Eugenia is one of two ghosts reported to reside at Merrehope, and the two have very different personalities. Eugenia’s presence is positive, even reassuring, and so is welcomed by the staff. “I think we all know her presence is here,” says White, “but we look at her as a comforting spirit”.

The other, nameless, spirit, is perceived in a very different way by Merrehope staffers. This intimidating spirit haunts only the Periwinkle room, and is said to enjoy causing mischievous, yet apparently harmless, disturbances. Where staff find Eugenia’s presence comforting, White says the ghost of the Periwinkle room only makes them feel “uneasy.”

White’s first encounter with the Periwinkle ghost gave her a great shock, but didn’t discourage her, “I had been working here about two or three weeks … and every morning I’d come up here and I’d check the whole house. Well, that morning I stopped right here [at the doorway to the Periwinkle room]. I didn’t go any further, because there was a perfect imprint of a body on the bed.

I didn’t do anything but run downstairs as fast as I could and check the rest of the house, but nobody was here. I called the other hostess, and she knew something was wrong by the sound of my voice … She told me what it was and said, ‘You’re not going to leave us are you’? She said we’d had a lot of hostesses that wouldn’t stay and work here after that.”

But this is not a spirit that just messes up beds. He also joys in alarming the Merrehope staff with loud crashes and bangs. “The first year I worked here,” says White, “I heard that [noise] coming from the Periwinkle room…and [I] came up here thinking something [had] fallen and glass [had] broken, but it [was] nothing!” The staff, now used to the source-less crashes, are no longer surprised to find nothing amiss after hearing the clamor of smashing glass from upstairs.

And these may not be the only troubling noises made by Merrehope ghosts. During the interview with White, no unusual noise was heard, to be sure. The entire tour yielded not even the faintest ghostly apparition, no bangs or crashes, no cold spots that make your hair stand on end. But the tapes of the interview are a different story indeed.

Shortly after the tour leaves the Periwinkle room, a ghastly inhuman screech can be heard on the recording, which the party, unhearing, talks right through without comment. It has been said to sound like everything from a high-pitched train whistle to a rusty door hinge to a very unhappy cat, but the sound itself is nowhere near as disturbing as the fact that it could not be heard when it was made.

Whether or not the apparitions, eerie sounds and inaudible screams of Merrehope are indeed of supernatural origin cannot really be determined, but there are an astounding number of people who believe that otherworldly spirits are at play there. Funny that ghosts should be called otherworldly, since their defining characteristic is as unwillingness to move on to another world.

Can’t decide if you believe in the Merrehope ghosts? Take a tour of the old mansion Monday through Friday between 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. to decide for yourself. Be sure to ask the hostess about Eugenia and her sour-puss friend Mr. Periwinkle.