The Black Angel. Is It Haunted?
Council Bluffs, Iowa
The Black Angel, which is located at 623 N. 2nd Street at the Fairview Cemetery in Council Bluffs, Iowa, honors Ruth Anne Dodge and commemorates her 1916 death. Ruth was the wife of General Dodge who is considered to be the greatest railroad builder of all time. He was also a Union Civil War general and put Council Bluffs, Iowa on the map – which even led to the founding of Omaha, Nebraska. Daniel Chester French sculpted the Black Angel. He also created the seated Abraham Lincoln which sits inside the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., as well as the Minuteman in Concord, Massachusetts.
This sculpture is said to be her translation of a dream experienced by Mrs. Dodge on the three nights before her death. According to the legend, Mrs. Dodge relayed the dream to her daughters to which she was on a rocky shore and saw a small boat approach through the mist. At the front of the boat, a beautiful angel held a small bowl and spoke softly, encouraging Mrs. Dodge to drink from the bowl. The vision came three times to her, and on the third night, she finally took a sip. She told her daughters that after she took the drink, she felt as though she had “transformed into a new and glorious spiritual being.” Mrs. Dodge died promptly after.
Her daughters commissioned French to create a memorial based on her dream. The statue was dedicated in 1920, it depicts a winged angel with one arm outstretched while the other holds a vessel from which water flows.
The monument and surroundings were restored in 1984. The National Park Service has this memorial on the Register of National Historic Places.
However, there is more to this beautiful monument. It is said to be haunted. One of the reasons it’s said to be so could be due to the fact that the woman who it is based on, the model for the Black Angel, lived a horrible and tragic life. The woman, Audrey Munson, was the country’s first supermodel. In fact, she was most likely the most sculpted woman ever known. A little over a decade after the sculpture was erected, Munson was admitted to a hospital for the insane by her mother after she tried to commit suicide. For 65 years she had zero visitors, and she died at the age of 104 in an unmarked grave. So, the image, which was meant to represent the angel, is of a tragic figure therefore, it is very much a black angel.
Photo by Bob Sessions
Photo by Bob Sessions
So, what of these so-called hauntings?
Some believe that if you touch it, you may become cursed. Others believe the space itself is haunted. It is said that if you stare into the angel’s eyes for 10 seconds her eyes glow red, and you will die soon after. If you speak ill of her, the same angel that came to Ruth in her dreams will visit you and force you to drink the waters of her bowl. Another legend says that she leaps off of her pedestal at night to fly around the nearby graveyard. There’s also the tale that the stairs change numbers when you go up and down, and if you try to take pictures you can lose your footage.
One encounter with the Black Angel states that a photographer and another arrived at the angel and had planned on using a drone. The phone that operates the drone was charged upon arrival, but once the two got it out on scene the phone was dead.
What do you think? Could this monument be haunted? Could she be shy and not want her photo taken? One thing is certain, she is beautiful and full of wonder.