To the ground floor an addition had the laundry room, kitchen and at the back corner of the building, another latrine.
I arrived late on a Friday night and was assigned a "room," which was located right above the mess hall. It was late, I was tired and after I met a few of the other women, I made up my bunk. All I wanted to do was sleep. It was 10:00 p.m. by the time I crawled into my bed. I had just started to drift off to sleep when I started hearing the sound of furniture being moved across the wooden floors in the mess hall below me. I thought it was odd so late at night, but I was tired and soon fell asleep.
The next day I spent exploring the city with new friends. There was so much to see and do; we didn't return until late at night. Again I was very tired and quickly got ready for bed. As soon as I lay down the noise of moving furniture began followed by the clashing sound of pots and pans. I thought those poor people working there had a really crappy shift but I quickly fell asleep.
Sunday morning I got up in time to go to Mass and then with friends went to explore Golden Gate Park. Again we were out most of the day and night and again as I got in bed I could hear the sounds of the mess hall and this time I could hear the sound of muffled voices of men.
Now in the 60s we still had seperate men's and women's barracks. So I did think it was really weird but I went to sleep anyway. The next morning before reporting to my duty station I asked one of my friends what was up with the men in our mess hall so late at night. At first she looked confused and I told her what I had been hearing and then she laughed and said, "those are the ghosts." She said from time to time lots of people had reported hearing noises in the mess hall but that the mess hall was not used. We shared a mess hall in another building. The mess hall in our building was only used once a year by a National Guard Unit that came to train. She asked what I had heard and I told her. She said that it was typical of what other's had heard and said they had checked the mess hall many times and nothing was ever found. The chairs were on top of the tables and there were no pots and pans.
That was my first experience with the ghosts in the women's barracks. I heard them many times after that and though I never saw anything, the mess hall ghosts were never a bother beside being noisy. My friends and I would joke about asking them to cook us something . Just like men, lots of noise.