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Interesting fact: My sorority house was originally the Old City Cemetery keeper's home in Tallahassee. Our house is on the corner of Macomb and Park and on the diagonal corner is where the cemetery is. Its the oldest in the city with many graves dating to the early 1800s. Our house is listed in the National Historic Registry and the original part was built in the late 1800s. Sigma Kappa first started occupying the house in 1920 with an addition added in the late 40s early 50s as I recall. Anyway the "interesting" part is there is a passage in the basement of the original house section that leads under the intersection which was always a busy thoroughfare, into the cemetery. The "old house" basement is still original to the house and was never finished, it is much more similar to what we would call a cellar. Under the "new wing" a separate basement was added that is now our study hall and art space. The passage has long been blocked off but is still very visible (not hidden or kept a secret) to anyone that goes down there. The story I was told by some of our really old alumni at reunion was that during the 40s/50s there was a secret society for sorority seniors called the Village Vamps (not specific to Sigma Kappa) and that they apparently used the tunnel which opened into a false grave somewhere in the cemetery. Supposedly something happened to one of the girls and either FSU or the sororities cracked down on the Vamps and they disbanded/went underground. That was also when they blocked the cemetery passage. In our archives we still have a lot of old pics and letters pertaining to the VV. I have no idea if the false grave still exists and the cemetery is quite big. I would think that would have been closed of too when they closed the tunnel but who knows.
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