10/31/2005:
The town of Sims had a population of more than 1,000 people in 1884. It was only one year old, but a coal-mining boom, plus a brickyard, brought people to town in droves. Just six years later, only about 400 remained. The post office closed on this date in 1947, and Sims is now pretty much a ghost town.
Nestled in the rolling grasslands of Morton County, the Sims Scandinavian Lutheran Church and its parsonage still stand intact. The church is the state’s oldest protestant church west of the Missouri River, the first church being built in 1884.
Before the current church was ready for use, the parsonage was the gathering place for services. Living quarters were on the first floor, and churchgoers climbed a winding staircase to a cramped upper room to sing and worship. The room was little more than an attic, and although pastors wheeled in hog troughs for kneeling benches, many people were forced to stand throughout the entire service.
About 50 worshipers from the surrounding countryside and nearby Almont still attend, with services held every other Sunday. Sometime in the 1940s, the parsonage served its last pastor, and in 1984, the last occupant closed the doors for good. The parsonage fell into disrepair, and church members decided to save it. They, in cooperation with Preservation North Dakota, have been steadily restoring the building for the last couple years.
With this being Halloween, it’s interesting to note that while the parsonage has been uninhabited, it has long had a permanent resident – known as the Gray Lady Ghost. She lives in a first-floor bedroom, now restored to its original condition.
Rev. L. D. Dordal’s 26 year-old wife and church organist, Bertha, died in the building after a lingering illness sometime between 1916 and 1918. Dordal remarried shortly after Bertha’s death, and later, he served a church in Larimore.
When Dordal and his new wife left Sims, it’s speculated Bertha’s ghost remained behind – moving up the stairs, opening and closing windows, and playing an organ that no longer exists.
One night, a young woman who was boarding in the upper room felt an extra blanket laid over her while she slept, yet to her surprise, she found nobody had come upstairs during the night.
Pastor Carl Nelson and his wife, Olga, lived in the parsonage in the 1930s. Olga said she would see a gray shape upstairs and also saw the pump handle move up and down by itself. Although she considered the ghost a friendly presence, the church contacted district officials in 1938, asking them to investigate supernatural happenings in and around the parsonage.
This past summer, volunteers gathered in Sims for a weekend of renovation work, and some of them camped on the grounds. Although there were no sightings, Dale Bentley, of Preservation North Dakota, says they heard some pretty interesting sounds coming from the house one night, a type of repetitive thumping.
“It sounded like someone walking,” he said. “There was something very distinct coming out of the building.”
Sources:
The Bismarck Tribune. 7 Nov 1927.
Donovan, Lauren. The things that go ‘scrape’ in the night. Bismarck Tribune. 16 Sep 2004.
Stehr, Maggie. Memories of church linger. Bismarck Tribune. 16 Jul 2005.
Jackson, William. Gray Lady of Sims and other ghost stories. More Dakota Mysteries & Oddities. Velva, ND: Valley Star Books. 2000.
Dakota Datebook written by Merry Helm