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Thu, 21 Jul 1994 12:58:18 EST |
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I was out of town and had to scroll through all the responses to this
request in the Museum-L digest!! Hope this isn't too late but no one
mentioned the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California built by the
heir to the WInchester firearms fortune. Apparently spirits told Mrs.
Winchester that she would be held responsible for the deaths of people
killed by Winchester guns unless she built this house, and she just kept
building it until she died. To keep the carpenters and so forth busy, she
had them build doors and stairs that led nowhere, among other architectural
oddities.
Casa Manila, the Spanish colonial house museum that I volunteered in one
summer while in the Philippines is supposed to be haunted, though I don't
think they mention this on the tour. After I had been working in a windowless
basement roomfor a couple of weeks my supervisor asked me if I didn't get
scared down there when I was by myself, and then the employees proceeded to
tell me their ghost stories! One night my supervisor was working late to
meet an exhibit deadline and he had the door to his basement office closed
when someone started pounding on it. He called out, expecting a guard to
answer, but no one replied and the pounding continued. He decided he really
did not want to open the door (I don't remember whether it was locked or not)
and he decided the best way to cope with this mystery was to turn on his
radio at top volume to drown out the noise of the "ghost" This happened to
be the room that I also worked in so I spent the rest of the summer glancing
out at the next room which was usually kept dark, expecting to see white
sheeted forms drifting by the open door!!
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[log in to unmask] | Things just happen, one after another.
MA Program in Public History | They don't care who knows. But history
Indiana University- | ...ah, history is different. History
Purdue University at ü has to be observed. Otherwise it's
Indianapolis | not history. It's just...well, things
(Out of town July 26-29) ü happening one after another.
_____________________________ ü --Terry Pratchett,"Small Gods"
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