Volume 9 , Issue 43

Spectre of Old Alva Hospital Being Haunted Rattles Nerves of Caretakers

[The Daily Oklahoman, dated 14 Dec. 1971, pg. 38]

Alva, OK -- "Everyone's heard of a haunted house, but just how many people have come across a haunted hospital?

Two young Alva men think they are living in one - the old Alva General hospital which closed last July to make way for the new Share Memorial Hospital.

Ben Buckland and Dennis Brown came by their unusual home after vandals began to take their toll on the outskirts of this northwest Oklahoma community.

Buckland, part owner of a restaurant catering to college students and consulting manager of an Oklahoma City FM radio station, and Brown, job foreman for his father's lumber company here, serve as caretakers for the old hospital.

In the 2 1/2 months they've occupied the place numerous strange sounds and unexplained happenings have occurred which have sometimes left them on edge. Word of the mysterious goings-on has gotten out to their friends. They still have the friends, buy they'd rather not come calling at the pair's "haunted" residence.

"At first we were afraid of an overstock of company here -- but we've never had that problem," Buckland quipped.

The two men occupy eight of the 96 rooms of the old structure. The lobby is now a game room with pool and ping pong tables. An eight bed ward is now their living room. Buckland uses a small office off the game room and Brown has a former surgery room for a bedroom suite.

Brown has numerous stereo tapes which he enjoys listening to for relaxation. At least he used to like to relax with them.

"The first day we moved in, we were sitting in my bedroom listening to my tapes when a tape broke," Brown said, adding, "I've never had a tape break. Well, we fixed it and turned it on again. The tape broke again. That tape broke three times while we were watching it."

"If you're looking for an explanation," Buckland said, "after the tape broke three times is a row ... one of the guys helping us move said 'Maybe it's too loud; maybe you're offending them (the ghosts).' So Dennis turned it down and the tape didn't break anymore."

Other things have happened since then.

"Sometimes we'll be sitting there listening to the stereo and one side of the stereo will quit playing for no reason," observed Brown. Both men have checked the wires numerous times and found nothing amiss.

A stain in the surgery room adjoining Brown's bedroom is another unexplained phenomenon. The reddish-brown stain measures about four inches in diameter and is located three feet from a floor drain set in the sloping surgery floor.

When they mop the floor the stain disappears, but is back again within a week.

Brown tells of having a childhood fear of shower baths after having been trapped inside a shower by a sliding door and nearly being scalded as a youngster.

Recently he went to his room for a record album. The former surgery room's door closed and the shower came on. This sent Brown hurrying back to the game room without the record.

Despite these and other strange events the men have no plans for moving from their "haunted" hospital home.

"It's been a really good experience. I'd like to live here until forced to move out," Brown said.

Buckland observed, "It's been most interesting. I'll live here as long as the administrators need me."
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