Ghostly Guests
These ghosts met tragic endings in life, but they seem
to find pleasure in their eternal activities
By Louise PhiLLiPs + iLLustrations By erick viLLagomez
The Little Girl The Lady in Red
seattLe vancouver
kells irish restaurant & Pub
Of all the Kells ghosts, the little girl is
the most poignant. about three years
old, her mousy-blonde hair in ringlets,
she carries a teddy bear and wears a red,
short-sleeved taffeta dress. She has con-
versed with a living child and run away,
barefoot, from a security worker at 1 a.m.
She plays around the foot of the stairs
at Kells, located in the basement of the
five-storey 1903 Butterworth Building,
which housed Seattle’s first mortuary.
according to a respected medium, she
and her mother perished from flu. Several
epidemics, including diphtheria and
Spanish influenza, brought brisk trade to
the Butterworths, and their association
with shady doctor Linda Hazzard resulted
in questionable income for the business.
These days, holy water is kept behind the
bar along with a collection of over 200
single-malt whiskies, making this the
most spirited pub in america.
32 Rocky Mountaineer Magazine 2018
Fairmont hotel vancouver
Probably Vancouver’s best-known ghost,
Jennie Pearl Cox was a regular visitor
to the Hotel Vancouver’s ballroom in
the early 1940s along with her husband
Harold. Wearing a red gown, she keeps
appearing at the hotel since her fam-
ily’s fatal car crash in 1944, when she
was only 25. She has been seen passing
through elevator doors on the 14th floor.
One evening, a guest met the Lady in
Red joining a man and child in an eleva-
tor before all three disappeared simul-
taneously. a concierge saw a woman in
red drift through the door of an occupied
room, but when he rushed in to “rescue”
its guests, they had not seen her. across
georgia Street at the Hudson’s Bay de-
partment store, a late-night janitor saw
a woman in a red dress float up between
the clothing racks a foot or so above
the floor. Perhaps Jennie needed a new
dance frock?