White Rock 'Lady of the Lake' ghost story has Neiman Marcus tie - The Dallas Morning News

solokol.blogspot.com

An alluring stranger. An unplanned destination. A shocking twist.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that the “vanishing hitchhiker” is so pervasive among ghost story tropes. In Dallas, the legend centers on White Rock Lake and is widely credited to one man: Guy Malloy.

Malloy was the director of display for Neiman Marcus for 40 years. He started in 1918, “long before Stanley Marcus arrived,” according to an email from his grandson, Farris Rookstool III of Dallas. “He won every award possible for his window displays. He created the first Fortnight for Neiman’s in 1957, which was Stanley’s favorite.”

He was also known for regaling friends with a particularly chilling story.

Malloy’s strange tale was immortalized by his friend, the late News columnist (and chili connoisseur) Frank X. Tolbert, in the 1953 book, Neiman-Marcus, Texas: The Story of the Proud Dallas Store.

Guy Malloy, shown here in his 1939 yellow Ford, was the possible creator of White Rock's Lady of the Lake story, in the 1930's. Photograph courtesy of Farris Rookstool, III.(none given / digital file)

According to the book, Malloy and his wife are driving home late one night in East Dallas when “a beautiful blonde girl ghost” appears on the road. Her elegant dress from Neiman’s (naturally) is wet and she seems to be in trouble. She gives them an address on Gaston Avenue and asks to be taken home.

By the time they arrive, the couple turns to talk with the girl and she has vanished, leaving only a damp spot on the backseat. They knock on the door of the house and an older man answers, and he explains that his daughter died two years earlier. She had fallen off a pier at White Rock Lake and drowned.

A 1982 remembrance of the story by News columnist John Anders dismissed the tale as “effective” but full of holes.

“Beautiful blondes in expensive dresses often tend to take a powder,” he wrote. “Many of us have seen these ladies disappear on us altogether.”

Rookstool says his grandfather, who had one of the first homes at White Rock Lake, “did not tell the story to seek attention. In fact, it was a private story told only among family and close friends” prior to its inclusion in the book.

Years later, Rookstool says his grandfather and grandmother divorced, and Malloy married one of his employees, Thelma, with whom he had been having an affair.

“Thelma embellished the tale to include herself in the car. She was not present when it occurred,” Rookstool explains. He also notes that an earlier version of the story had the girl wearing a raincoat, which he says Thelma turned into a Neiman Marcus gown in her more liberal accounts.

But was the story, even part of it, true?

“My late mom always said to me she did not know if the story was true or not,” Rookstool says, “but [Malloy] was not known to embellish or make up tales.”

Adblock test (Why?)

"story" - Google News
October 31, 2021 at 11:06PM
https://ift.tt/3Buh5aX

White Rock 'Lady of the Lake' ghost story has Neiman Marcus tie - The Dallas Morning News
"story" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2YrOfIK
https://ift.tt/2xwebYA

Bagikan Berita Ini