University of Wisconsin Marathon Campus
518 South Seventh Avenue Wausau, Wisconsin 54401
Tel: 1 (715) 261-6100
Website: www.uwmc.uwc.edu
During the 1970s, a female custodian by the name of Annie worked for the university. She was best-known for her habit of starting out her workday with a trip to the cafeteria for a morning cup of coffee and some friendly conversation— she was frequently joined in her quest for coffee by other members of the custodial staff. While chatting before work, Annie would occasionally slip into a distinctive laugh. Her colleagues described her laugh as sounding like a chicken cackling. Sadly, Annie died of cancer of the throat; however, according to some, she never left campus.
Soon after her death, several people reported hearing Annie’s distinctive laugh in the building. The library director at the time said she “distinctly heard a woman’s laugh” while in the cafeteria. When she turned to the custodian with her and asked if he had heard the laugh as well, he answered that he had.
Annie’s presence isn’t confined only to ghostly laughter. Custodians working on the late shift reported hearing footsteps in the hallway above the maintenance office and break room. When they left to investigate, no one could be found. A custodian at the time related the following: “We would hear footsteps coming from the hallway above the break room, and a couple of us would run up different staircases to try and trap whoever it was between us. But when we reached the top of the stairs, there would be no one there. This happened quite a lot.”
Another custodian described the following: “Sometimes when I am in the break room at night, I hear what sounds like a wooden chair being dragged across the tile floor above, but when I go up to check it out, there is nobody there.” As in the previous case, more than one person has heard this phantom chair-dragger.
