Ghosthunting Southern California. Sally Richards
about what ghosts are, and why they’re still here, and what to call them, but unless you hear it directly from them you’re not going to have a definitive answer,” says Santana. “You go with the obvious answer; it’s probably the Whaleys—it is their home. There’s no reason why it wouldn’t be them—they had their good times and they had their tragedies here, but it’s still their home.”
Santana has experienced quite a bit of paranormal activity over the years. His first experience happened on his first night locking up alone. “I was locking up one night after a private tour with a newlywed couple. It was about eleven. I was nearly done when I heard footsteps upstairs, and I thought, ‘This isn’t good—it’s my first night—someone must have snuck in.’ So I went upstairs to see what was going on, and there was no one up there. I came back and the footsteps starting sounding so real and so loud that I actually called my boss at the time and I told her, ‘I think the house is really haunted.’ She asked, ‘What are you still doing there?’ And I told her that I was locking up and still hearing noises like someone is still here. She told me to just set the alarm and lock up. As I’m setting the alarm, I heard a woman’s voice whisper, ‘Why are you still here?’
“For all the years I’ve been here, I’ve not heard anything else … .” Santana shrugs. “But I’ve heard recordings of the voices in the house. The San Diego Ghost Hunters do EVP sessions here [see El Campo Santo chapter]. I’m not a ghosthunter, but I do believe in ghosts. I think it’s really cool what they [ghosthunters] do. I listened to a recording where the San Diego Ghost Hunters ask, ‘Thomas Whaley, are you here?’ ‘Anna Whaley, are you here?’ And then they say, ‘Maybe it’s the little girl who lives here?’ When you listen back you can clearly hear a little girl answering Yes or No questions so close to the microphone, it’s like she’s in the same room.”
As is everyone connected to the Whaley House, Santana is very respectful of the property and the spirits residing there. “Don’t base what you’re going to do on what you see on television,” says Santana to visitors of the Whaley House. “A lot of people come in here and try to offend the ghosts and yell out at them. You don’t go to someone’s house and cuss or call them out.”
Dean Glass, administrative manager of SOHO, had an experience that brought him face-to-face with the master of the house. One thing about all the people working with the Whaley House is that they’re credible witnesses that don’t seem to be the type who see spirits everywhere. I’ve seen many who lie their way through a story, and this is not what they’re about. Each has only a handful of stories for the length of time they’ve been working at the house, and all of them preface their stories with a type of story that explains how they wouldn’t believe their own stories had they not lived through them themselves.
“It’s been about six years now,” said Glass of the morning that gave him a story that still gave him goose bumps (I noticed) when he told it. “I was opening up the house one morning and walking up the stairs, and I noticed out of the corner of my eye something that looked like pants legs in between the rails. I cocked my head and looked up—and there was a man standing there. His hands were outstretched on the railing at the top, and he was staring straight at me. He had really distinctive eyes—if you look at the portrait of Thomas Whaley in the parlor, they were the same eyes … really piercing. Lillian Whaley used to call them the ‘Intelligent Whaley eyes’ [see whaleyhouse.org to find out more; Lillian’s papers are now available there]. He was just staring right at me. He startled me because no one was supposed to be there. He wore a wide-brimmed hat, but I couldn’t see the style of the hat because I just saw from underneath. He was shades of gray; I don’t remember if I could see through him or not. He had a look on his face like he was wondering about who I was and why I was there. And the next moment he was gone. Another thing I remember is that he was in his mid-twenties; not an older man like Thomas Whaley was when he died, but I always got the feeling it was Thomas Whaley.
“I always say hello to anyone who may be seeing or hearing me,” said Glass. “And every time I go up the stairs—every time—I always look to see if he’s there. All these years later, and I still look for him.”
Facility Manager Robert Daniel Wilson has worked at the house for three years and is a favorite of tourists because he seems to know everything about the property and the Whaley family.
“I always say that my experiences are very limited because I’m not very sensitive to the paranormal aspect of the house. I just get the basic things that someone would get if you’re in the right place at the right time,” says Wilson. “They’re [the ghosts] not evil, believe me—if people were getting hurt here, I wouldn’t be working here. The spirits here are intelligent, and I believe they know what’s going on here. For instance, Thomas Whaley knows that the money spent on tickets here helps keep the house in its present condition. He understands this because he used to do the same thing by renting out the rooms in his home.
“I was working here one Friday morning when a woman poked her head in and asked what the house was all about. I gave her a brief history. She spoke with a very thick French accent and was difficult to understand, but she told me she’d be back. She brought back eight foreign-exchange students, and in about thirty minutes her group was in the courtroom and they seemed to be having a good time touring the home. On her way out, she thanked me and told me she’d be back on Sunday with more students. I told her we’d look forward to seeing them.
“She was back on Sunday with more students, and they were in the courtroom and she kept asking the same question over and over again, but I couldn’t understand her. One of the other docents came in and we figured out she was asking if we could ‘do it again’ over and over. Well, we didn’t know what she was talking about. Then she looked back in the courtroom and smiled and nodded at us. Apparently, the last time she’d come in, the chandelier was swinging, and she thought we’d rigged something to do that. And when she looked back in the courtroom, the chandelier was swinging again—she thought we’d done it! She willed it to happen on her own. I like to think people have different levels of spiritual attractiveness; just like we’re attracted to people with similar interests, so are spirits. I think that would explain a lot.”
Carrie Higginson, former gift-shop manager, worked on the property for four years and recalled an incident similar to one described in the Creole Café chapter. “I was running in between the gift shop and the Whaley House porch, and on the far left side in between the first two pillars—when you’re facing the street—I slipped and my arms went up in the air and my feet went flying out from under me facing the avenue. I thought I was going to break my head on the bricks—I should have broken my head on the bricks because of the way I was landing. Instead, I brushed myself off and hoped that no one had seen me. The next day, my coworker pointed out I had a bruise on my arm that looked like a handprint—it was a right-hand imprint on my right arm, so I had a thumb-bruise outline going diagonally and four finger outlines on the outside of my arm. I thought the bruise was dirt; I poked it in a few places, but there was no pain whatsoever. It freaked me out, and I still don’t presume to know what happened.
“A lot of my coworkers will give personalities to the ghosts. I’m not quite ready to do that … well, except for the ones in the gift shop. I notice if I don’t say goodnight to Mrs. Verna, who was the previous occupant of the home [saved from the wrecking ball and moved to the Whaley Complex Community Park], I have problems with the lock. I mean, it’s the same lock—I use it every day, it’s the same rotation, and sometimes when I don’t say goodnight, it just clicks funny, and I’ll remember that I didn’t say good night. When I remember this and say, ‘Good night, Mrs. Verna,’ the lock is fine again.”
Corinne Lillian Whaley, the youngest child of Thomas and Anna Whaley, wrote about her memories of Old Town, and they were compiled into a book titled California’s Oldest Town (available at the Whaley House gift shop). She used Old Town’s plummet from the up-and-coming to the dilapidated place it became as a metaphor of her own mortality. The book is a wonderful collection of her memories growing up in the Whaley home,