Helen Roberts, the Voorhees Hall Ghost of Coe College

Helen Esther Roberts came to Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in the autumn of 1918 as an 18-year-old first-year student from Strawberry Point. By Coe’s own account, she died about three weeks after starting her studies. The college announced on 19 October 1918 that she had died of pneumonia brought on by Spanish influenza. The epidemic was then exploding in the city: Coe’s history says there were roughly 200 cases on 9 October, the count tripled the next day, schools, churches and public meeting places closed, and by 24 October the city reported 2,375 cases. Coe says she died in Voorhees Hall, a women’s residence, though the exact room is unknown; research by history professor Bethany Keenan suggests the second floor, which served as an infirmary during the epidemic. Helen was buried in Strawberry Point, and Coe professor Charles T. Hickok and his wife were among the mourners.

Her parents gave Voorhees a grandfather clock in her memory and endowed a scholarship in her name that Coe says is still awarded a century later. Those are the documented parts of the story. The ghost story is campus lore with no single origin. Coe’s 2018 article says it is hard to pinpoint when her memory shifted from a tragic death to a tale of haunting, but by the 1970s she was, in its words, a permanent fixture on campus.

According to Coe’s article, residents of Voorhees have described a figure or a cold breeze near the clock, telephone calls with a faint girl’s voice on the line, women locked out of their rooms, electronics switching on and off and pictures falling from walls. It adds that members of her sorority, Delta Delta Delta, are said to report her more often, and that she is described as friendly and never malicious. A 2017 piece in the Iowa magazine Little Village by Paul Brennan adds slamming doors, stomping on the stairs, covers pulled off sleepers and piano playing before dawn, and says the clock is said to be permanently broken and allegedly once stopped at 2:53. Readers who commented on that article disputed some of its details about the building and about how long Helen was ill, and the piece itself says the details of her death are not recorded.

A figure or cold breeze near the memorial clock, a faint girl’s voice on the telephone, locked doors, electronics switching on and off, falling pictures, slamming doors, footsteps on the stairs, bedclothes pulled off sleepers and piano music before dawn. No named witnesses or dates are given in the published accounts.

Voorhees Hall, a Coe College women’s residence, especially around the grandfather clock and on the second floor. The hall is part of a private campus and is not open to the public.

Helen is Coe’s best-known ghost, retold in Coe’s own 2018 centennial article, in Little Village’s local-legends roundup and in podcast episodes. The scholarship in her name continues.