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Chapter 8 Guns, Guilt, and Ghosts The First Commentaries on Sarah Winchester’s Odd House p 138 N ewspapers began printing commentaries on Sarah Winchester’s unwieldy and unaccountably unfinished mansion in 1895, after about eight years of construction at Llanada Villa. The articles speculated on Winchester’s behavior and her motives for building ,and subsequent articles built on the first,often repeating whole paragraphs word for word. Inevitably they would add a new twist. Looking at these articles from an era known for yellow journalism,we should not be surprised that the truth was stretched to entertain at least as much as to inform. The articles ran as news stories, when really they were serial editorials. From the earliest articles until about 1911, the press assigned a succession of motivations to Sarah Winchester. First and foremost ,papers identified her as superstitious.Added to that,in order,were claims that she was a snob, she was afraid of death, she felt guilty over deaths caused by Winchester guns, she was a spiritualist, and, following the 1906 earthquake, she was mad.Angry ghosts and associations with the occult appeared in articles about Winchester after the earthquake— relatively late in the complex story line. The local newspaper, the San Jose Mercury and Herald with the Evening News, was owned by the Hayes brothers, sons of Mary Hayes Chynoweth.Chynoweth,likeWinchester,built an overly ornateVictorian home in a rural valley. Chynoweth was a public figure in the community , presiding over religious services in a chapel of her own design, and she fully embraced spiritualist beliefs. An unpleasant word about Chynoweth would never have appeared in the Hayes-owned newspaper , of course. But Winchester was sharply different from Chynoweth in two ways that sealed her fate to be reported on as a fanatic: she was 139 / Guns, Guilt, and Ghosts supremely private, rarely mingling socially, and her fortune came from the firearms industry. There is no evidence that anyone at the newspaper ever considered that Sarah Winchester’s compromised physical appearance and abilities might have caused her to remain in isolation. In all likelihood, neither Chynoweth nor Winchester would have made value judgments on a person’s preference for privacy or gun ownership . But the press did. In 1895, Sarah Winchester’s house was described as dreamlike:“The first view of the house fills one with surprise. You mechanically rub your eyes to assure yourself that the number of turrets is not an illusion, because they are so fantastic and dreamlike.As you approach nearer,others and many others are still revealed in a bewildering spectacle. How is it possible to build on an already apparently finished house and preserve its artistic appearance through so many changes,is a query that no one can answer, but the fact remains that it continues to be done.”1 The homeowner declined to be interviewed, so, lacking any logical explanation for the excessive number of turrets, spires, and chimneys, the press and the neighbors began formulating theories.One local reporter embellished the speculations into an entertaining story. Like the house, that first article generated countless additions. The dominant theme permeating stories about Winchester at this early stage was superstition.“The belief exists when work of construction ends disaster will result, and it is rumored among the neighbors that this superstition has resulted in the construction of domes, turrets, cupolas and towers covering territory enough for a castle,” one writer reported.2 The only plausible explanation,said the newspapers,was that she feared bad luck if she finished the house. The outbuildings also implicated the widow in superstitious practices :“There are many buildings besides the house, and they, too, show the effects of the owner’s odd belief.Summer-houses and conservatories are made with the most picturesque of pinnacles and there are many unexpected niches where groups of statuary are hidden. Even the barns and the granaries are built with the same prevailing idea and they are full of L’s and T’s which suggest that they were made in parts and are ready at any time for a resumption of the work of improvement.”3 Within a short time,Winchester’s supposed fear of bad luck mushroomed into a full-out phobia of death.Winchester’s few defenders were quoted but opted to remain nameless. One, who was identified as “a close friend of the Lady,”said,“The story about Mrs.Winchester being superstitious,and believing that she is going to die when the house...

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