Fort Leavenworth National Cemetery

One would think that one of the oldest cemeteries in the National Cemetery system would be great fodder for ghostly tales.

"According to legend," Catherine Sutler still roams the cemetery on dark, stormy nights, lantern in hand, searching for her lost children. For five years I lived in quarters that overlooked the cemetery, and never saw her or a lantern.

But I did know a general’s aide, a bright young captain, who told the following to a friend, who told me.

The aide and his wife were walking their dog along Biddle Boulevard in broad daylight, between the Frontier Crossroads Center and the cemetery.

Suddenly the wife squeezed the aide’s hand, and stopped. She was looking down the street, and when he looked in that direction he saw a bright light and the fleeting figure of a woman in a long white dress. She was standing at the curb, facing the couple, and raising her right arm up and down in an arc. Their dog didn’t want to proceed.

The aide saw the apparition only momentarily, but he says he did see it. Neither the wife nor the dog would walk in that direction, but the aide "dragged them along."

When they got to the location where the captain had seen the apparition, they found no one. The couple changed their walking route after that.