Museums are filled with artifacts, animal bones and fossils, clothing from the past century, renditions of old towns, cars and buggies, oil rigs, and so much more. However, like a large number of other museums in the United States, the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum has an extra shadow to be aware of.
Her name is Sarah Jane.
While the museum still had a room in the east annex dedicated to old cars and wagons, there stood a large horse-drawn ambulance-wagon from the very early years of the 20th century. According to Michael Grauer, Associate Director for Curatorial Affairs/Curator of Art and Western Heritage at PPHM, the ambulance first arrived to the museum in March of 1958, and it is currently in storage.
“Our wagon and buggy exhibition area has been mothballed temporarily to house a very large collection from the Bugbee family in Clarendon,” he said.
According to Becky Livingston, Curator of History at PPHM, the ambulance is a U.S. Army Field ambulance “Model 1909-11”.
“It was manufactured circa 1911 by the Martin Truck and Body Corporation in York, Pennsylvania. It was purchased by the donor in Kentucky around 1943,” she said.
While this haunted ambulance was on display in museum, visitors have experienced exceedingly strange feelings. As found on theshadowlands.net under the Canyon- Panhandle Plains Historical Museum category, multiple people have reported feeling extreme panic feelings, headaches, and even the overwhelming smell of blood from the wagon’s golden days during war. There hasn’t only been one, but also multiple reports of these feelings to make people question why it was happening.
Their questions were answered in 1975.
As cited on page 128 of the book Spirits of the Border V: The History and Mystery of the Lone Star State, an article in the summer/fall 1989 issue of what was the West Texas State University’s magazine points out the first experience with the ghostly Sarah Jane.
Custodial worker, Ann Bacon saw a ghostly woman, who identified herself as Sarah Jane; she looked like a young woman in her twenties and was seen standing close to the horse-drawn ambulance. Bacon and others have consistently described her appearance as a long, full, cotton printed dress with dark reddish-brown hair. Some have even said she swings a bonnet by the ribbons as well. Grauer is able to support this description of the ghost.
“While I have never actually seen Sarah Jane, I have seen an apparition out of the corner of my eye; but mostly, I have ‘felt’ her presence,” Grauer said. “Peripheral images are never clear, but I would say she is a young woman in her twenties with dark hair.”
No one knows a clear reason why she lingers around the ambulance, but Livingston points out a couple of speculations.
“One story is that her fiancé or husband had been in that ambulance at one time, and she is looking for him,” Livingston said. “It’s also thought that she may have been a Red Cross nurse.”
As stated earlier in the article, people had eerie and disturbing feelings around the ambulance when Sarah Jane is there, but Grauer stated otherwise.
“Actually, I felt peaceful when I encountered Sarah Jane,” he said.
A report of peaceful feelings can calm nerves of those who may come in contact with the ambulance, but Sarah Jane isn’t the only paranormal apparition Grauer has come in contact with at the museum.
“I don’t know of any reported sightings of ‘Sarah’ other than in the east end of the building where the wagons are housed,” Grauer said. “However, I have felt other presences in the building, especially at night in the old library stacks, which we now use for artifact storage.”
With or without actual presence, everyone can open up their imaginations when visiting the museum next time, letting the memories and pasts of each artifact speak to them mostly in a figurative sense. One can never know what he or she may stumble upon when they allow their imaginations to flow.
