Nancy Coyle

The Widow who tended the dead and became a ghost herself.

Newfoundland in the 1800s was a British colony built on the cod fishery. Life was hard, and government services were virtually non-existent. Families relied on themselves and each other, and women played a vital role, not only in the home, but also in the fishery. Some found paid work as midwives, washerwomen, or dressmakers, but the jobs open to older women were few, and usually the ones no one else wanted.

Nancy Coyle was an elderly widow trying to manage her household alone. She took in boarders and rented rooms to travellers, but it was never enough to keep her house running. With no other options, she accepted a government stipend for a job few dared to do: preparing the bodies of sailors and strangers for burial. With no city morgue, someone had to take on the task, and Nancy stepped into that role. It was honest work, but it came at a terrible social cost. Friends drifted away, neighbours whispered, and people avoided her house.

One night, a Dutch sailor stumbled drunk through the streets, slipped on the wharf, and fell headlong into the harbour. By the time his body was recovered, he was thought to be dead and was brought to Nancy’s. She washed him, wrapped him in a sheet, and laid him out, only for him to suddenly cough, sit up, and look around. He had not drowned after all, merely lost consciousness. Nancy guided him safely back to his ship.

The story spread like wildfire. Already uneasy about her work, townspeople whispered that Nancy had raised the dead. They shunned her completely. By the time she died, no one wanted to claim her body. No record exists of her burial, leaving room for speculation and for legend.

Over the years, tales grew that Nancy’s ghost wanders the cemeteries of St. John’s, cloaked in red, sometimes followed by a phantom hearse. She is remembered less for her kindness to the forgotten dead and more for the eerie tales that surround her name.

Whether Nancy Coyle was a misunderstood widow or something more mysterious is impossible to know. The records tell us only that she lived, worked, and was paid by the government for services no one else would perform. What came after, the ghostly sightings, the whispers of resurrection, is the stuff of folklore. In the end, Nancy stands at the thin line between history and legend, remembered not for the work she did in life, but for the shadow she left behind.