Mrs. Winchester's House

[first lines]

Narrator:
[quoting Longfellow] All houses wherein men have lived and died/ Are haunted houses. Through the open doors/ The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,/ With feet that make no sound upon the floors./ We meet them at the doorway, on the stair,/ Along the passages they come and go,/ Impalpable impressions on the air,/ A sense of something moving to and fro.

Narrator:
This is Mrs. Winchester's house - a house that has stood for over 70 years. A house shrouded in mystery and speculation. A house that has been the source of one of the most unusual legends in California history.

Narrator:
Mrs. Winchester's house was becoming a topic of conversation. Actually, there was nothing unusual about the design. It was of the customary Victorian style - the same that the Winchester's built in New Haven and similar to the ones built by the leading citizens of San Jose, but there was a difference. The difference was not in outward appearance - it was in the size.

Narrator:
Mrs. Winchester was dead but the legend about her house had only begun to grow.

Narrator:
It is difficult to say how much of the Winchester legend is true and how much of it is false. Sarah Winchester's early life, as we have told it, is fact. Most historical traces have been wiped out of New Haven and it's almost as if she and William and the baby had never existed there at all, but after she moved to San Jose the truth becomes so tangled with the legend, with the rumor, gossip and fantasy that it is hard to be sure at all.