{"id":13684,"date":"2022-09-16T13:37:55","date_gmt":"2022-09-16T17:37:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/?p=13684"},"modified":"2026-07-13T21:31:54","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T01:31:54","slug":"imagine-the-things-you-can-no-longer-see","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/imagine-the-things-you-can-no-longer-see\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Imagine the things you can no longer see\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
UMES President Heidi M. Anderson observes the presentation during the campus ghost tour held during Founder’s Week 2022.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In a small, nestled area between Richard Hazel Hall and just off the walking path near John T. Williams Hall sat the former residence of “Prince Leroy,” who had more than a dozen maidens waiting on him hand and foot for all hours of the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The regal moniker had no monarchal responsibilities as \u201cPrince Leroy\u201d was a “practice baby,” an infant that Maryland State College home economics students cared after. These were not the five-pound bags of flour or sugar you would see in home economics classes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis was a real baby so you couldn\u2019t play around with this baby,\u201d UMES associate professor of history, Dr. Kathryn Barrett-Gaines<\/strong>, exclaimed to a crowd of students, administration members, and visitors. \u201cYou had to show up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The infant made his home at the \u201cPractice House,\u201d located at the former President\u2019s House, which sat on the UMES campus prior to its removal ahead of the construction of Hazel Hall<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
UMES associate professor of history, Dr. Kathryn Barrett-Gaines shows the location of the former “Practice House” located at the former President\u2019s House, which sat on the UMES campus prior to its removal ahead of the construction of Hazel Hall.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The newly unearthed anecdote of \u201cPrince Leroy\u201d was one of many spun by Barrett-Gaines during an evening ghost tour of the campus as part of Founder\u2019s Week events celebrating the UMES’s 136th anniversary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tour started at Kiah Hall, the former Somerset High School, with Barrett-Gaines guiding several dozen onlookers, both real-life and virtual, through the various eras in the university’s history, starting with its inception as Princess Anne Academy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other long-gone locations discussed were the former Kiah Gymnasium, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. <\/a>gave the commencement address in 1959, DelCon Hall<\/a>, the former dormitory and instructional building, and \u201cOlney,\u201d which played a number of roles during its 86-year existence<\/a> on campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The expedition, which concluded with campus stalwarts Bird Hall and Williams Hall, had their own accounts that included tales of love<\/a>, revolution<\/a>, and the evolution of the campus to the present day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barrett-Gaines emphasized the importance of creating moments during their time on campus that can add to the many experiences of the students who preceded them and the ones who followed them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been here for 136 years, so you could imagine all the stories (we) couldn\u2019t get to (and) all the things we didn’t know,\u201d she said. \u201cWe just found out about the practice baby! So, imagine all the history we don\u2019t know because no one wrote it down.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a small, nestled area between Richard Hazel Hall and just off the walking path near John T. Williams Hall sat the former residence of “Prince Leroy,” who had more than a dozen maidens waiting on him hand and foot for all hours of the day. The regal moniker had no monarchal responsibilities as \u201cPrince…Read more \u2018Imagine the things you can no longer see\u2019<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1559,"featured_media":13686,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[103],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-13684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1559"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13684"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=13684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}