Sonoma Ghosts

The house at 205 East Spain Street has a haunted bedroom upstairs at the East end of this 15 room house. There is the ghost of a girl who brushes her hair by the window. She lived in the 1800's when her father and mother ran the building as a boarding house.

I have been trying for years to learn her name, because I shared that bedroom with her; the Ray Nash Adobe was my family home for almost 40 years. I knew her as "Miss Ray" but finally I have her first name: "Mary".

Mary Ray's great grandsons were in the limousine with me on a Twilight Tour of 13 sites of Sonoma's most haunted places last month, and filled in so many blanks about this feisty young lady, who she was and what became of her after she left her ghostly mark on the space we shared as young girls and young ladies.

She lived to be 48 years old, had over a dozen children, and was the first girl in Sonoma to cut her hair short! 

Horray for Mary Ray!

"SONOMA GHOSTS - True Stories of Sonoma's Haunted History" is selling well in the US, but doing even better in the UK.

Why is this?

I have made an effort here to promote the book, and Amazon has given me excellent placement and atwo very nice websites, but in the UK, where I have done no marketing at all, the book is flourishing.

Is this because we are a predominently "Christian" country, where our sacred writings in the King James Bible forbid conversations with the dead; whereas English history, going back so much farther than Christianity, allows for, and even condones to some degree, spiritism?

What are your thoughts on this?

Cangratulations to Ghost Writer Jeff Dwyer, a former Sonoma resident, on winning the Best New Wine Country Book Award for 2009!

The award will be given to the author May 20th at the Healdsburg Wine Library at 6PM. There will be free wine and food!

Special thanks to Jeff for promoting my Twilight Tours of Sonoma's Haunted buildings and sacred Indian sites in his book Ghost Hunter's Guide To The Wine Country, and for allowing me to be one of his inside contacts when it came to researching Sonoma's haunted places!

This book is on sale now in the Store section of this website!

The SONOMA GHOSTS book review in the Spring quarters' publication of "Sonoma", written by editor David Bolling, is the real deal. Bolling is candid and forthright, as always, and I am just glad that I am not the lady who wrote the book about olive oil, which Bolling reviewed in the same issue. I would have gone home and cried!

Instead I went home and painted him a nice little watercolor of the original Sonoma Tribune office building circa 1882, signed it, framed it, wrapped it up, and dropped it off personally at the Sonoma Index Tribune where David Bolling's office is located.

"SONOMA GHOSTS - True Stories of Sonoma's Haunted History" is my first book, so getting a good review, a kind review, a generous review is really important, especially since I hope to publish more short stories of Sonoma's paranormal past in the forseeable future, provided I am not run out of town on a rail.

Here is a copy of the SONOMA GHOSTS book review by David Bolling:

 
Haunted Hotels In Sonoma is a topic that always comes up. My Book "Sonoma Ghosts" talks about a few of them, but for more, you have to read Jeff Dwyer's book "Ghost Hunter's Guide to The Wine Country". Jeff used to live in Sonoma, and he is a really nice man, sort of an accounting type, but he has always had an interest in the paranormal, and he used me as a resource for that book. He has 8 Ghosts hunters Guides to various towns (New Orleans, Seattle, Wine Country, etc).

I am currently booking Ghost and Legend limo tour reservations, and I recommend meeting at the City Hall or your hotel at 6pm or 6:30, so you can get half the tour during daylight, then cruise for the twilight ghost of Chief Solano (he is very partial to women and also haunts the hot spring pools at the Sonoma Mission Inn), then take the second half of the tour with the city lights and moonlight.

Haunted Hotels in Sonoma include: The Sonoma Hotel, The Swiss hotel, the Ledson hotel (Which has an impression Ghost of Marty's Barbershop at 10:15 on Saturday nights, The El Dorado Hotel (which used to be a brothel), and in Boyes hot springs The Creekside hotel, and the Sonoma Mission Inn. The Victorian Court Bed and Breakfast also has a haunted water tower, and the lady is really nice; she might let you all bunk together in close quarters to save money

So, talk it around and let me know if you and your friends want to go for a two hour tour of 13 sites of Sonoma's most haunted sites and buildings. Check out my website at www.sonomaghosts.com.

The Best Western has good winter rates, but it has very little history and no ghosts. I would say the most time-warped hotel on the plaza is the Swiss, with the Sonoma Hotel coming in a close second.

Oh, if you are from Sonoma, always ask for their hometown discount;, and whenever you make reservations at any of the Haunted hotels in Sonoma, remember, it is winter now, as cold and as damp as a life without love. Ask for special winter rates, and special discounts, don't just pay the full price. A room booked at a discount is money in the bank, and empty rooms don't bring in a penny! Remember, ghosts stay free in Sonoma's haunted hotels!

The Promenade Ghosts

by Carla Heine

Sonoma Vintage Festival and its traditions are always on the last weekend of September. It is a special celebration, and in Sonoma it has changed over time, just as we all do.


In the early years it was a really rowdy three-day event; half drunken orgy, and half drunken brawl. The birth rate jumped by as much as 80% nine months later, and nobody worried too much about it if the new baby had blue eyes, or red hair. You may think I am kidding, but one of my English papers in high school was on this very subject, and I studied the birth records of the era. The birth rate jumped 80, I repeat, 80 percent.


Vintage Festival was called "The Blessing of the Grapes", and it comes after "Crush". In Sonoma Crush is when the grapes have been brought in from the vineyards and are crushed. It is a big deal, and if you aren't from here, or you just moved here, don't bother to plan anything during Crush, and if you do give a party, don't be surprised if people don't come. It's nothing personal.


In fact, if  you want to get out of anything in August and September, just lay low, and everyone will assume you?ve disappeared because, after all, it?s Crush. Everybody disappears for Crush.


The original Vintage Festival kick-off party was the Sonoma Spanish Ball. There were two main events, one for the vineyard owners, and one for the vineyard workers. The owners footed the bill and all the food and drinks were on the house. It was a way to say thank you to the people who brought in the harvest of grapes.


There would be mercifully short speeches and then management, Los Patrons, would stay for a brief drink and then they were expected to withdraw, so people could relax and enjoy the food, drink, music, and dance.


Another, more sedate party was held for the vineyard owners with music, food, dancing, and, of course, wine.


Saturday there was a parade, with bull and bear fights in a wood arena built for the purpose at the corner of First Street East and East Spain.


The Spanish Ball evolved into the Black and White Ball, and then into the Red and White Ball. They migrated over to Saturday night. But in the 1800's people went to bed early on the Saturday night of Vintage Festival, because people were expected to attend church services on Sunday morning at which the harvested grapes were blessed. And this was a sober event.


They still had the Promenade when I was a girl in th1960's, and a teen in the 1970's, and it somehow got lost in the shuffle with the influx o0f Newcomers in the 1980's, but there are still those of us who honor the tradition.

On Saturday afternoon, after the Spanish Ball, or the Black and White Ball of the previous evening, the ladies would take out the trunks and hat-boxes that belonged to their aunts, and mothers, and grandmothers, and prepare their oldest and best dresses for the Promenade.


Ribbons were ironed, petticoats pressed, feathers and straw hats steamed. Dainty leather shoes with delicate heels and pearl buttons were polished. The men dressed in their best evening clothes, and sometimes the clothes of their fathers, uncles, and grandfathers, and at sunset, shortly after dinner, people in Sonoma stepped out for The Promenade.


Gentlemen, young and old, walked around The Plaza counterclockwise. Ladies, young and old, walked clockwise around The Plaza. They began The Promenade at sunset. The Men with their walking sticks; the ladies with furled parasols. They talked quietly, viewed the special window decorations in the stores and businesses that fronted The Plaza, and nodded each to the other. When the stars came out everyone went home.


Ostensibly.


This was an especially exciting night for young adults. It was one of the few opportunities to view young people of the opposite gender who were not of your class, or social circle. And, for once, it was tolerated if one were to flirt a little with the eyes.


The most fascinating aspect of this annual Promenade was that it was not at all unusual for people to see the ghosts of deceased family members, business people, and friends at this event. It was almost expected.


Was the Vintage Festival Promenade really a haunted event? Or did people see the nieces and nephews, the grand-daughters and grandsons, in the clothing of their deceased loved ones, and note the family resemblances through rosy wine-colored glasses that may have been a little out of focus? Or do  our loved ones come closer to us as we touched their treasured garments, and stir the dust of old talcum, spice, and perfume?


Whatever the case, there are those who still walk The Promenade at sunset after dinner on the Saturday of Vintage Festival. The Plaza merchants still decorate their windows for the event, and we walk by to look, and talk, and nod.  Men and women walk arm in arm together nowadays. Our costumes lack the charm and style of those days now so long gone.

Some of us in Sonoma still undertake that twilight tradition. and some of us dress up for the event in the spirit of those who walked before us. Sometimes we exchange a nod across the sidewalk, or a passing glance across the century, as we make the Plaza Promenade among the spirits of Sonoma's past particiopants.