The demolition of the old building of an orphanage in Newfoundland raises a logical question from people who once worked here: "What will become of the ghost that often haunted us in the dilapidated halls of this house?"
St. John's is a city in Canada, the capital and largest city in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The abandoned and fire survivor of the Belvedere Orphanage in St. John's is in the process of being demolished in recent years. For years, people in the area talked about the ghost in the dilapidated building, especially when it functioned as a school in the 1970s.
Lorraine Michael was a Catholic nun and director of Belvedere High School from 1971 to 1976. Once she was in the monastery part of the building and heard some strange sounds, which it was then difficult for her to explain. “It was the sound of someone's footsteps, and they came from the top floor,” she said. Lorraine says that the cleaning lady often informed her that the doors to classrooms opened by themselves, even though she closed them.
"Belvedere Orphanage" in St. John's at the beginning of the last century.
She reveals that one day a staff member summoned a paranormal expert at Memorial University who believed the alleged ghost was a poltergeist. “Poltergeists are usually associated with teenage girls,” Lorraine said.
On another occasion, two women who attended the school stayed there for a while, and one of them later said that from the moment she stepped on the threshold, her whole being was filled with the suffering of young girls, and she felt that she had entered in contact with a special spirit in the building.
Lorraine says she heard footsteps many times, but she never had the courage to investigate the nature of these sounds. “I was not afraid. I knew I heard a ghost. But I wasn’t going to go upstairs and watch.”
Another time, Lorraine says, the student council superintendent came to work and his secretary was waiting in the parking lot and didn't want to enter because when she was alone in the building she heard footsteps in the main hallway. She said she would never be alone inside again.
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Lorraine says she recently received an email from a former colleague at the Belvedere who joked that the demolition might make the ghost go away. She hopes it will. “If the poltergeist was connected with the history of the building, although I am not an expert, I suppose that now the spirit will leave in peace and rest,” she said.