'Lady of the Stairs'

Tragic Tale Haunts the 'Lady of the Stairs'

A tragic female spirit is said to haunt the steps of First Church of Christ Scientist in a section of Louisville, Kentucky, known as Old Louisville. Those who tell the story call her the “Lady of the Stairs.” According to David Domine, author of Haunts of Old Louisville, “It seems this actually was a local woman.”

She may have existed, but does the distressed and weeping ghost of this local woman also exist? Domine explains the origins of the tale: “The Lady of the Stairs is a beautiful statuesque young woman 18 or 19 years of age who is seen pacing back and forth through these columns up here.” According to documents of that time, she is believed to be a member of the Gathright family, a prominent family of the early 1900s. Locals have nicknamed the woman at the church “Ms. G,” for Gathright, or The Lady of the Stairs, because she is seen pacing between a row of 12 massive columns towering at the front entrance of the church. “People who have seen her always report the same thing. They say she's always crying and upset about something,” Domine adds. Coming from a prominent, wealthy family, Ms. G had all the advantages of life, but it’s what she wanted and did not get that may have caused her eternal tears. This tale is as old and familiar as Romeo and Juliet. Domine explains: “Her parents were trying to keep her away from a young man she had fallen in love with and hoped to marry. They had picked out a more suitable match for their daughter, a wealthier man, but she didn’t want to marry this man. She insisted on marrying this soldier she fell in love with.”

According to Domine, sources identified the soldier as Hebert Fullerton Dickson stationed at Camp Zachary Taylor. Dickson was away in the Great War and he survived and returned to Kentucky. “So they would meet on the steps of this church on the sly and after several months they hatched a plan to elope,” he continues. The couple planned to marry in the lovely neoclassical church on Third Street, once referred to as Louisville’s Millionaire’s Row. Domine then tells how fate took its painful twist, “But the night they were going to elope, something happened and the young man never showed up.”

It is believed the young Gaithright heir was left waiting for her fiancé. She spent the evening pacing between the brass torchieres that flank the steps leading up to the doors of the church. She believed she had been jilted and never found out what tragedy caused her despair. “He was one of 800 soldiers that died at Camp Zachary Taylor,” reveals Domine. The death certificate Domine discovered records his death December 7 at Camp Zachary Taylor, Louisville, Kentucky. He died of pneumonia at age 18. The greatest tragedy, “Word never got back to Ms. G about what happened that night she waited and waited,” he explains.

The young heiress was willing to secretly wed her love with the chance of giving up her family and wealth, but instead, she stood on the steps believing the love of her life had abandoned her. Domine brings the story to its disastrous close, “Went home chilled to the bone and she thought she had been jilted. The sad thing, the next day, she contracted the flu and died as well. So they think that her ghost haunts this place waiting for the young man to come take her away.”

To learn more about the Lady of the Stairs visit the America’s Most Haunted Neighborhood page on Facebook.

Sources: Dawne Gee, WAVE News, May 12, 2014, and Ghosts of Old Louisville by David Domine