Snuffers

White Rock Lake
 
 

Legend holds that White Rock Lake is haunted by a
                 ghost that some call "The Lady of the Lake."

                 One version of the story has it that a young man was
                 driving along West Lawther Drive late one night when
                 he saw in his headlights the form of a young girl,
                 standing beside the road with her thumb out. She was
                 wearing a dripping wet formal gown. The man stopped
                 to offer her a ride and she accepted. She asked him to
                 drive her to an address in the Lakewood area of Dallas
                 and then stared straight ahead, saying nothing more.

                 Although he was curious about the situation, the man
                 decided not to pry, since seemed obvious the girl didn't
                 want to talk.

                 When they got to the house in Lakewood, the young
                 man got out of the car and went around to the other
                 side. When he opened the door for the girl, she wasn't
                 there. There was only a puddle of water on the seat and
                 some water on the floorboard.

                 Thinking the girl had leaped out of the car as soon as it
                 stopped, without the young man seeing her, he went up
                 to the house to check. He rang the bell and waited.
                 After a few minutes an elderly couple came to the door.

                 When the man explained what had happened and
                 asked if the girl had gone into the house, the old woman
                 turned away, crying. The old man opened the door and
                 came out on to the porch to speak to the man. He told
                 him that many years earlier, his daughter and her date
                 had gone to the prom at Woodrow Wilson High
                 School. After the prom they decided to drive out to
                 White Rock Lake to "watch the submarine races."

                 Unfortunately, the girl's date had been drinking. As they
                 were driving along West Lawther Drive, he lost control
                 of the car and it plunged into the lake. Miraculously, the
                 boy got out and managed to swim to shore but his
                 girlfriend drowned. The girl the man had given a ride to
                 was her ghost, trying to get home.

                 The old man said it wasn't the first time this had
                 happened. In fact, it happened every year on the
                 anniversary of his daughter's death. Visibly shaken, the
                 young man went back to his car and drove away. From
                 that day forward, he stayed away from White Rock
                 Lake on that particular night!
 
 

                 Here's another version, courtesy of Jennifer Oualline, a 1993
                 Woodrow Wilson High School graduate:

                 "One dark and stormy night, a young girl was out with
                 her boyfriend. They were driving around White Rock
                 Lake and got into an argument. He stopped the car and
                 told her to get out. After he sped off in an angry huff,
                 she was left to walk home all alone in the rain."

                 "No one really knows what happened next but she
                 never made it home that night. Some say she went
                 crazy, screaming out his name. Some say that a stranger
                 came along and tried to attack her and that in her
                 attempt to get away, she jumped off one of the piers
                 and drowned. Others say she was so upset about the
                 argument with her boyfriend that she killed herself by
                 jumping into the lake."

                 "At any rate, the girl was never seen alive again. On
                 dark and stormy nights, so they say, you may see a
                 young girl, clothes dripping wet, walking around the
                 lake. It's even been said that police officers on patrol
                 stop to talk to her, thinking she's lost."

                 "One night, a policeman and his partner found her and
                 asked her where she lived so they could drive her
                 home. After she told them, she got into the back of the
                 car and the officers drove her to the address she gave
                 them. When they got there, they asked her to stay in the
                 squad car until they made sure everything was okay.
                 When they knocked on the door of the house, an
                 elderly lady came to the door. Assuming the lady was
                 the girl's grandmother, they told her they had found her
                 granddaughter wandering around the lake and had
                 brought her home. The elderly lady immediately started
                 crying and said she didn't have a granddaughter, but
                 that her daughter had been missing for many years.

                 "The officers apologized for upsetting the old lady and
                 went back to their car - but when they got there, the girl
                 was gone! All that remained was a puddle of water in
                 the back seat! They searched the area but were unable
                 to find her again."

                 "Later, the patrolmen learned the story of the missing
                 girl and came to the conclusion that they had given a
                 ride to a ghost!"

                 "There have been several other sightings of the ghost.
                 Some say she is white and transparent, others that she
                 looks just like a real, live girl in dripping wet clothes.
                 Some say when you try to approach her she disappears
                 or runs away."
 
 

                              HAVE YOU SEEN
                          "THE LADY OF THE LAKE?"

                 If you've got a story that's substantially different from
                 either one of the above, please let me know. Maybe I'll
                 add it to this page.
 

The Lady of White Rock Lake

                              By Kelton Kupper

            I would like to relate a ghost story that I have heard about
            ever since my early school years. It has been told in
            different ways; nearly everyone familiar with it has their
            own version, although the basic plot is always the same. I
            will relate the story as the author Zinita Fowler writes
            about it in the book "Ghost Stories Of Old Texas".

            White Rock Lake is a small, picturesque body of water
            which used to be almost out in the country on the
            northeast side of Dallas. When the story first surfaced,
            there were only a few large mansions on the shores of the
            lake, and a large country club sitting back from a terraced
            lawn that sloped down to the waterfront.

            On bright, moonlight nights, a motorist out past midnight
            spies an ethereal figure dressed all in white standing by
            the side of the road which winds around the lake as if
            needing a ride. The motorist stops, and a lovely young
            woman gets into the car.

            Some stories have the girl dressed in the fringes and
            bangles of the Roaring Twenties, others in the long and
            flowing skirts of the '30s. Some even make her an
            ante-bellum lady, clad in hoops and laces of that romantic
            period of time.

            As with her clothing, what transpires between driver and
            passenger also varies with the storyteller. Some have a
            conversation between them. She has been to a dance at
            the country club and her suitor, jealous when she flirted
            overmuch with another young man, left her to get home
            as best she could. Or, on a lonely ride around the lake,
            her car broke down and she was unable to get help, etc.,
            etc. Other versions say that after the driver finds out
            where the lady wants to be dropped off, there is no
            talking at all.

            After a short drive, they pull up in front of one of the
            beautiful old lakefront homes. When the driver goes
            around to open the door to let the girl out, he discovers
            that she is gone. The side of the car where she was sitting
            is dripping with lake water.

            Some of the stories end with that discovery. Others,
            perhaps the more imaginative ones, have the driver going
            up to the house to see if he can find out if the girl is all
            right. A mournful parent who answers his ring on the bell,
            tells him that yes, a young girl answering his description
            lived here. She was their beloved daughter, and one year
            ago to the night, she was drowned in a boating accident
            on the lake.

            As stated, I have heard about this story from friends who
            lives around White Rock Lake and while teaching Texas
            History, I read the story about " The Lady Of White
            Rock Lake" in the book "Ghost Stories Of Old Texas". I
            suggest that the readers of Virtual Texan who love "Ghost
            Stories" read this book written by the gifted writer Zinita
            Fowler.
 

            Kelton Kupper is a retired Texas history teacher who is
            still teaching and extoling the virtues of Texas.
 
 

Map of Whiterock Lake
 

Snuffers