Leona Baer still roams the rooms of the mansion she and her husband, Lazrus, had built for them in 1870 at 1117 Grove St.

“We believe Leona put so much of her heart and soul in this building that she’s here still watching over it. And she resents someone using her special space,” Haunted Vicksburg tours founder Morgan Gates told a group gathered for a ghostly tour of the post-war mansion this week.

She especially wants people to stay out of her kitchen.

Leona Baer wanted all the latest conveniences when the house was built  — indoor plumbing and an indoor kitchen. At that time, kitchens were commonly built in separate outbuildings to avoid the danger of fire. Lazrus Baer balked at the idea of an indoor kitchen, but when her outdoor kitchen caught fire in 1870, Leona refused to let the fire department put it out.

Lazrus relented and let her put a kitchen in the basement of the home.

When Doug Cousineau bought the house in 2005, he noticed his tools were mysteriously disappearing from the workshop he set up in the basement, Gates said.

“When he would turn around, the tool was gone — vanished without a trace,” Gates told his tour group.

Once Cousineau moved his workshop from he basement, the tools stopped disappearing.

Leona Baer and what paranormal investigators say are four other spirits didn’t stop though, said Lois Cousineau who works at her son’s bed and breakfast.

“They appear all over the house. People do catch them in pictures,” Lois Cousineau said.

One of the more commonly captured ghostly images is one of a child who sometimes appears in a family portrait that hangs in the first-floor hallway.

And the ghosts are still stealing things. Pairs of glasses — 22 in all — have gone missing from visitors over the years. Lois Cousineau said she regularly turns around to find something she just set down is missing.

For Gates, explaining the disappearing items and ghostly images to tourists is simple.

“Strange things happen in haunted Vicksburg,” he said.