Frederick T. McGill, who was an island legend in his own right, was the historian for a number of years. He started a notebook to record things that he and later Vaughn Curators heard over the years. In these pages I found the following story recorded August 9, 1998:
Rosalee Ward visited Vaughn today, and had some great stories from when she was a Pelican during the 1970s. The Pelicans decided to make Star a little more colorful by putting the baker’s food dye in the salt water tanks located in the attic. Some days the water would be red. Other days it would be yellow. This certainly bothered the older staff women, who would be constantly flushing the toilets wondering what was wrong.
Read more pranks that were compiled for a Vaughn Cottage exhibit last year here: https://vaughncottage.wordpress.com/category/pranks/
