Josephine Anderson and her husband, Aleck, came to Amarillo in 1926. Her sister, Sara Morris, eventually followed. They lived together in a beautiful, extravagant home on West 15th Avenue, universally known as the Anderson place. The trio remained part of Amarillo’s high society for decades, with Sara the last to pass away in 1972.
Some, of course, say the sisters never left. They believe their spirits still make Amarillo their home—and their unfinished business may surprise you.
The Legends Begin
According to local folklore, Aleck Anderson, upon his death, left the house to the two sisters. The women never spoke again, but continued to live together. Strangely, they wanted the house burned to the ground when they died.
We’ll look at the parts of the story that don’t ring true, but one strange fact stands out.
In her will, Josephine demanded that the home, where she lived for a quarter of a century, be destroyed after both she and her sister died. The will states that the home must be “demolished and razed to the ground.” The land was then to be “graded and leveled in such a manner as to obliterate forever all evidence of the existence of said home.” Finally, her executors must “destroy all of such furniture, furnishings, household appliances, objects of art, and any and all other contents of my said home belonging to me.”
But the home was not torn down, and the land was not leveled. The contents of the house were sold to the public after Sara’s death. When the estate sale managers forgot to open the front gate, bargain hunters climbed over it to get inside. They planned the estate sale to last four days, but the building stood bare after only one.
The Anderson place on 15th sat empty until 1975, when $500,000 in renovations transformed it into a restaurant called Rhett Butler’s. The restaurant boasted a southern flare, two bars and a rooftop patio. Locals may remember Rhett’s as a gathering place for lawyers and even the judge during T. Cullen Davis’s controversial trial in 1976. Davis, a Fort Worth oil tycoon, was accused of murdering his wife’s boyfriend and his own step-daughter. When Davis was found not guilty, they partied hard enough at Rhett’s to wake the dead.
Rhett’s gave birth to the earliest of the ghost stories. Erica Nye tells that story. “My mom was a bartender at Rhett Butler’s when I was little,” she says. “She was the last one there every night. She heard noises all the time when she was the only person there. The piano would play sometimes. When they would come in in the morning, the coffee pot or blender would be on, when she knew she had unplugged them the night before.” She also heard stories about a chillingly cold spot on the staircase.
Others echo similar memories of scattered chairs or pots and pans that moved on their own. Whether one believes the stories or not, it appears that the owners did. At least enough to do something about it.
Ghostbusters of the 1980s
According to several who claim to be involved, the owners of Rhett Butler’s enlisted the help of local ghost hunters, long before reality TV made the concept popular. Led by a prominent local psychic known as Bubbles, as many as 30 investigators explored the large house in groups of five. They took notes and snapped infrared photos of anything peculiar. There are claims the group included the late Amarillo attorney Jeff Blackburn and paranormal teams from NYU and Berkley, California. 
According to one source, “The most impressive photo I’ve ever seen of ghosts was Mr. Anderson with one of the sisters standing on the balcony overlooking the stairway. They were as plain as day. Clothing and all. But they were transparent. There were other photos … but none as impressive as the couple on the banister.”
Cynthia Hood Dodgen says she was there that night, but she waited outside for her sister to tell her all about it. After driving around the block in the pouring rain, she finally parked. She noticed the older car behind her had a woman in the passenger seat. “No one else, just her. I got upset because they had left their car lights on shining in my rear-view mirror.” Cynthia moved her car to where she had a clear view of the Anderson house. “I saw a dim light come on in this upstairs window. It was weird because it looked like someone pulling on the handle of a manual adding machine from way back in the day.”
The next day, the researchers met at Paradise Too on 10th Avenue. Bubbles handed out notebooks for everyone that contained their findings. Cynthia says, “As my sister pushed her book towards me, I noticed a picture of the lady I had seen in the car, looking just as unhappy as I had seen her.” Bubbles said it was no wonder they hadn’t found her ghost inside the house; the photo showed Sara Morris outside in the car. And when the group returned to investigate the previously locked upstairs room, they found an old-fashioned adding machine on the desk. “I never stepped foot back in that house,” says Cynthia.
The Folks Behind the Folklore
Josephine and Aleck were childhood friends, and married in 1910 in Minneapolis. Aleck, an immigrant from Sweden, got his start in the lumber business. The oil booms of the 1920s drew the couple to the Texas Panhandle, just as the flu epidemic hit Minneapolis. They lived first in Childress, then Pampa, then Amarillo. According to the gossip columns of the time, they lived together in the Herring Hotel.
Aleck Anderson found great success in oil and gas. Josephine and Aleck donated to charities, traveled extensively, and drove new automobiles. Josephine had a Packard Sedan registered in her own name in 1937.
According to a 1971 newspaper article, the Andersons once owned all of the land between Wolflin and 15th Avenues—and from Georgia to Western Streets, including a poultry and dairy farm on what was then the western end of town. That was where they built the house that, in many ways, defined their family.
Their wealth allowed Josephine to embrace her passion: raising and showing horses. R. A. Burnett, another local oil man, built the Sunset Stables in 1935, but it was the Andersons who made them famous. They purchased the stables in 1937, and they quickly became a landmark that folks remember even today.
“When I-40 was first built across Georgia Street, all of Wellington Square was pasture in the middle of the city,” remembers Sam Purl. “I always loved seeing the horses standing at the fence where the Toot’n Totum now stands on the northeast corner.”
Jean Gaut was there in the 1940s. “I would save my money to ride one of the stable horses. The land was vacant to the area that is now I-40,” she says.
“I can remember as a child the horse stables and the race track on the southern portion of the property near Wolflin, before I-40 came through,” says Becky Ward Hudson. “Wellington Apartments and Wellington Office Park now stand in the vicinity where they were. We were so intrigued by the race track and stables.”
Josephine sought the best horses in the country. One of her most notable American Saddlebreds was Sunset Commander, sired by the legendary Wing Commander out of Josephine’s own prize-winner Ana Cacho Del Oro. Mrs. Anderson headhunted trainers like Buck Barlow, Scotty McNichols and Ted Macklin to turn her precious horses into winners. In her younger years, Josephine often drove the horses to competitions herself.
Along with Sunset Commander, many of Josephine’s horses made names for themselves—and what names they were: Piccadilly. Tipperary Rex. Over Again. Sir Eric. Silver. The Doctor. Last Chances King. King Bourbon Talola.
But the pride of the Andersons, Sunset Stables, and Amarillo itself was Lady Joy. Josephine purchased the jumper in 1931, and Lady Joy became the most notable horse in the city. She took first place in the 1934 and ’35 Bartlesville Horse Shows and second at the 1938 American Royal. Josephine owned many fine horses, but none of them stole Amarillo’s heart like Lady Joy.
Josephine’s younger sister, Miss Sara Alice Morris, came to visit several times in the 1930s. In 1938, the two dined together at the Rose Bowl Tea Room, an early haven of Amarillo’s social elite. Josephine’s older sister, Mary Jane Gray, and her husband brought Sara to Texas with them in 1941, possibly to celebrate the completion of the Andersons’ new house, a beautiful two-story home of more than 7,000 square feet. When the Grays returned to Minnesota, Sara stayed for “a longer visit.” This longer visit appears to have lasted the rest of her life.
Sara was 42 years old in 1941, and by all accounts never married. At the time, it was not unusual for an unwed sister to move in with family—especially when family was as well off as Josephine and Aleck. Regardless of Sara’s preference, it also wouldn’t have been unusual for her to be single; she reached adulthood just as World War I and the Great Influenza epidemic decimated an entire generation.
Sara attended society events, made friends, and joined the Andersons on their travels. But Sara spent the majority of her time volunteering. Because she arrived in Amarillo just before the United States joined World War II, she had ample opportunity. While the Andersons supported the troops with charitable horse shows, Sara planned many local events with the United Service Organizations, popularly known as USO. As one of the Red Cross’s Gray Ladies, she assisted sick and injured soldiers with non-medical needs.
The USO presented Sara with a pin for more than 1,000 hours of service, and Mayor Joe Jenkins awarded her a Civil Defense Ribbon. After the war, she continued to volunteer with the Red Cross and at the Amarillo Veterans Hospital, which eventually became the Thomas E. Creek VA Medical Center.
The Master, another prized horse of the Andersons, joined the 1950 Olympic tour with rider Norman Brinker. The Andersons and Sara Morris traveled to New York and watched The Master jump in Madison Square Garden. Josephine and Sara stayed on for the rest of the tour while Mr. Anderson returned to Amarillo.
Less than a year later, in 1951, Aleck was the first of the three to die at the age of 70. Josephine took over business matters as his independent executrix. She continued to raise and show horses, and Sara volunteered as long as she was able.
Josephine and Sara lived together until Josephine’s death in 1967. Some of her remaining horses were sold, but many were given to Boys Ranch.
Sara was the last to go, in 1972. They all died at home, at the Anderson place, and they rest together in the same locked alcove at the Llano Cemetery mausoleum.
Legacies and Long Memories
The lingering question is Josephine’s will. Why would she make such an unusual request? What tragedy occurred on the property that made her want to erase the entire site from Amarillo’s collective memory?
In 1961, the Amarillo Globe-Times wrote of a long-ago fire at Sunset Stables, during which the rescued horses ran back into the fire. Such an event would surely have broken Josephine’s heart. But further research shows that the fire actually occurred at the nearby Wolflin Stables, and no mention is made of the Andersons or their prized horses. Lady Joy in particular continued to appear in the papers until she quietly retired to raise a colt.
The rumors of the sisters locking themselves away from the world and each other also conflicts with public record. Sara and Josephine continued to travel together after Aleck’s passing, including a trip to New York and another back home to Minneapolis. Josephine made the papers on her own in 1957, when she bought the first Rolls Royce in Amarillo.
In fact, many Amarillo residents still have fond memories of the sisters.
J. Ronald Walcher says he was Sara Morris’s physical therapist in the early 1960s, when Sara was confined to a wheelchair. “She was a very gentle lady and a joy to work with. On the rare occasions she left the house, she took my wife and me to the Country Club for lunch.”
Amy Herbert McCarty shares similar memories of Josephine. “My Mom was Mrs. Anderson’s nurse for several years,” she says. “She was very nice to me. I was lucky enough to be in the home a couple of times. I never heard of any hauntings or ghosts.”
Carolyn Laursen relays a story from her late husband, Larry. “He delivered the paper to the Andersons. One of the sisters was in a wheelchair. If she was out on the porch, he would stop and talk to her. The other sister told him to go down to Blackburn Brothers and pick out a new suit and shirt and tie and shoes. They bought him a full set of clothes for Easter.”
Josephine’s will, along with the command to destroy the house, directed the creation of the Josephine Anderson Charitable Trust—a name many within the nonprofit world will recognize. The family’s legacy has funded medical care, charities for children, the arts and much more. Josephine stated that she wanted to support causes “exclusively in the State of Texas.” The trust is still active today, which allocates funds to more than 50 grantees each year.
So how do we reconcile these stories of Josephine and Sara’s actions and reputation with tales of the ghosts they allegedly left behind? The folklore may point to changing social norms about taking in family or the isolation many experience in their older years. Perhaps this is a conversation about the prejudices faced by single women—even women of considerable means.
The Current Tenants
Rhett Butler’s closed in the mid-1980s. Barrett Pierce had been trying to acquire the property for years, and he finally came to an agreement with the bank in 1989. He began using the building as the office of his business, Rio Petroleum.
The Pierces made further renovations, which led to another encounter. “We used Gary Barrett’s Diversified Interiors,” says Barrett Pierce. “His superintendent, Poncho, came into the building early in the morning to turn the lights on. A woman appeared behind Poncho and scared him. She was dressed in, according to him, ‘ghostly clothes.’ He ran over and threw the switch to turn the lights on. But she’d disappeared.”
It’s almost a shame to debunk such a good story. But according to Pierce, “A friend of my wife’s knew the Andersons and knew the house. They even knew the lady across the street who goes for a walk every morning.” That’s likely who Poncho saw. “She’d come over to ask, ‘Who’s moving in?’”
Fortunately, one other story has a less easy answer. Diversified Interiors came back for more remodeling, and one of the workers was in the hallway leading into the bathrooms. It’s a beautiful area, lined with narrow mirrors from floor to ceiling. In the reflection, the worker saw a ghost behind him. “He ran off and never came back,” says Pierce. The worker, that is. The whereabouts of the ghost are unknown.
Barrett Pierce and Rio Petroleum have now been in the Anderson place longer than even Sara Morris. They’ve preserved much of the home’s splendor, including etched glass, intricate woodwork, and stained-glass windows. The staircase—alive in the memories of so many—is still there. Pierce says he’s never felt anything but good thoughts and good vibes inside. His team gives the building an energetic atmosphere, full of the same kinds of business in which the Andersons thrived.
The parallels are not lost on Barrett Pierce. “We try to model ourselves after the Andersons in some respects,” he says. “They were venturesome and successful.”
A Ghostly Season
Fall is near, so we’ll leave you with appropriate memories for the season, courtesy of Nancy Andrade and Linda Huddleston. “One Halloween,” says Nancy, “one of the Bivins boys and a couple of other kids, me included, dared each other to ring the Andersons’ doorbell to see if they answered. When the door opened you saw a beautiful staircase and carpet. They gave out fruit to all of us. They had bushels lined up along the wall.”
Possibly remembering a different Halloween, Linda adds, “They gave out full-size candy bars, and that was a big deal to us kids!”
That, apparently, was as spooky as things got at 2805 W. 15th Ave.
So what have we learned? Even if you don’t join the ghost hunt, sometimes the ghost finds you. Get to know your neighbors before they scare you to death. And above all, be kind to children, veterans, and horses in Amarillo, Texas. You never know who might
be watching.
