HAUNTED LAWRENCE

At 936 Massachusetts Street stands the three-story Eriksen Building.
The structure was constructed in 1899 by Danish immigrant and
businessman C.J. Eriksen, and from this location, he owned and operated a
successful furniture store for many years until his death in 1925. Following
his passing, the structure hosted a variety of businesses, including a bowling
alley, a paint emporium, a record store and a variety shop.
Today, the building houses The Toy Store. The simple name of this
establishment does not do it justice. A family-owned purveyor of playthings,
the Toy Store remarkably encompasses all three floors of the old building.
From board books and art supplies to building blocks and plush animals—it
has it all. Indeed, for many people the store is a veritable slice of heaven.
And coincidentally, that descriptor might be more than idiomatic, for
according to those who have worked at the establishment, the building is
home to a spirit that shares the space with toys, books, games and other
assorted gizmos.
It is said that the spirit makes itself known in different ways. Sometimes,
when employees open the store in the morning, they will find that products
on the shelves have been rearranged or that the basement lights have been
turned on. Other times, employees will hear sounds with no discernible
source. Tyler Waugh, who formerly served as an assistant manager, said:
“Before the upstairs [the top-most level] was open [and the space was
empty], I would often hear spooky steps on the stairs while closing. I would
usually ignore it. [However] the footsteps were coming from a staircase
located between two locked doors.”
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Many of the strangest happenings have been reported in the store’s
basement. Liz Woody, a former employee, revealed that she always felt
very uncomfortable when alone in that location. She also claimed to have
occasionally heard the rotatable book racks on that level squeak as if they
were being spun, even when there was no one there. Grace Chin, another
former assistant manager, said:
I stayed pretty late one night to finish [decorating] one of the windows,
and I was painting a prop in the basement. I had a few of the basement
lights turned on, [but] at 11:00, I saw in the corner of my eye what I
was convinced was a black cat slink into the cat flap [built into the
storage room door]. It freaked me out, so I went to that storage room
to investigate—no sign of a cat. I went back to painting and saw the same
thing happen out of the corner of my eye. After that, I flipped on all the
basement lights and left in a hurry.…I am usually not one to put much
stock into supernatural occurrences, but it’s what I saw.
Street-front view of the C.J. Eriksen Building, now home to the Toy Store. Author’s collection.
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Other basement incidents suggest that the ghost might be fond of moving
merchandise between the store’s three levels. According to former employee
Axel Bordelon:
[One time] the board games were all being put up onto the first floor from
the basement, and [another employee] was the last one out. She had
confirmed that all the board games were up top. She was the first one in the
next morning, and all the Ouija boards were back in their old spot, as if
they’d never been moved.
While historical documents reveal that the building has experienced its fair
share of trauma in the past (e.g., a fire scorched the building in 1954), these
same documents do not suggest that anyone has ever died in the building. So
if there is a specter in the old building, who might it be?
Considering that he erected the building and operated a business out of
it, the spirit could be that of the industrious C.J. Eriksen, still attempting to
straighten the shelves that he himself used to stock. Another option is that
the spirit is that of Mathilda Eriksen, the first wife of C.J. Eriksen. After
a brief illness, Mathilda died on April 25, 1905, at the age of only forty-
seven. A “tireless worker,” she had served side by side with her husband
at their 926 Massachusetts Street shop for several years. A 1905 obituary
published in the Lawrence Weekly World noted that the “building [from which
the furniture store was based] was a source of much pride to her. She knew
how hard it had come.” It seems that Mathilda truly loved her husband’s
The
basement
of the Toy
Store, where
employees
of the
establishment
have
reported odd
happenings.
Author’s
collection.
H AUNTED LAWRENCE
106
store, and perhaps, after her demise, she simply decided to stay. Another bit
of evidence that suggests that the Toy Store ghost is Mathilda is that many
refer to the purported specter as a “she.”
Regardless of who the spirit may be, one thing is for sure: the ghost—despite
being occasionally mischievous—is not a malicious one. No one has ever felt
that the presence is evil, just a little spooky. Maybe the spirit still hangs about
the old building for the same reason that hundreds flock to the store each day:
to play with toys.
The Toy Store is open every day, 10:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m. on weekdays
and Saturday and 12:00 p.m. until 5:00 p.m. on Sundays. All three of the
building’s levels are open to the public.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I feel it is important to mention that from mid-2012 until late
2015, I worked at the Toy Store as a sales associate. During my time at the establishment,
I experienced two odd incidents that I still cannot quite explain. Both of these bizarre events
took place in the basement area. The first occurred when I was organizing merchandise
in the late afternoon. While I was engaged in this task, one of the bookshelves behind
me collapsed. This in and of itself was not out of the ordinary (in a retail environment,
accidents like this happen), but what I found when I went to pick up the jumble certainly
was. The shelves that we used were composed of a long, finished board supported by
three or more moveable, metal brackets. Usually, when these types of shelves collapse, it
is because the weight of the merchandise pulls the brackets out of the wall. When I went
to clean up the spill, I found the finished board on the ground, with the merchandise still
arranged on it in the fashion it had been before it fell. (In other words, none of the products
had spilled onto the floor, as one might anticipate.) To make matters more bizarre, the
brackets were snugly secure in the wall. It was as if someone had lifted the board from the
brackets and then dropped it straight down onto the floor. Besides myself, however, there was
no one else in the basement who could have done this. The second incident occurred early
in the morning, right after I had arrived to help open the store. When I went downstairs
to get supplies, I noticed a single muddy footprint on the floor. This was bizarre for several
reasons. First and foremost, we had yet to open our doors to the public, and none of my
coworkers was running around barefoot. Second, the night prior to the discovery, we had
cleaned the floors like we did every evening, and no one had observed any muddy footprints
on the ground. Finally, there were no additional footprints anywhere else; this footprint
existed in isolation, in the middle of an otherwise spotless floor. Of course, these two
incidents could have had perfectly reasonable explanations, but, try as I might, I was
unable to come up with any at the time