Folklore and Phantoms at the Givins Beverly Castle

By Carol Flynn, Ridge Historical Society

CHICAGO - Halloween, the Day of the Dead, All Souls Day and All Saints Day are just around the corner, and this is the time of year for ghost stories.

One building long considered haunted is Beverly’s best-known landmark, the Givins Beverly Castle, perched on top of the Blue Island Ridge at the corner of 103rd Street and Longwood Drive. As with most castles, this one comes complete with ghost legends.

Researchers from the Ridge Historical Society (RHS) have been studying the history of the Castle for several years, including the folklore surrounding the ghost stories. The intent is not to prove or disprove the existence of ghosts because ghost encounters by their very nature are subjective and unprovable. Rather, as people try to interpret the encounters and experiences based on their knowledge and beliefs, history researchers can help verify if the interpretations are supported by historical facts.

The two most often repeated stories of ghosts at the Castle that are published in books and on websites are the “Irish fiancé” and the “influenza victim” tales. Both involve various stories of people interacting with the spirit of a young woman who speaks with an Irish brogue. Neither interpretation, however, is supported by historical research.

The Castle's well-known legend is that Robert C. Givins, while visiting Ireland, came across a castle on the River Dee that took his fancy. He sketched the castle and built a replica in Beverly when he returned home. It was meant to be a gift for his Irish fiancé, who remained in Ireland. She died before she came to the U.S., and it is her ghost who haunts the Castle.

As romantic as this story may be, it is almost certainly just folklore. In fact, the Castle in Beverly is probably not Irish at all.

Givins was descended from English Protestants who emigrated from Northern Ireland to Canada in the 1700s. He was born in the Toronto area and came to Chicago in 1863 at age 17. He made a fortune in the real estate business and was also a lawyer, auctioneer, and novelist. He was popular and sociable. The newspapers loved him and referred to him by his nickname "Bob," something rare in those more formal days.

Givins married twice. His first wife, Sophia Cherry, was born in England, and then the family moved to Toronto when she was a child. Bob and Sophie Givins had four children, but tragically, Sophie and three of the children died young.

Givins married a second time, to Chicago schoolteacher Emma Steen. Emma was of Norwegian descent and her family was from Minnesota. Emma was Givins’ wife when the Castle was built. She was very much alive, and they lived in the Castle for years, and participated in local activities.

No record has been found that Givins ever visited Ireland before the Castle was built in 1886-87. He did visit there in 1889. The earliest reference that has been found so far for the Castle being called “Irish” came fifty years after it was built. It was not referred to as “Irish” in any of the many newspaper articles or other accounts from Givins’ lifetime. The second owners, the Burdett Family, who purchased the Castle from Givins in 1909, also stated they never heard the “Irish” story.

Bob and Emma Givins were active in the Knights Templar fraternal organization affiliated with the Freemasons. It is likely the Castle was modelled after York Castle in England, historically affiliated with the original medieval Knights Templar. The original name of Toronto, Givins’ hometown, was York.

Of course, Givins could have seen an illustration of an Irish castle that he used as a model, or there is always a chance he might have made a trip to Ireland prior to 1886 and the records just haven’t been found. RHS researchers are always looking for new information.

The second story that appears most often is that the ghost was a student at a female boarding school that was located in the Castle in the 1930s, and she died of influenza during an epidemic.

Again, there is no record of this happening. The Castle was rented out for about a year and a half in the 1890s to the Chicago Female College. In the 1930s, the Castle was owned by Dr. Miroslaw Siemens and his family. There was no boarding school, but the doctor did see patients at the Castle. Influenza was an issue every winter, but there were no major outbreaks reported in the 1930s. The worst outbreak was in 1918-19 and there was no boarding school at the Castle at the time.

Even if these two stories are not based on historic facts, there are plenty of paranormal stories related to the Castle to keep things interesting.

The Beverly Unitarian Church (BUC) bought the Castle from Dr. Siemens in 1942 and has used the building for church services and events since that time. In the 1970s, the BUC acknowledged and capitalized on the haunted reputation of the Castle. Halloween events were held as fundraisers at “Chicago’s only haunted castle.” Interviews and articles from this time were a starting point for researching the Castle ghost stories.

BUC employed caretakers who lived in rooms on the second and third floors of the Castle. One family that lived there in the 1950s had several experiences that one of the sons shared with RHS researchers. He was 12 years old when the family moved into the Castle and is in his 80s now.

One strange experience involved his mother and a woman in a flowing white dress that resembled a nightgown. This woman was seen several times walking around in the garden. One day his mother was startled to find the woman standing behind her in their second-floor apartment. Back in those days, churches were left unlocked during the day so there was access to the building, but no one in the family saw or heard her enter the apartment. The woman said she was looking for the minister. His mother told her the minister would be there on the weekend. The woman said all right and left. His mother immediately went to the door and looked out, but the woman was gone. They never saw the woman again. They asked around and no one had any idea who the woman might have been.

Another strange experience occurred one summer they lived there. The castle was closed and locked during the summers. No events went on for three months. After making sure all the lights were off, windows shut, and doors securely locked, the family left for a week’s vacation. When they returned, a light was on in a third-floor turret window, part of the caretaker’s apartment. The Castle was securely locked. As his father and brothers and he approached the door of the room, it suddenly opened by itself with a loud squeaking noise. There was no one in the room and the light was indeed on. Other people from the Castle had keys, but no one ever admitted to turning on that light.

One caretaker from the 1960s reported that beginning the very night they moved in, they regularly heard voices murmuring from the floors below, and footsteps on the inside back stairs, but there was never anyone there. Their German Shepherd often growled at something that they could not identify. While playing cards with friends, a vase on the table shattered for no apparent reason.

One afternoon the caretaker encountered a young woman in the sanctuary of the church, the former living room on the first floor. The young woman, who had an Irish brogue, said she had lived in the Castle and it was very different now. The caretaker left the room, then it occurred to her that the woman was very young to have lived in the Castle, since the BUC had owned the building for almost 25 years. Returning to the first floor, the young woman was gone. The caretaker looked outside, and there were no footsteps in the snow that had fallen. Asking around the neighborhood, just like with the woman in the white dress, no one could identify this young woman.

In the early 1970s, BUC invited Carol Broman to visit the Castle. Broman was a psychic investigator who often worked with the police. Five years after her visit to the Castle, Broman was involved in the investigation of serial killer John Wayne Gacy.

Broman and a newspaper reporter from the Chicago Sun-Times toured the Castle, and Broman reported she encountered two spirits in the living room/sanctuary – a girl with an Irish brogue and an older man. Broman felt the girl was the niece of the man's wife who lived with them, but there was no other identification.

A minister at the BUC in the 1990s reported several experiences. At a reception following her installation as pastor, she saw two slender arms like those of a girl or young woman encircle her husband’s waste from behind. She looked behind her husband and there was no one there. She asked him if he felt anything and he said no.

Another time, the minister had just shown a woman the third-floor apartment, and as they were exiting down the back staircase, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Turning around, she saw they were being followed by a shadowy figure, which then just vanished.

A third experience occurred when she went to the library on the second floor of the Castle to get a book for a student. She noticed a copy of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s book “On Death and Dying” on one of the shelves. She took the other book to the student, then returned for the Kubler-Ross book - and it was gone. No one was found to have been in the library in that short amount of time it took her to return. She looked all over the Castle but never found that book again.

In more recent years, other experiences have been shared. A young woman phantom dressed in an old-fashioned plaid dress was seen gliding around the outside of the Castle. A police officer said he was called to the Castle when a man’s face was seen looking in the windows, but he found no footprints in the snow or other evidence someone had been out there.

An attendee at a Castle event reported that she and a friend experienced intense feelings of being watched and driven away as they were climbing the stairs to the third floor. Musicians outside of the Castle one night heard footsteps but saw no one, and said the lights flickered on and off in response to their music and comments.

A Castle source who wished to be anonymous said that teachers at the Castle school reported feeling a child’s tug on their clothes or hearing a child’s voice in the hallway, but when they investigated, no one was there.

Other on-going stories reported by BUC members through the years are similar to the one from the caretaker and include the sounds of voices, footsteps, the piano being played, glasses and dishes clinking as if an event is going on, and lights flickering.

These are all stories that people have reported they experienced at the Castle. Readers can decide if they are “real ghost stories” or not. If they are, the identities of the girl and young woman and their relationship to the Castle can only be guessed. Family member, servant, student, teacher, patient, and church member are all possibilities.

Castles stir the imagination, especially a medieval castle sitting on a hill in a modern American city. They conjure up images of another time and place, of knights and fair maidens, thrones and dungeons. Whether “real” or not, ghost stories are part of the mystique of a castle, and the Givins Beverly Castle is no exception.

The BUC is currently undertaking a major restoration project at the Castle. After more than 130 years, the turrets, or tops of the round towers at the Castle's corners, were found to be deteriorating. Turrets are as important to castles as ghost stories are; in fact, the two are often linked to each other.

The BUC continues to solicit donations to help with the preservation work, which began this past summer. Donations to the Castle Restoration Fund are used solely for that purpose and not for church operations. For more information on the restoration project, including information on funding and donating, visit the website at givinsbeverlycastle.org.