Dylan CahoonFollow

Date Collected

Fall 12-2-2017

Informant

Dylan Cahoon

Point of Discovery/Informant Bio

Dylan is a 24-year-old white male that has lived in Utah his entire life. He is an English Major and has studied the nunnery in a Folk Lore class, as well as gone there multiple times.

Context

I usually find myself telling the story of Saint Anne’s Retreat when I am around people that I have not met, in a large group setting most of the time. I have found that it is a good icebreaker and that usually it convinces the group to want to go on a trip to the nunnery, and if not it is at least a good story. I am almost always the one to bring it up, and usually can recount the most details out of the other participants because I am usually the one pushing the subject

Text

I first heard of the nunnery when taking Lynne McNeill’s folk lore class my freshman year in 2012. Back in my freshman year I was much more adventurous and have always loved ghost stories and legend tripping, so I set out to find the nunnery. The first time that I found a group willing to go with me was my sophomore year. A couple apartments in my complex decided they wanted to tag along, so about 3 cars worth headed into the canyon. It had taken us days to find the right bridge, but we were confident that we had found it the night before and decided that we would try and get as large of a group as we could to go explore. We crossed the bridge with no problem, and when we approached the first building we realized that there were padlocks on them. Unfortunately, we found that of the 12ish buildings that there were, 1 was completely broken down and 10 were padlocked. The one that wasn’t happened to be a largest building however, opened up into a hallway. We walked in and the first two people in the group were attacked by two bats and then flew out the doorway. As we wandered farther down the hall we realized that there was a small square cut out of one of the walls in the corner, almost like a crawl space. We went through, and it opened into a large ballroom with a huge chandelier hanging from the ceiling. We found footprints on the dusty floor, and we were worried that it was possible that a squatter was in the building, so we took a quick but cautious look around the building and then left the building, went into the pool, and then left the property.

Texture

The nunnery is truly one of my favorite stories, and I try to tell it without a skeptical tone when I tell the story. Having gone there twice and the worst things being seeing some footprints in the dust and having a bat attack some people, it gets more difficult to tell the story with conviction when nothing supernatural has happened to me there. The disappearing truck is the most interesting thing that ever happened to me there, and was the most “supernatural” occurrence that I have experienced. It reinvigorated my story telling of Saint Anne’s retreat, and I tell it excitedly and always end with the story of the disappearing car.

Course

Introduction to Folklore/ENGL 2210

Instructor

Lynne McNeill

Semester and year

Fall 2017

Theme

G7: Appearances or Manifestations of Supernatural Beings or Revenants

EAD Number

2.1.13.1

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