Freaky Friday: The Young Witch is Cold, Tired and Just Needs a Ghost Story

So in the latest bit of "Ariel vs. the evils of a Midwestern Winter," I am completely done. It is below freezing, there are many inches of snow that just seems to keep coming, I am wearing gloves and three different jackets (because I wasn't thinking about bringing my coat) and my fingers are still dying when I drive. I am done. And now that I've said that, Spring will not come until the middle of May because the weather hates me.

And I also just started my first week on the morning shift and I'm still figuring out what exactly my sleep schedule is. I got in, fell asleep at 10 a.m, didn't set an alarm, and woke up to find out that it 6:04 p.m and I had to a host an AV committee meeting at 6. I now realize alarms are important thing even if you sleep during the day. And I will never forget.

And because of all this, there is no funny story this week. There is no life lesson. This week, I'm just going to tell a ghost story and that will be it. And that story is that of Sarah Winchester and her home, Llanada Villa, which to many is known as The Winchester Mystery House.

The Winchester Mystery House was my home away from home during my year in California, and I knew it so well, the tour guides knew me. Or at least could recognize me to the point they recommended that I apply for a job (working 50+ hours a week already I decided against it ultimately. And of course I now work 60....hmm). So it's safe to say that I can tell you a bit about the house.

The first thing to know of course is about the crazy lady (whom I adore) who created the over 150 room mansion, Sarah Pardee Winchester.

Now Sarah, like myself, was not a California native. She was originally from New Haven, MA where she grew up in middle class family and was extremely gifted and blessed. She received a very good education. She able to speak multiple languages and play multiple instruments including the organ.

She also had her childhood sweetheart, John Wirt Winchester, whom she eventually married and was very happy with. Now John's father owned the New Haven Arms company, a company that produced a number of different rifles, including ones carried by soldiers in the Civil War. John's father proceeded to change the name to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, and revamped their rifle selection to make a new Winchester Rifle (woooowwwww). Now John eventually took over the company.

Now Sarah and John were very happy together and wanted to have children and eventually they did. They had a little girl, Annie. There was only one problem. Annie had a disease where she could not process nutrients in food. What did the mean in the late 1800s? This little baby was going to starve to death. And she did.

Annie died at 6 weeks.

Sarah was devastated and she and John never tried to have another child. They did however try to do a great amount of good for children. However, that would not last either.

Twenty years after losing Annie, Sarah lost her husband to tuberculosis. She was only 42. She had also lost her father-in-law the year before (and if memory serves she lost several other close family members around the same time).

Now to preface this next part, here's some context. Around the 1880s, the movement of Spiritualism was growing and very popular belief system. This was especially after the Civil War, with many families wanting reassurance that their loved ones were now at peace and to have some way of saying goodbye. The religious movement was extremely popular well into the beginning of the 20th century after World War I.

And after losing so many people in her life, is it any wonder Sarah might turn to it herself. This is where the legend really begins. It's said that Sarah began to attend seances in order to find some peace. Eventually, one reached some spirits, but not the ones she was looking for. They were the spirits of people who were killed by the Winchester rifles and they were not happy campers about the whole situation.

Sarah was informed that she was cursed and the reason she had lost so many important people was because of the rifle (quick note: At this point, Sarah owned half the company, so I think at this point the ghosts can be a little upset with her). She was told to be rid of the curse she had to go out west and build a house and never stop building. End of legend. Kinda.

Sarah did end up going out west. To appease spirits, to ease her grief. She's the only one who could tell us, but her first stop was definitely San Francisco. Now Sarah enjoyed it, except for her arthritis which was not pleased with chill of the bay. She met with a friend who had started an orchard out in the warmer parts of the Bay Area and took her little, old San Jose.

And she loved it. And her arthritis loved it.

So she bought a small 8-room farm house and started building. She hired a couple people to help her start and maintain an orchard. She invited her niece and secretary to stay with her. She hired gardeners and maid and other servants and set about making sure they were taken care of. She provided for all their meals, gave single people rooms in her home or on the property, and gave families homes on her property. She then paid them twice the going rate at the time.

What a woman.

She also kept the house up to date on all the latest tech. By the end of her life, she had three elevators, a car wash, easy risers to help her go up stairs, and even a shower. A SHOWER. She even tried to reuse and recycle all the she could from water, to the materials she build with.

Because she never stopped building. She created mass amounts of rooms and then would remake and redo them. Something would be there one day and gone the next. She had stairs and doors the went no where. She had a massive tower at one point.

And...she had a special room that only she had the key to.

This room had only one entrance, but three different exits. It was small and in the center of the house and is a pretty spooky room. It's now known as the seance room and is believed to be where Sarah planned her house and talked to the spirits. There is a bell on the Winchester property the was rung to call servants in for lunch and dinner. It is also said the bell was rung at midnight and 3, to call and release the spirits.

Sarah would build and rebuild and nothing was ever quite finished. At least until the 1906 earthquake.

The entire front half of the home was destroyed, the tower built became unstable, and Sarah was trapped in the bedroom she was sleeping in that night. The marks from the crowbar that was used to free her are still on the doorframe when you walk in.

Sarah then decided to board up the entire front half of the house. People propose two reasons for this decision. The first, Sarah a put so much time, effort and money into building that front half of the home. To see all the ruined and the possibility it could happen again and waste all that time. Who would want to go through all that again?

The second: Sarah was very close to finishing that portion of the house, displeasing the spirits. Sarah was not supposed to finish anything, which was why she was constantly changing thing in every area of the house. The earthquake was a sign that she was too close to completion and needed to be stopped.

No matter the reason, she did keep building and adding on the back part of the house and did so until Sept. 5,1922, when Sarah passed away in the house. That was the day all construction stopped and never continued.

Sarah was a very wealthy woman when she died, but she was still generous. She left each of her servants money in her will and their homes on the property. She left her niece all of the furniture she had collected over the years. There was one thing no one received though.

The Winchester House was left to no one and given to the care of the state of California for auction. It was purchased for a considerably less than it was worth and a year after her death was opened to tours for the public and began receiving guests for the first time.

Now is the house haunted? If it wasn't during Sarah's day, it most likely is now. Many have said the servants, dedicated to their employer, never left. There have been sighting in the basement of a man pushing a wheelbarrow. Current employees feel they're being watched to make sure the house is being taken care of. And of course, why would Sarah ever leave the place she put so much into?

Now do I believe in the ghosts and legends of the Winchester House? Well, I have felt things there. At one point I even believe I might have been touched. But what do I know?

I'm just a witch.