Sarah Winchester

Sarah 'Sallie' Lockwood Winchester (née Pardee; 1839 – September 5, 1922) was an American heiress who amassed great wealth after the death of her husband, William Wirt Winchester, and her mother in law, Jane Ellen Hope. Winchester has become known for the construction of Llanada Villa which, six months after her death was turned into a tourist attraction now known as the Winchester Mystery House. She has been depicted as superstitious, guilt-ridden and crazy. Records show that those who knew her found her to be intelligent, kind, a savvy financial manager, and not superstitious. Early life Sarah Lockwood Pardee was the fifth child and fourth daughter born to parents Leonard and Sarah Pardee (née Burns) in the summer of 1839 at 29 Orange Street in New Haven, Connecticut. Though she was formally called Sarah, she was named after her paternal grandmother, Sally Pardee Goodyear and was called Sallie all her life and signed all her correspondence using this name. She had four sisters and one brother who survived to adulthood. One sister, her namesake Sarah E. Pardee, and Leonard and Sarah's firstborn died from cholera when she was a year old. The name Lockwood was Pardee's father's longtime friend Lockwood Sanford who was a well-known New England wood engraver. Winchester's father was a skilled craftsman who had established a mill and wood shop called Leonard Pardee & Company.