Collected from an article written by Natalie Huffine, an IU student from at least 3 years ago. The article was written for The Tab, a tabloid-style publication tailored to college students. This particular branch of The Tab is written by and for IU students. It is an excerpt from a longer article published in 2017 about the IU Ghost Walk. The full article can be accessed at https://thetab.com/us/indiana/2017/10/26/the-spookiest-haunted-hotspots-of-bloomington-3894.[Text Wrapping Break][Text Wrapping Break]Text: Every cemetery has stories of ghostly encounters. Whether you hold your breath while passing them in your car or you took pictures in the middle of them when you were in middle school, there is just something creepy crawly about having someone’s dead body six feet below your own.
The cemetery that seems completely out of place next to the IMU is home to the Dunn Family and is almost 200 years old. The Dunns were a prominent family in Bloomington in the mid 1800’s. They owned a large farm that was once smack dab in the middle of campus. Samuel Dunn made an agreement with IU that the school could expand as much as it needed to, as long as the cemetery remained in the same place so the family could stay together “until they rise together again.”
Okay, I don’t know about you, but I’m never walking there alone at night.
Already a pretty primal spot for hocus pocus, this cemetery has been a hotspot for ghost hunters and paranormal activity seekers for years. In fact, during the ghost walk a few years ago, a ghost hunter even caught site of an apparition. During the witching hour (12 midnight for commoners) the lady in black can be seen going from grave to grave tending to the fallen soldiers.
The lady in black is believed to be a member of the Dunn family named Agnes who tended to soldiers during the civil war. There have also been pictures taken of people coming out of the graves and shadows of figures when no one is around.[Text Wrapping Break][Text Wrapping Break]
This excerpt is taken from a tabloid-style online publication, so there is a lot of addressing the reader directly that might not occur in a face-to-face interview between a collector and an informant. The digital aspect of the writing additionally calls for the writing to be longer than a verbal story would be, as it increases the possibility of the article coming up when keywords are searched. Thus, we have a longer story that focuses primarily on Dunn Cemetery as opposed to the Lady in Black.
The artifact is part of a collection of tales told on the IU Ghost Walk every year. As such, the context of the tale is easier to nail down. It is told around Halloween within a group of people being lead by a tour guide. It is intended to provide historical context for many IU legends while simultaneously giving students a scare.
The context of this legend offers the best look into its purpose. Given that it is told in groups of students, it is meant to help develop and foster a sense of community among those going to IU. The Ghost Walk, in addition to being done during the Halloween season, is also offered during New Student Orientation or Welcome Week as a nighttime activity for students to meet new people and build camaraderie by facing the paranormal together.
As the most recent artifact in this collection, it is a good marker for where the legend currently stands in the mind of IU students. The Lady has achieved full ignorance of the world around her, tending to the graves of the Dunns without a care for the thousands of students around her. Unlike previous legends, the element of the woman being in opposition to the Indiana government has been removed to make her backstory more IU-friendly. One thing that I find particularly interesting is the similarity in names between this 2017 retelling of the legend and the 2007 radio program. Both are disyllabic, beginning with an A and having the second syllable begin with an N sound.