UPDATED: Oct. 26, 2017 at 2:46 p.m.

Hundreds of people pass through the Newhouse 1 building every day without knowing how close to human remains they may be.

The cremated remains of Matthew Lyle Spencer, the first dean of Syracuse University’s School of Journalism, may be located on campus in Newhouse 1, which houses the since-renamed S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

The remains of Spencer and his wife, Helen McNaughton, may be enclosed in a wall in room 304 in Newhouse 1, said Karen McGee, the Newhouse School’s assistant dean for student affairs. Two of Spencer’s living relatives confirmed the urban legend, but SU administrators are unsure of its validity.

Susan Nash, who oversees all aspects of facilities management for the Newhouse building complex, works in an office above room 304. Nash, who’s worked at SU for more than 30 years, remembers being told about Spencer’s remains when she first got hired.

But neither Nash nor McGee could confirm whether the remains are, or have ever been, in the building.

Nash was told the couple’s ashes may be concealed behind a plaque hanging on a wall in the room that lists their names.

“Maybe 15 years ago, all of a sudden some people walked into the dean’s office and said, ‘Oh, hi, we’re Dean Spencer’s grandkids and we were driving through town and we wanted to visit where our grandparents are buried,’” Nash said. “Now why would they have said that?”

Nash brought Spencer and McNaughton’s grandchildren into the room and showed them the wall with the plaque on it. They snapped photos before leaving.

Spencer’s tenure as dean was marked by a huge growth in enrollment and overall expansion of the program, according to his SU biography. From 1919 to his arrival to the university, the journalism program was housed under the College of Business Administration. Spencer advocated for a full communications program at SU years before anyone else had considered the idea.

Construction for Newhouse 1 started in the spring of 1962 and finished in August 1964, according to SU Archives. Spencer died in 1969 in Clearwater, Florida at the age of 87. His place of burial is listed as “unknown” on the popular grave-listing website Find A Grave.

Nicole Westerdahl, reference and access services librarian in the Special Collections Research Center, said the center has nothing in its collections pertaining to remains interred in Newhouse, but added that an obituary in the collections indicates Lyle M. Spencer, Spencer’s son, was buried in Wisconsin.

Allison Spencer, 26, is Spencer’s great-granddaughter. She is listed as maintaining the grave listing for Orton F. Spencer, her grandfather and Spencer’s son. She also said she confirmed that her great-grandfather and great-grandmother’s remains are behind the plaque in Newhouse.

Allison said the whereabouts of Spencer’s daughter, Barbara, are still unknown. Barbara Elizabeth Spencer was killed in a train accident six months after her birth in 1924, when a train to Wisconsin that she and her parents were aboard derailed over a river. Spencer and McNaughton were both hospitalized for injuries related to the accident, and Barbara drowned.

Because Spencer was hospitalized for so long, Allison said no one in the family knows where Barbara was buried.

Her grandfather, Orton Spencer, never talked about Barbara.

“My (father) knew she existed and never asked questions,” Allison said.

Natalie Boucher | Staff Illustrator

Allison, a resident of Savannah, Georgia, said a stained glass window at the University Temple United Methodist Church in Seattle is dedicated to the late infant. Barbara was cremated in January 1925 after her death, but the ashes’ whereabouts are unknown.

Allison’s father, Chris Spencer, 61, has spent the last 20 years investigating his family’s roots, both via the internet and through visits to gravesites.

“We’ve been tracing it back and finding out where our families come from,” he said, adding that the family “definitely” knows Spencer and McNaughton’s ashes are in Newhouse 1.

McNaughton died in 1973, four years after her husband. Chris said a shelf is likely built behind the plaque to hold the urns where the ashes reside.

Chris, a resident of Cary, North Carolina, was not one of the grandchildren to visit SU and see the plaque, but he did come to see it in the 1970s with his parents and siblings.

He noted the possibility that Spencer and McNaughton may have taken Barbara’s ashes with them when they moved to New York.

“We think they probably took her with them when they moved east to Fayetteville,” he said. “If they have their ashes there I wonder if Barbara’s ashes are there.”

Chris said his grandfather’s work at Syracuse was his crowning achievement.

“We didn’t even know if anyone there still remembered who he was,” he said. “It’s good to know that people still think about him.”

CORRECTION: A previous version of this post included information from the Special Collections Research Center regarding Matthew Lyle Spencer’s remains that was misstated. The obituary referenced pertains to Lyle M. Spencer, M. Lyle Spencer’s son. The Daily Orange regrets this error.

Published on October 25, 2017 at 9:34 pm

Contact Colleen: cefergus@syr.edu | @ColleenEFergus2