On their respective shifts, Firefighters Blake, Maturo and Spencer bunked in the officers' room, which is located right off the main hallway to the dayroom. Late on the first of his four nights in a row, Gil Spencer was the only person in the fire station. Before hitting the sack, he made his usual check of the fire station. The building was locked. Spencer retired to his bunk.
Suddenly, Spencer was startled by sounds coming from outside the officers' room. The hallway door opened and closed. What? This was followed by footsteps heading down toward the dayroom.
The station was locked. But someone else was in the building.
Spencer knew this had to be a gag. Anyone who has ever worked with other firefighters knows that firehouse pranks sometimes get pretty intense, from finding real dead snakes languishing in your bed to participating in actual pie fights a la Moe, Larry and Curly. True!
Spencer assumed that someone, another firefighter no doubt, had opened Box 158 on the front of the building, took the key to the building, and entered the station.
But Spencer found no one else in the fire station that night. Whoever made those creepy noises in the hallway outside the officers' room also made a quick getaway. But how? The station was locked!
The door and footstep noises continued in the days and weeks that followed. Finally, Spencer reluctantly approached Blake and Maturo. Maybe they'll think I'm nuts, he thought, but he had to know if Blake and Maturo also heard the strange noises when they were on duty.
Indeed, Warren Blake and Gene Maturo also reported hearing the same eerie late-night sounds of doors opening and closing, as well as the footsteps with nobody there.
In time, the noises eventually stopped. But Spencer knows what he heard was real. He is convinced that the slamming doors and footsteps that he, Blake and Maturo heard during the winter of 1969 were manifestations of the ghost of Miss Alice Peck, haunting the very space where she performed her life's work.
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Were these three guys imagining things? Maybe. Maybe not. This week, while researching Alice Peck for this article, the author discovered that Miss Peck had passed away while visiting in Waterbury on Saturday, February 22, 1969. Her funeral was February 26th, when Gil Spencer first heard Station 9's unseen visitor.
Happy Halloween!
Posted 10/30/15 - Hamden Fire Retirees website
*Portrait of Alice Peck captured from Ancestry.com
