History & local legend
The Pennsylvania Institute of Technology’s Moylan campus occupies a former Notre Dame school for girls. Its tower and former library are associated with a nun said to have remained after the sisters left. Local accounts describe a figure in an old-fashioned habit appearing in the illuminated tower windows when that part of the building was closed.
The habit led storytellers to identify the apparition as a mother superior. She was also associated with noises in the old library, including a sneeze.
Richard Bowley, a 1997 graduate of the institute, remembered hearing metallic banging during his student years. In a recollection posted in 2017, he said students joked about the nuns’ bones rattling.
Sources
- Ghosts of Delaware County, tower tradition and 2017 firsthand recollection from Rev. Richard Bowley
- DELCO Today, “The Sneezing Nun,” and attribution to folklorist Charles J. Adams III
- Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur archives, specific tower and transfer to institute
- Pennsylvania Institute of Technology, address and site history
- OpenStreetMap, building footprint inside campus parcel
