Winchester Mystery House Story

Nationality: German-American
Age: 19
Occupation: student at USC
Residence: Irvine, CA
Performance Date: April 20th, 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“When I was in San Jose I heard about the Winchester Mystery House.  The place is famous and even has tours.  One friend wanted to go on to the house. The superstition is that the place has staircases that lead no where.  There also windows the look to no where. The widow who owns the house has a rifle fortune from her late husband.  She kept constructing on the house and thought it would ward off death. She was a very rich person.  People say you can see her ghost in the windows that lead to no where.”

She thinks this is a scary house that should be avoided.  She thinks its ironic that the widow is a rifle heir since rifles are used to kill and she tries to cheat death.

I believe this house may have been built for a legacy purpose, not just to ward off death.  Perhaps people in San Jose fear death more. Since San Jose is not the biggest city, people also need more attractions and landmarks, so perhaps people built up this story to give the place more significance.  If there were lots of historic buildings already in the town, people probably would not have singled out this old widow’s home and made it into a tourist attraction.