Speaker 1: The fabulous Miss de Winter. In an era when being
chick and entertaining lavishly were the highest aspirations of many women,
Miss Burt de Winter was envied and admired by all
of Dallas society. The director of Nieman Marcus's millinerary boutique,
was famous for her fashion sense and her luxurious lifestyle.
She lived very extravagantly like a princess. One woman was
quoted on saying in the October thirty first, nineteen eighty
two Dallas Morning News, miss Dewinter had the finest of
everything and did it all with the utmost taste. One
way Bert Dewinter displayed her taste and wealth was by
throwing the most magnificent parties of the day. She was
known to be a fabulous hostess who routinely entertained the rich, fameless,
and even royal visitors to the city. Guests knew that
they would be treated to the very best of everything
when they received an invitation to De winter, a splendid
fourteen room University Park home. Bert Dewinter took enormous pride
in that home, decorating it throughout with expensive French antiques
and carefully chosen arrangements. The marble mantelpiece was purchased in Italy.
The walls were covered in pink silk, and one room,
with its black slate floor in red and white striped water,
was decorated to resemble in New York's famous peppermint Twist lounge.
Every decatury of flourish in the mansion attested to the
imminent fashion Dorianne's personal sense of style. Bert de Winter
considered her home to be her ultimate accessory. It was
hardly surprising to find that she may not have wanted
to leave it. Bert de Winter died in nineteen seventy two,
and her house sat vacant for a year. When Dawn
and Diane viewed the house, with its handsome brick exterior
and large flower gardens, they thought it had immense personal charm.
According to the Dallas Morning News, they were soon to
find out how personal the charm would be. They purchased
the property, moved in the autumn of nineteen seventy four.
Within days, the couple and their four children realized that
they were not alone. In the news story, Diane described
this first frightening experiences the fourth or fifth night after
we moved in the whole house started creaking really loudly.
At first, we thought it was just that house settling.
In the middle of the night, we heard someone walking
through the dining room. It sounded like a slipper hitting
the back of a foot against the wooden floor. All
at once, the curtains in our bedroom stood straight out,
and we could hear the children screaming and crying from
their rooms. Dawn and I just clung to each other,
frightened to death. We were too terrified to get out
of bed and calm the children. We knew right away
that it was her ghost. Something just told us that
Bert de Winter had announced her continued presence in the house,
and the days and weeks that followed she demonstrated further
that she was not prepared to leave. The distinctive footsteps
and flying curtains occurred nearly every night, and the mouse
began to sense the ghost's presence in every room of
the house. Maybe she was objecting to the drastic changes
that were being made to her home as a mouse
undertook extreme renovations. I remember that I had used a
pickaxe to dig up the black slate floor. Diane said,
seeing her adored peppermint twist lounge treated in such a
way must have enraged Bert Dewinter. She was angry, though
she sometimes had an odd way of showing it. For
one of the ghost's habits was to leave pieces of
her jewelry in various places around the house. It was
never said whether or not the pieces were valuable, but
given Miss de Winter's taste and wealth, they were unlikely
to be. Foe the Mouse often felt Bert de Winter's
presence most strongly when they were planning to entertain. She
was always there when I was arranging a dinner party,
said Diane. It was as if she were saying, let's
see how you're doing today, Diane. I never felt hostility
for her, but she made it known to us that
we could never compete with her extraordinary taste and decorating
and entertaining. There was only one occasion on which Bert
de Winter's ghost showed itself to Diane. Not surprisingly, it
was Diane was formed sitting in the dining room table
for guests. She told the news that she first felt
the spirit near her, then turned and actually saw her.
She noted with interest that the woman who had been
so well known for her exquisite fashion, since appeared to
be simply draped in a sheet, although it was a
French sheet, the most expensive kind, and the Mouth family
was never able to become accustomed to the haunting. We
never stopped being frightened by it, but we would say
to ourselves, what are we going to do? We couldn't
tell our friends or the police. They would have thought
we were crazy. The mouse didn't want to perform an exorcism.
They were afraid of harming Bert de winter spirit, a
cleansing ritual and old folk remedy suggested by a friend,
seemed to be a less violet solution to their paranormal problem.
One night, during a dramatic thunderstorm, the mouse lit a
dozen candles and sprinkled salt in the corners of each room.
After the ritual, the ghostly activity seemed to be subsided,
although the family could still since that Bert de Winter
was with him. After four years, Dawn and Diane decided
to sell their beautiful home. The house was wonderful, said Diane,
but her presence was everywhere. Their oldest child, Blake, agreed,
saying I hated the house from the day we moved
in because it was always her house, not ours. The
Mouse sold the house in nineteen seventy eight to people
who later reported that they did not once experience Bert
de Winter's ghost. It's a good thing when you pay
half a million dollars for our house. You don't want
it to come with the roommate, no matter how cultured
she may be.