Anyone who attends Northwestern State University soon becomes aware of the superstitions on campus. Friday classes are optional; if your roommate commits suicide, you get all “A’s” for the semester; if a light turns on and off by itself, Isabella may be to blame. Legends of Isabella’s ghost have haunted the university’s campus for years, but the real Isabella has been lost to history.
Some claim that Isabella was a French maiden who lived in the Bullard Mansion (home to the famous three columns that now symbolize NSU). Others claim she was a nun. Others claim she was a maiden who became a nun. All agree that Isabella met with a tragic end in the Bullard Mansion, and that her spirit still roams the university. Her story is one of the most famous of Natchitoches’s ghost stories.