When World War II broke out, Dr. Bernard closed his Nyack estate and donated it to refugees from Nazi Germany. Bernard died in 1955 at the age of eighty; his Tudor-style manor house was demolished along with the swimming pool and gardens in order to make way for Nyack Missionary College. Several of the original outbuildings remain on the property, but they were gutted and turned into student dormitories. When the estate was leveled to construct new school buildings, the sacred burial grounds of Bernard’s prized elephants were discovered along with their bones and marble markers. Generally, it is not a good idea to disturb the burial grounds of sacred elephants; even ordinary elephants don’t take too kindly to such disrespect. It is the general belief that the Missionary College would have preferred that D. Bernard and his colorful lifestyle had never existed. All traces of his existence have been obliterated, including the remains of his jumbo playmates.

It may be true, however, that an elephant never forgets. This would account for some of the rumors and stories that have circulated among students of the college. While visiting the Nyack library, former student Jim Murphy overheard me talking to the research librarian about the old estate. He quite unexpectedly turned and said, "That place is haunted like you wouldn’t believe."

The librarian and I looked up at him, and I encouraged him to go on.

"I’d come home from class and find all my furniture tossed about the room. The bed would be turned over on its side, and the dresser turned over. Sometimes I’d find my things-books, chairs, nightstand, whatever-arranged in a circle nobody could explain. In the beginning I just figured it was some of the older students horsing around with me. But then one night I was alone and I felt this wind or force build up in my room, and all my papers started to fly off my desk. It was like a small tornado, but the windows were closed and the door was shut. Then I heard this banging coming from the other side of the wall, and when I looked up I saw a shadow on the wall. It looked like an elephant, but just its shadow. It just stood there at first, but then the walls began to tremble like there was an earthquake, and stopped again just as suddenly. My room was in a shambles; books, papers all over the floor. I’ve heard I wasn’t alone. It happened to some of the other students who stayed there as well. You see, the walls are four feet thick in that building. I’m told it used to be used by the elephants. Can you imagine that? When the estate became a school, the building was gutted and redesigned for student housing. Some of us think those disturbances are because of the graves they dug up; they were right outside the building. I heard they just took the bones to the local dump. Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea."