Is mansion home to Rucker ghost? ‘Absolutely no ghosts,’ owner says

EVERETT — Atop Rucker Hill sits the imposing Rucker Mansion. Its four-story form casts a shadow on the grounds overlooking Port Gardner. Over a century ago, it was inhabited by the Rucker family, one of Everett’s founding families.

In the late 1800s, Jane Rucker and her two sons, Wyatt and Bethel Rucker, uprooted their lives in Ohio and embarked on a 3,000-mile journey west. In 1889, the Ruckers eventually settled on the sparsely inhabited land that would soon be a thriving city known as Everett.

Fifteen years later in 1905, the extravagant mansion was completed as a home for Bethel and his wife Ruby, though it housed the entire Rucker family. Two years after they moved in, Jane Rucker “allegedly committed suicide in 1907 by jumping from her bedroom window,” according to ghost tour company Seattle Terrors in an entry on “haunted places” in the state.

Following her death, people reported seeing a figure, supposedly the Rucker matriarch, standing in an upstairs window, according to local lore. Neighbors also reported hearing someone play the piano even when nobody was home.

A Wikipedia entry on the mansion claims Jane Rucker’s “cause of death has been debated over the years with unconfirmed rumors” about her leaping from an upper story.

So could it really be her ghost?

Despite the story’s chilling appeal, it has some holes.

Bill Rucker, the 82-year-old adopted grandson of Bethel Rucker, is adamant there is “no validity” in the story.

Rucker finds the rumors about his great-grandmother’s suicide hard to believe. At almost 80 years old, “she was a real happy lady,” he said. She was well regarded by the people of Everett and well loved by her family.

After Jane Rucker’s death, her sons built another monument: the Rucker Tomb, a 35-foot-tall pyramid at the Evergreen Cemetery. As inscribed on the mausoleum’s door, Jane was “the perfect mother” and “the soul of honor.” Her remains have resided in the tomb since 1907, alongside those of her two sons and other Ruckers.

The current resident of the mansion, Brenda Kerr, says it would have been impossible for Jane to die by jumping from the ballroom balcony because “there’s a roof for the porch about 10 feet below the balcony.”

Both Kerr and Bill Rucker are also certain that the mansion is simply no place for a ghost to lurk. The spacious and inviting rooms, surrounded by a sprawling lawn, make the Rucker property unwelcoming to spirits that hope to spook innocent visitors, they said.

There’s “nothing very scary about it, not a lot of crazy little halls and closets that people jump out of and scare you,” Bill Rucker said.

Then again, that doesn’t make every aspect of the legend false.

“It’s not unlikely,” Rucker said, “that she would’ve known how to play the piano.”

Rucker doesn’t believe in ghosts, but he would like to think “if there are ghosts, they’re people who lived there, loved that house, and aren’t ready to leave it.”

Century-old records confirm the real story of Jane Rucker’s death wasn’t quite so dramatic.

According to an article in The Everett Daily Herald from four days after her death in November 1907, Jane Rucker died at her home due to a combination of heart problems and stomach ulcers. This was confirmed by the family physician, Dr. W.C. Cox.

The mansion sold in 1923. No Rucker has lived in it since, but the name stuck. It has had many different owners since Jane Rucker’s death, and it went up for sale again for $3.5 million in 2020.

Kerr, the most recent resident, claims that in her 25 years living on the property there have been “absolutely no ghosts,” and the story of Mrs. Rucker’s death is a “total fabrication.”

“I have never felt uncomfortable,” Kerr remarked. “I have never felt like there are evil spirits around.”

She attributes the legend’s believability to the mansion’s “evil mystique,” but she would like to put an end to it, once and for all.

Frankly, she said, the house “isn’t scary at all.”

The Daily Herald’s summer interns Fern Calderwood and Ann Duan contributed to this report.