Mrs. Beverly Gordon, Dean of Faculty Coaching and Development and Social Studies teacher, has been teaching at Malvern for well over a decade and did not shy away from divulging a few ghost stories that thicken the plot of the ghost in St. Rita’s.

“When I first started here, sixteen years ago, I came in very early; I was an early bird. I would get in as early as five o’clock in the morning and I would go to St. Rita’s and grade because I always had grading to do,” Gordon said.

Getting to campus as early as she did, Gordon was often the only person on campus, well, the only living person. 

“I found I would be the only one in [St. Rita’s], and I would go to the second floor. I would go to the second floor and do a lot of my work because there was a printer up there and just for some reason I sat up there early,” she said.

Though her office space was on the first floor of St Rita’s, she would typically go to the second floor to do her work in the morning. When she was on the first floor, everything seemed to be fine, but the second floor is where it really started to get strange. 

“I’ll tell you, when I was on the first floor, everything was great, [but] when I was on the second floor, something was up there,” Gordon said. 

While most people would be freaked out or terrified about the abnormal behavior that she experienced on the second floor, Gordon offered a different take.

“Maybe I’m nuts, but I would talk to the air and I’d be like, ‘Look, I’m taking care of these kids, don’t get crazy up here,’” she said. “And nothing really happened as much as it was a feeling, or even like a creaking, … but on that second floor, man, I never felt like I was alone,” Gordon continued. 

Gordon expressed that the feeling she felt while in St. Rita’s was not anything horrifying or scary, but rather a friendly, and amiable spirit watching over the building. 

“It’s interesting because it’s not a scary story, it’s almost comforting, not mean or bad. When I was in [St. Rita’s] and I was doing my work and taking care of the kids, trying to teach something, it was almost like ‘Okay, keep going, I hope you’re taking care of these kids because that’s your number one priority,’” Gordon said.  

As a history buff, Gordon worked in historic buildings before coming to Malvern. She described the feeling she felt while in St Rita’s as similar to that of the old buildings she used to be in. 

“I’ve worked in historic houses before I came here: really old spaces, attics of churches and all different really historic buildings. I was used to this feeling and it was the same feeling, which was interesting to me, but it was almost like a creaking …  I definitely felt like sometimes you feel somebody is watching you,” Gordon said. 

A very unique aspect of this story goes back to when Mrs. Jessica Kenworthey explained that she was previously told that a nun died in her bed in St. Rita’s many years ago. Just as in most houses, the bedrooms are on the second floor of a home, which Gordon explained was the only place where she experiences these ghost-like encounters. 

“What’s interesting is, as a historian, I’ve always been intrigued by ghost stories and things like that, but I never really went in on them and been like, ‘Oh yeah, definitely, this is happening,’” Gordon said. “I’m not someone who [thinks], ‘yeah, there’s a ghost in every corner,’ but it was enough that I remembered it all these years.”