Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
A number of ghost stories have emerged over the years of Winona Lake’s history. A resident named Johnny Bond is said to walk the streets at night. Another is the ghost of William Hull, whose body was found on the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks in December 1882.
The train tracks east of Winona Lake are reported to be haunted by the ghost of Mike Fitzgerald, who was killed on New Year’s Eve in 1868 when he was struck by a passenger train. Trainmen report seeing his pale white ghost, with a lantern in his hand, near the spot where Fitzgerald was killed.
But the dominant — and best documented — ghost story revolves around The Merbrink, a lakefront two-story burgundy home with a wraparound porch which sits on the waterfront at the northwest tip of McDonald Island, four doors from Sol Dickey’s Killarney Castle.
Local journalist Shari Benyousky, funded by an Indiana Arts Commission Individual Artist Grant, has written a manuscript about Merbrink and its famous ghost named Miss Phebe. Benyousky’s blog is at http://winonalakehauntedhouse.blogspot.com. The tale of the house and Miss Phebe are also told in “Kosciusko County, an Oral and Pictorial History” by Daniel Coplen.
Billy Sunday once remarked, while speaking to a group of society women at the home of Mrs. Rufus Dawes in Evanston, Ill., that God does not permit things to happen by chance.
“We are put here for a purpose,” Sunday said. “I know of a house by the lake, beautifully furnished for a bride. But the girl changed her mind and it still stands there, all boarded up. The furniture is still in that unoccupied house — dust covered.”
Sunday didn’t elaborate, but he was referring to the Merbrink.
Merbrink Built 1903
According to legend, W. H. Bruning, the wealthy president of the F. J. Bruning and Son Company, wholesale spice and tea merchants of Evansville, Ind., and New York, built the home in 1903. He called it “Merbrink” because it stood on the brink of the lake. Bruning apparently never spent a night in it, but for at least the first 15 years after its completion, he regularly came back to visit it. On his visits he spent weekends at the Swiss Terrace Hotel, managed by Mrs. John Cooper and her daughter, Miss Nelle Cooper.
As the story goes, locals came to realize that there was “deep and sincere affection” between Bruning and Miss Nelle Cooper. Sunday afternoons, Miss Cooper and her mother were reported to accompany Bruning to the “mystery house” to enter with him via the one key for the door which he carried. Passers-by could hear the piano within, awakening under the young woman’s fingers.
Eventually, the elder Mrs. Cooper’s health failed, so the daughter remained at home while Bruning made his pilgrimages alone to the closed-up lakeside house. Local cottagers believed that Bruning was waiting for Miss Cooper to marry him — they told visitors that the house had been prepared as a bridal house.
But no wedding occurred. The elder Mrs. Cooper neared 90, and her daughter was nearing 60. Bruning, in his 70s, continued to make sizable gifts to the religious organizations in Winona Lake and lent his business expertise to his friend and fellow board member, William Jennings Bryan.
But there was another “back story” that persisted and grew as a legend. Many years earlier John Cooper, an educator from New York, moved to Evansville, Ind., to become the superintendent of schools. His daughter, Nelle, was a girl of 18.
After several years his health began to fail, and his wife and daughter began taking in boarders to shore up the family finances. One of the first to come was W. H. Bruning, a bachelor of 30, and a partner in his father’s tea and spice business. It is said that he loved Nelle Cooper from the first, and she loved him, and they were reported to have become engaged.
The Family Moves
to Winona Lake
Friends believed the girl felt it was her duty to remain with her parents in their difficulties. They moved to Winona Lake in 1901 when her father decided to open a hotel. Named “The Homestead,” their cottage, though small, was popular with vacationers. An old-world charm and the Coopers’ courtesy brought them local fame.
A year passed and John Cooper died. Bruning, who grieved along with the Coopers, built a magnificent cottage, capable of housing some hundred guests. He named it “The Swiss Terrace” and installed the two Cooper women as proprietors.
That same summer Bruning bought a lot on the point of the island. For weeks the dredges and drays worked as he built out and filled in the area, making it “Bruning’s Point.” When the land was ready, he imported carpenters who began erection of the house which he himself had designed.
The house was reported to have been very well done. The best timber was used, and modern conveniences were installed. There was a wraparound veranda and rounded sleeping porch upstairs. An example of Free Classic style of architecture, the Merbrink featured distinctive windows: Palladian leaded and beautiful art-glass. There were wide fireplaces, mirrors, chandeliers, thick Brussels rugs, and many other luxurious furnishings. Twenty-one rocking chairs were scattered throughout, gas lights were ready, fires were laid on the hearths, and a magnificent silver dinner set was placed beside rare china in the cupboards.
But Miss Nelle never came, and no one knows why.
Bruning kept coming. Each year the house was painted anew. The piano was tuned. Water and gas pipes were examined and all loose boards replaced. Several times new draperies were carried in. The stone sundial which Bruning set up on the lawn was kept in perfect alignment. The grass in summer was mowed weekly, and in winter snow and sleet were cleared away by workmen who never saw the house’s interior.
During the 1920s, many people reported seeing a ghost in or near the Merbrink. They recognized the figure as that of Miss Phebe, Chloe’s old nanny. William and Nelle were reported to have birthed an illegitimate daughter, Chloe Ellen Cooper, and she is the subject of Benyousky’s novel.
The house has now had other owners, but many people have reportedly had contact with the apparition. One writer reported that visitors to the house heard eerie, harp-like sounds which they attributed to the ghost.
Don White, a former Purdue basketball All-American who bought the house at a tax auction in 1933, had a habit of fishing before dawn. One morning while he was fishing he thought he saw his wife, Nina, on the sleeping porch. He waved to her and she waved back. Later, at breakfast, when White asked his wife what she was doing awake so early, she said it wasn’t her that he saw. They knew, he said, that it was Miss Phebe.
Local photographer Al Disbro also claims to have photographed the apparition, which once appeared in an upstairs window as he was photographing the house.
Blogger Sheri Krichbaum, who claims to have done significant research on the Merbrink, posted the following on July 14, 2009:
“William H. Bruning did finally marry Ellen (Nell — his pet name for her is Ellen spelled backwards) in Kosciusko County on October 25, 1920. It is recorded in marriage book AA:158. It is said that date was the anniversary of their meeting in Madison, Indiana. She was 58 and he was 75 at the time of their marriage. Sources state they had been lovers for years. His parents did not approve of actresses and she had been one for a time. The marriage license states she is from Winona Lake, but he is from New York City.
“It is rumored that they had a child named Chloe. Chloe's birth date is Sept. 10, 1892 in Indianapolis. Miss Phebe is the nanny and Ellen's cousin. From what I have read the reason that Ellen never wanted anyone to know that she had a child with William was that she feared for Chloe's life. It is said that she feared so much for Chloe's life that she didn't even tell William Bruning that Chloe was their child until many years later.
“Ellen Cooper Bruning died on Oct. 2, 1925. She is buried in Springdale Cemetery in Madison, Indiana, alongside his parents John F. and Catherine Adelaide Von Broke Zur Lage Bruning (his mother descended from some royal blood). Ellen Cooper Bruning was born April 6, 1862; she was 63 at the time of her death. According to the marriage record, when William died in 1930, he would have been 85.”
And that’s the story of the ghost of the Merbrink. Perhaps readers of this account have had their own encounters with Miss Phebe and can add to the rich historical saga of the house named “Merbrink” and its mysterious occupant.
