Haunted Seattle: Do Ghosts Want to Save Waldo Hospital?

Marjorie Rhodes

This is a ghost story with an uncertain ending.

I've spent the majority of my years in Seattle's Maple Leaf neighborhood, unaware of my unearthly neighbors until the wee hours of March 5, 2007. As a night-owl, I'm at my old dial-up computer seven nights a week doing various projects. At 1:55 a.m., I felt a strong urge to write a ghost story. Being a non-fiction writer, I didn't know what to make of this. It was a total distraction from my work at hand, but the urge kept pulling at me. I put aside my computer work, and took pen and paper in hand and struggled to come up with a story line about a haunted place.

Eventually I went to bed, still troubled by this ghostly mood. Eighteen hours later I made a phone call to the Seattle Genealogical Society (SGS) pertaining to a neighborhood property, and learned that it is haunted. But let me back up here a bit.

It was summer 2006 when Camp Fire USA put its property up for sale here in the Maple Leaf neighborhood. This jewel was originally the Waldo Hospital, built in 1924 on 1.6 acres adorned with 80 trees, including more than 50 tall Douglas firs along 15th Ave. NE. Prescott Homes, the developer who is buying the property, wishes to replace the trees and building with townhouses.

The Maple Leaf Community Council took action, creating a Save Waldo committee to designate Waldo Hospital as a historic landmark. As part of my research for the committee, I contacted groups that leased space at the old hospital, including SGS. When speaking with Sarah, a respected Seattle genealogist and teacher, about the building's tenants, she asked if I knew about the ghosts. Believing that I must have misheard her, I asked her to repeat what she said, and learned that the old Waldo Hospital is haunted. Sarah witnessed strange happenings, including a computer operating by itself, books rearranged in a locked room and a female ghostly specter. She informed me that others have also seen ghosts in the building.

So that explained the urge that overcame me only 18 hours earlier. A premonition, or was it ghost to human telepathy?

So my next step was to see if anyone in Camp Fire would be willing to talk to me about the hauntings, but I never got past the receptionist's desk for a ghostly tour.

It seemed that my only other option was to go to the old Waldo Hospital at night and peer through the building's front glass door to look for unusual ghostly activity. On March 23 just before 10 p.m., it suddenly popped into my mind that it was ghost hunting time. Armed with a flashlight with weak batteries, I hurried up the hill.

Peering through the glass panel in the front door, both wanting and not wanting to see a ghostly specter, I was startled when I heard someone approach from behind. Not a ghost, but a man walking a dog who was apparently curious as to what I was doing. I explained that I was looking for paranormal activity.  

We struck up a conversation, and the man turned out to be a neighbor who lives only a block from me. By coincidence, he also is involved with a Buddhist group that used to lease space from Camp Fire at the old Waldo Hospital. He was aware of the stories about Waldo being haunted.

Ghosts Among Us

As I continued going door-to-door collecting signatures on our Save Waldo petition, I asked homeowners in the neighborhood if they knew about the hauntings or had ever witnessed anything unusual. Much to my astonishment, one neighborhood man knew not only about Waldo, but replied that his own place is haunted as well. Apparently a woman came to his door one day and informed him that there are two streams passing beneath his property that are pathways for spirits.

He checked with the government and learned that there are, indeed, two streams running under his property. Thornton Creek runs underground just east of Waldo and is no doubt one of these streams.

Another Waldo neighbor who used to work for Camp Fire also has had unusual phenomena occur in her home. To this day, her grown daughter will not go into the basement when visiting her parent's home. And they had a family dog that used to go berserk in a certain corner of the house.

This neighbor, who was employed by Camp Fire from 1977 to 1984, had seen the Waldo paranormal activity. She experienced strange phenomena such as the elevator operating by itself, and the sound of footsteps up and down the hall and in the stairwell when no one was around. During that time, Camp Fire had the elevator inspected and there was no evidence of malfunction. And I learned from still another Maple Leaf resident that the ghost of a nurse has appeared in Waldo.

Over the months, our community has persisted in our efforts to save this special place. In June 2007 we were denied a landmark designation. More than 2,000 folks have already signed the Save Waldo petition, making it clear that they beg to differ with the landmark board. Our efforts to stop Prescott Homes continue in spite of this set back.

Bald eagles have perched in Waldo's trees, Thornton Creek runs near the property and it's one of the few historic non-residential buildings in Maple Leaf. As with so many of Seattle's single-family communities, condominiums have wiped out so much of our community's history. And the Jolly Rogers, a designated landmark here, was torched by an arsonist in 1988. As one neighbor has asked, "How many historic properties do we have to lose before we get to keep one?"

This is more than a ghost story - it's about Seattle and other Northwest communities facing overdevelopment. I can't help but wonder if the ghostly residents at Waldo know what's going on and are trying to reach out to us. But alas, we don't even have local ordinances to protect Seattle's diminishing tree canopy, let alone to protect the home of ghosts.

Marjorie Rhodes is an historian, astrologer and activist for many causes, including election reform, animal welfare and the environment. Visit www.savewaldo.org.