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Regarding Ammendale Institute
Thursday, October 21, 2004
The brother who was my father
From Coopers Town Crier

When death finally came for the old man, a hundred years old, he slipped away easily. The death was quiet because his penetrating intellect, his awesome will, had predeceased him. The old man's faculties had been clear when he had first gone into the convalescent home, and he had spent much time helping and comforting others. Recently he had become another who needed help, though perhaps not comfort. Visitors said that the deep serenity, his gift through all those decades, had stayed with him to the very end.

At one hundred, the old man's immediate blood relatives were, of course, long dead; only a few great-nieces and nephews were left to attend the funeral. But mourning with them were his brothers. Hundreds of them.

In fact, his fellow monks held three funerals. The first mass was at the Christian Brothers' infirmary in New Jersey. The third mass was at their retirement home in Maryland, where the old man was buried. And the middle, largest funeral was in Philadelphia. Monks and ex-monks gathered in La Salle University's vaulted white chapel, over a hundred of them. Some had not seen one another for three decades and more. These hugged, shed tears. Then they all formed a vast baritone choir to chant the mass and sing the old man to his rest.

I was in that Philly crowd last week, after driving five hours out of my Fly Creek present, into my Christian Brothers past. I had to be there to say goodbye. For Brother Joseph had been a second father to me, as he had been to over six hundred young men that he taught as novices. Dead at one hundred, it was half his long lifetime ago that he trained my own class to the monks' way of life.

I imagine the order's higher-ups had an eye on Joseph from the time of his own 1920 novitiate. (He directed mine in 1956.) They must have seen that the hazel-eyed, intense young

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My Experiences at Ammendale Normal Institute
(aka Christian Brothers)
by Scott Fowler
(Reposted from source of this excellent article: http://www.leftfield-psi.net/ghosts/ammen dale_investigation.html)

Most any other haunted building in the United States has more fame than Ammendale Normal Institute. In fact, few in the Beltsville, Maryland area know of its existence. Beltsville is a growing suburb of Washington D. C. now but it hasn't always been. There was a time over a hundred years ago when the only building in Beltsville, besides long expanse of farms was the stately mansion that is Ammendale Institute.

I came to know Ammendale Institute (also known as the Christian Brothers after the Catholic sect that owned the building since the turn of the century) when I was a young boy of about ten. In the late 1970s/early 1980s, my parents sent me to a day camp being run on the property during the time. The Christian Brothers had swimming, archery, golf, fishing, crafts, sports and most other summer camp fair. But they offered one activity that most other summer camps tend to omit. They showed movies in one of the second floor rooms. Old movies like short portions of King Kong, or Dracula or Frankenstien. It became my favorite time at the camp.

Also during that time, I was developing an interest in the paranormal. Ghosts, in particular. This interest become the subject of a short exchange I had with one of the Brothers. After watching one of the movies that were often shown, King Kong I believe but don't quote me on that, I found myself wondering if this old building where these activities were taking place in and around could be haunted. The building certainly looked the part. So, I asked the Brother running the projector if it was.

His response didn't really sink in at the time. Oh, I heard it and understood it but it wasn't until later that I wondered if a man of the cloth would really say something like that to a young impressionable boy.

He said and I quote from my memory, "Oh yes

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