This picture was taken at the Alton YWCA in March 2015, with a night vision camera.  We think this is Elizabeth, the daughter of John Grumper.  John and his wife worked at the Alton YWCA during the early 1930’s.  John worked building maintenance, and his wife cleaned the complex.  Elizabeth was allowed to swim in the pool while her parents worked. 

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According to John’s suicide note, dated 1936- he discovered their daughter, face-down in the swimming pool, and believed she had drowned.  John panicked and ran back to his workshop, located just under the swimming pool bleachers to hide.  He then goes on to describe how his wife, who was also passing by the pool, discovered the girl’s body, floating lifeless.  Instead of panicking however, she pulled her out, and was able to resuscitate her. 

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The young girl later approached her father’s workshop.  John thinking his daughter was dead, thought he was now looking at her ghost and started stabbing her with some sort of “tool.”  His wife burst into the room upon hearing the commotion and tried to stop John from killing their daughter. Then, according to John’s suicide note, she “accidentally fell upon the tool,” killing her.  The anguished John decided to hang himself from the main staircase and claimed in his suicide note that the YWCA was haunted by demons and that he himself would haunt the YWCA until all the evil spirits were gone.

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People at the YWCA have reported seeing a doppelganger, and we believe this to be the ghost of Elizabeth, John’s daughter.  She has appeared on more than one occasion to staff and guests as someone they would know, to only find out later that person they were talking to was never in the building.  We believe the most common form she enjoys taking is her original appearance of a small girl.  The doppelganger is not malevolent and does not seem to pose any harm, she is simply unnerving.