“Evening Primrose” is blamed for unexplained footsteps in Hoskins Library; books falling off shelves; elevators that move from floor to floor without riders; and odors of cornbread baking, beef stew, and cookies that occasionally waft through the building. According to Daphne Townsend, a library employee, the ghost is named after John Collier’s (1901–80) short story by the same name, which is about people hiding in a department store during the day and coming out at night. The ghost is said to be preparing dinner when the cooking odors occur.
It is unknown who Evening Primrose is, but he or she is rumored to be a poor graduate student who managed to live in the library undetected while doing dissertation research. An alternate version of the ghost’s identity is that the building is actually inhabited by a family or group of ghosts. Townsend reported that the ghost is active mainly at night, and maintenance men would report strange noises and elevators moving. She recalled in a Daily Beacon article in 1988 that one maintenance man kept hearing noises and finally locked himself in one of the staff rooms, refusing to come out until the morning crew arrived at 6:00 a.m.