SURETY ABSTRACT
By Tammy Wilson
A historic building in Enid, Oklahoma, Surety Abstract, has had some odd goings on. Most of us remember it as Lambert’s, a high end dress shop, but before it was Lambert’s, it was a department store called Herzberg’s.
Dennette Ray, owner of Surety Abstract, jokingly made a comment to a long time Enid attorney that they thought the building might be haunted. They had witnessed several strange occurrences and were unable to explain them any other way. The attorney thought for a moment and stated he didn’t really know why it would be haunted. They finished their business and he returned to his office only to return a short time later with an old newspaper article and declared, “You know, it just might be haunted.”
The 1956 newspaper article relayed the story of a woman that worked in the Herzberg Department Store. Her estranged ex-husband came into the store one afternoon as she worked demanding she give him $70 for a dentist visit. She refused and he gunned her down and turned the gun on himself, right there in the store. Ray had not been aware of this story until she saw the article.
The employees at Surety have seen stacks of things knocked off the counter, heard noises, seen people walk by and when they look, there's no one there.
The Eerie Oklahoma team was allowed to conduct an investigation in the historical downtown building and they were not disappointed. There was a light at the back exit that seemed to flicker and act strangely all night. We asked the owners if that were normal. We were assured it was not. We were sitting on the floor in the area of the shooting when one of the members reacted to something to moving behind her and touching her. I had also looked up because I thought I saw something, but alas, there was nothing there.
As we wandered around on the main floor of the big building, we heard noise coming from upstairs. It sounded as if someone were moving something heavy, like furniture or something. I was going toward the stairs to see if it was the other part of the group, but they came walking up the stairs from the basement. None of us had been upstairs at all!
We were hoping to investigate further, but always wanting to know as much as I can about a location, I interviewed the children of Dick Lambertz, previous owner of the building. His daughter, Brooke Reed and her brother, Matt Lambertz state as children, they found every possible nook and cranny of the old building to play hide and seek in and never had any ghostly encounters, but got spooked by the mannequins more than once!
Her brother, Gant Lambertz, is of the opinion it could be the jolly spirit of Dick Lambertz who is by far the most interesting character to have ever possessed the building.
“This is the large building to the south that Lambert's occupied in its last years of existence where Dick held an auction one week prior to his passing to ‘get all his affairs in order.’ This was not the building with the mannequins. The air conditioner and the elevator always had a squeak, which could explain the noises heard from the first floor. The ‘haunting’ that could be going on could be all the elder ladies hitting on the handsome Dick Lambertz in the better place that they all now share.”
*From the book Ghostlahoma - Over 100 Years of Oklahoma's Haunted History by Tammy Wilson & Tonya Hacker
By Tammy Wilson
A historic building in Enid, Oklahoma, Surety Abstract, has had some odd goings on. Most of us remember it as Lambert’s, a high end dress shop, but before it was Lambert’s, it was a department store called Herzberg’s.
Dennette Ray, owner of Surety Abstract, jokingly made a comment to a long time Enid attorney that they thought the building might be haunted. They had witnessed several strange occurrences and were unable to explain them any other way. The attorney thought for a moment and stated he didn’t really know why it would be haunted. They finished their business and he returned to his office only to return a short time later with an old newspaper article and declared, “You know, it just might be haunted.”
The 1956 newspaper article relayed the story of a woman that worked in the Herzberg Department Store. Her estranged ex-husband came into the store one afternoon as she worked demanding she give him $70 for a dentist visit. She refused and he gunned her down and turned the gun on himself, right there in the store. Ray had not been aware of this story until she saw the article.
The employees at Surety have seen stacks of things knocked off the counter, heard noises, seen people walk by and when they look, there's no one there.
The Eerie Oklahoma team was allowed to conduct an investigation in the historical downtown building and they were not disappointed. There was a light at the back exit that seemed to flicker and act strangely all night. We asked the owners if that were normal. We were assured it was not. We were sitting on the floor in the area of the shooting when one of the members reacted to something to moving behind her and touching her. I had also looked up because I thought I saw something, but alas, there was nothing there.
As we wandered around on the main floor of the big building, we heard noise coming from upstairs. It sounded as if someone were moving something heavy, like furniture or something. I was going toward the stairs to see if it was the other part of the group, but they came walking up the stairs from the basement. None of us had been upstairs at all!
We were hoping to investigate further, but always wanting to know as much as I can about a location, I interviewed the children of Dick Lambertz, previous owner of the building. His daughter, Brooke Reed and her brother, Matt Lambertz state as children, they found every possible nook and cranny of the old building to play hide and seek in and never had any ghostly encounters, but got spooked by the mannequins more than once!
Her brother, Gant Lambertz, is of the opinion it could be the jolly spirit of Dick Lambertz who is by far the most interesting character to have ever possessed the building.
“This is the large building to the south that Lambert's occupied in its last years of existence where Dick held an auction one week prior to his passing to ‘get all his affairs in order.’ This was not the building with the mannequins. The air conditioner and the elevator always had a squeak, which could explain the noises heard from the first floor. The ‘haunting’ that could be going on could be all the elder ladies hitting on the handsome Dick Lambertz in the better place that they all now share.”
*From the book Ghostlahoma - Over 100 Years of Oklahoma's Haunted History by Tammy Wilson & Tonya Hacker
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