Author Archives: Laurel Goggins

The Winchester Mystery House

The Winchester Mystery House is a mansion in San Jose, California. Built in 1886, the home was expanded until 1922. The home has been open to tours for almost one hundred years– beginning in 1923.

C: There’s like, the Winchester Mystery House. There’s this married couple, um. Forgot their names, but the guy made a very popular type of gun– I don’t remember the story exactly, but it’s the famous one. He died and left the house to his wife. And they made guns, which killed a lot of people and she felt really guilty about it. And it’s like “Oh, the ghost of the people whose my husband’s invention killed haunt this place,” so how she thought like, the ghost wouldn’t be able to get her is if she kept expanding the house. So it led to all, like, the weird staircases that lead to nowhere cause she’s trying to confuse the ghosts. And like, stairways that lead to pits and to walls and stuff like that, because she never stopped expanding. Until she died.

It’s like, going there, Oh if you go there, and they give like, haunted tours and stuff on Halloween. It’s just a cool place. It’s like, whoo, yeah, I’d feel guilty too if my husband made a weapon of small scale destruction.

Thoughts:
While the Winchester Mansion has become a kitschy tourist trap over the past 100 years, the myths and rumors surrounding it are just as real and haunting as the story of a woman continuously building up her home to escape the ghosts murdered by her husband’s invention. Originally, the house was a symbol of guilt and the fear of mortality. However, as the house became famous and more tourist-y, that symbolism has been softened. Ultimately, the fear of mortality is more approachable in Halloween tours.

Black Eyed Peas and Collard Greens on New Years

The informant is from South Carolina and recounts a New Years tradition from the region.

T: On New Year’s Day, in the South, everybody cooks black eyed peas and collard greens. The back eyed peas are good for money. The black eyed peas represent the change and the collard greens is the cash. And that’s how much money, and it signifies that you’re going to get money all year long. So everybody cooks that on New Years. That’s just a staple. You go to someone’s house on New Year’s Day? That’s going to be cooking in the pot. Mama would cook that every New Years, no matter what.

Thoughts:

As I’ve collected folklore about New Years traditions, there are a lot of traditions that are centered around food. There is another folklore I collected from Peru that revolves around food and prosperity.

It’s interesting that even though black eyed peas and collard greens are given a special status on New Years, they are a very common food in the everyday diet of people from the Southern United States. It’s just for this one day they are considered special representations of wealth.

Opening Windows to Let the Soul Out

The informant worked as a nurse in South Carolina and in Southern California for almost two decades. Here she recounts a cross-cultural tradition that nurses perform after a patient has passed.

T: As far as nursing goes, we would have nurses who would, uh, come in the room. We would have nurses come in, and even nurses here in California I would have some, and um, I don’t know if it was regional or not, cause I would have a lot of nurses that were travelers and a lot of nurses that were from all over the country. You know, cause we have– cause California has so many nurses from so many different places. And you know, how you say, there’s no Californian born in California. But, um, we would have nurses once the patient had died and the family seen the patient, and sometimes even before that, they would open, if they could, they would open the windows in the room.

L: Oh! So their soul could get out?

T: Yeah. So that was another superstition as far as nursing goes. Nurses would, uh, tend to do when they weren’t superstitious in any other way. Nurses tend to be very scientific and clinical–that kinda stuff. But that was a nursing thing that nurses would do, not just the nursing assistants.

L: Do you remember if that was from any specific nationality or culture? Or did it sort of catch on with everyone?

T: It crossed a lot of barriers, I think. I know they did it in the South a lot. When I was in the South, I mean, it was very a Southern thing. But when I came here (To Los Angeles) I noticed that a lot of different– cause there are a lot of different cultures here– I noticed a lot of cultures did that. It wasn’t just a Southern thing. Yeah, a lot of different cultures did that. And a lot of different religious cultures seemed to do it. Like, letting the soul be free and not trapped. That kind of thing.

Thoughts:

It’s interesting how the informant says that this tradition is not only seen on opposite sides of the United States, but is also crosses ethnic boundaries as well. This leads me to wonder if the origins of opening the window for someone’s soul to leave may be polygenetic, or if it is a tradition that is passed down from nurse to nurse in the United States and has slowly worked its way across the country.

Tying Sheets to Keep Patients Alive

The informant worked as a nurse in South Carolina for almost a decade. Here, she recounts a way the nurses would try to ward off death from patients on their death beds.

T: The first one I can think about is in nursing. When, um, I know this sounds terrible, but in nursing when a patient who would not be doing well, who would be passing away, and dying, the nurses would go into their rooms and tie sheets to the corners of their bed. And supposedly that would keep them from dying until, at least– and keep them hanging on supposedly– so they wouldn’t die until later. At least until they were gone. So they wouldn’t die while they were there.

L: In the room with them?

T: Until the next shift, yeah.

L: Wait, is this a thing you did in the South or a thing you did in LA?

T: The South. I didn’t hear about it much here in LA.

L: It’s like, “Don’t die on my shift, please!”

T: Yeah, they would do it all the time. I would go in and find the corners tied to the bedsheets and I would have to reprimand them. Because families would come in and want to know why there would be, um– and mostly it was the nursing assistants. It wouldn’t be the nurses. And you know, I hate to say it, but, you know, the nursing assistants wouldn’t want to have to deal with the extra work and everything. So I would have to go reprimand the nursing assistants cause the families would come in like, “Why are the corners tied on the end of mama’s bed sheet?”

L: Wait, so how–? So they would tie a bed sheet to, like, the post?

T: No, no. You know how you have the top sheet and you have the fitted sheet? The top sheet, the corners on the sides, the corners on the ends. Where the corners are, they would tie a knot in all four corners. Supposedly that would keep the patient hanging on.

L: Oh, so they’d tie the sheet to itself?

T: No, no. All four corners, you know how when you take the sheet out of where its tucked in– you know how it hangs down before it’s tucked in? They would take that long sheet out and then they would tie a knot in it, in that corner and the knot would hang down. And a knot would hang down on the other corner, a knot would hang down on another corner. And all four corners would have a knot hanging on it.

And I would come in, and the family would come in and I’d be like, “Oh my God! They did it again!” It would make me so mad. And I would be like, trying to explain, “you have to understand, our nursing assistants have different beliefs. And they’re just trying to keep mama here as long as possible. And we understand we’re just trying to make her comfortable”. And it would be hospice patients too! People we were trying to make comfortable and let go. You know? And here they come, trying to look like they’re trying to hang onto them. Like, “No! Don’t do that!”

L: Do you remember if this was, like, a white person thing? Or like a black person thing? Or like a both?

T: It mostly was a black person thing, to be honest. So, um, there was a lot of education there. Especially on our hospice unit when I was involved with, um, being in charge of the hospice patients. I really had to do a lot of education and make sure the girls were not doing that. And have to really, really, “y’all can not do that with these patients”. That’s totally the opposite of what our goal is here. You could almost explain it like, “Oh, we’re just trying to make mama hang in there,” but it was really difficult on the hospice unit.

Thoughts:

The reason I asked the informant if this tradition was a white or black thing is because neighborhoods in the Deep South of the United States are still very much segregated based on race. While whites and blacks from the Deep South do share a unifying cultural identity, there are many differences and nuisances that distinctively the two. So I thought it important to know which community this this tradition came from.

Later, the informant agreed with me that this tradition would seem sweet on any other unit that the hospice unit. This tradition runs counter-intuitive to the purpose of a hospice unit.

Jewish Home Remedy for Colds

L: You said that you had. . . the home remedy that your dad has for colds?

M: That one’s not super complicated. It’s mostly just, uh, it’s something that his — That [my ancestor], taught my grandpa, who taught my dad, who taught me. Basically, like, you lie down, you give a person with the cold a whole buncha Vicks Vapor Rub on their chest. And you make warm milk with honey and lavender. So it’s like, the combination of both of those things is supposed to make you feel better.

It always makes me feel better because its a nice warm drink with honey in it. The Vicks Vapor Rub clears your nose. Like, even if it doesn’t cure the cold, it makes you feel a lot better.