Do you believe in ghosts? Haunting stories at Strathmore recount the mansion’s history.

The emergency phone in the elevator kept ringing. When the phone company finally came to fix it, they said it wasn’t even plugged in.

Since Mary Mendoza Godbout began working at the newly renamed Trawick Mansion at Strathmore in the early ’90s, she has experienced and collected dozens of similarly spooky anecdotes that she and fellow staff members say point to the presence of ghosts in the mansion-turned-arts center.

There was the time that one staffer propped several pieces of art against a wall, only to return to find that each appeared to have been carefully placed on the floor. Breezes suddenly break out in completely still rooms. Late at night, lights frequently turn on and off by themselves.

At a Halloween-themed evening tea last week in the mansion, Godbout took guests on her annual Strathmore ghost tour, highlighting some of the supposedly haunted locations within the nearly 125-year-old mansion.

“I’ve always kind of believed,” said Godbout, manager of the Mansion Tea Room. “Skeptical at times — I just want to make sure it’s real.”

Several incidents over her decades at Strathmore have convinced her “100%,” she said.

Regardless of whether the mansion is truly a paranormal hotspot, the ghost stories collected by staff over the years have served as a de facto history lesson on the owners of yore.

A history of the mansion

Before it became an arts venue, the early-1900s mansion was home to Charles and Hattie Corby, who owned the more than 2,500 surrounding acres that would eventually become the Grosvenor-Strathmore Metro station, The Academy of the Holy Cross and Garrett Park Estates.

Following her husband’s death in 1926, Hattie, known to Strathmore staff as Mrs. Corby, continued to live in the mansion until her death 15 years later.

While Godbout said she and others have seen several different spirits around the mansion, Mrs. Corby is the most prominent. Her presence — which medium Rob Gutro of the Jessup-based Inspired Ghost Tracking group described in a 2018 report as “sad and anxious” — is mostly felt on the second floor of the mansion, around the art gallery space that used to be her bedroom and dressing room.

“Mrs. Corby loved this house,” Godbout said. “This was her heart and soul. She lost her husband, lost her son early, so she had that sadness.”

Across three visits over the course of 2018 and 2019, the Inspired Ghost Tracking team reported noticing a whole host of spirits, including a priest, an “inconsolable” young woman, a man and about 20 nuns.

Don’t go into the attic

Godbout keeps the mansion’s Halloween decorations in the attic. That’s not the only thing up there, she said.

About a decade ago, she went upstairs to bring the boxes of decor down, crossing the attic to reach the storage area on the opposite side of the entrance.

The lights flickered on and off. Once. Twice. Three times. The only other person in the building was two stories below.

“You know how in ‘The Sixth Sense’ when they say they feel the prickly things on the back of the neck? I’m like, ‘Oh, yes.’ It definitely got cold up there,” Godbout said.

On last Thursday’s ghost tour, one guest who claimed to be able to sense spirits looked visibly shaken after approaching the steps to the attic, claiming that the spirits upstairs were very clear that they didn’t want any visitors.

Following Mrs. Corby’s death in 1941, Filipino President Manuel L. Quezon used the mansion as a temporary headquarters for World War II operations. Two years later, some of the estate’s land was converted into St. Angela Hall, a convent and school led by a group of nuns.

That’s who the paranormal investigators believe inhabit the attic space.

In later years, the mansion served as headquarters for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association before the county acquired it in 1979 and turned it into the nonprofit Strathmore Hall, the county’s first center for the arts.

Despite the haunting implications of working alone and late at night in a building supposedly crawling with spirits, Godbout said she’s never felt that the ghosts have any malicious intent.

“At least I can bring to life Mrs. Corby and let these people know about her and her life and how much this place meant to her,” she said. “I [host] all the teas, and that’s what she loved to do, so I feel like I’m honoring her in that way.”

A previous security guard would notice a light flicker on in the room that used to be her bedroom when he patrolled the building every night.

One night, Godbout said, the guard wished the ghost a good evening. The light promptly flickered off.

“Goodnight, Mrs. Corby” has become a parting valediction for staff working late nights ever since.