LORETTA

AND

THE

WELL
Do you believe in spirits? I really can't say that I do but there are many around the canyon interested in studying this phenomenon and learning more.

I had an acquaintance out for lunch one day and as she was looking around the living room, I assumed she was admiring my shelves full of stuff. Soon she said "my, we have a lot of spirits visiting us today" and even gave a name or two. Silly me, I never wrote down the names. I said they were not taking over MY house and she said they were very friendly and would not really pose any threat but that all one has to do is say "leave" and normally they will! Whatever.

She was out again one evening telling more tales to my husband (who does believe by the way) and her husband (who does not believe by the way) and I were struggling over a computer problem in the office. She named the spirits in attendance that night and told my husband in great detail about the old hunter Arthur and his dog. Arthur was in a plaid shirt. My husband swears he has seen Arthur and the dog. The other, a 14 year old girl named Loretta who had lived across the street and had come this way often for water from the well was rather impish and would move things around. This much I believe. When we can't find something, we yell Loretta, give it back! But, being skeptical, I figured that was that, we don't have a well. My husband had mentioned this around the neighborhood on several occasions and everyone knew he had an interest.

Moving right along, several or more months later, the next door neighbor who definitely felt spirits were among us came over and said that a nice young couple with a small son were buying her house and the county was making them cap the well. She said that she wanted us to have the well wheel."

Whoops, a well within just a few feet of our house?

I still don't know what to tell you but we did have a Society group out who scanned the house and asked questions on a recorder and swore they heard answers. That night my friend said Loretta, Arthur and dog were on the front porch. I guess just too much going on inside.

In Theodore Payne's wonderful book "Life on the Modjeska Ranch in the Gay Nineties", he tells of the dry Winter of 1893/94. Madame had such great roses and he was not about to let them die. Read his own words.

"The Winter of 1893 and 1894 was very dry. I do not remember how much rain we had but it seems to me it was less than six inches. The following summer consequently found us short of water. About a quarter of a mile up the canyon was a small spring and it was the general opinion that by tunneling into the hillside a supply of water could be developed. So Mr. Ruopp (the Ranch Foreman) hired a miner named Joe Ernwright to come and drill this tunnel. Joe worked at it for quite awhile, several months I believe it was. Every night at the supper table he would tell us what kind of a day he had had and how much progress he had made with the tunnel. Some days he did better than others but always according to his story, the little stream of water had increased. Some days it would be a quarter of an inch, some days more. If the results had only been half as good as he claimed there would have been plenty of water to supply the whole place. But, alas when the tunnel had been driven seventy-five feet or more into the hillside, the amount of water was actually the same as when it was started, so the project had to be abandoned.

In a side canyon, above the present dam was an old water system which had been abandoned when the present dam was built. The pipes were still there but disconnected in several places. Johnnie Hare (a young Polish boy who worked on the Ranch) went to work and repaired this old pipe line and we had water for awhile. But, as the summer season advanced, this supply gave out.

In front of the Modjeska home was a well with two oaken buckets. The Ranch provided me with a team, a light wagon and three large barrels and I hauled water from this well to water the roses and shrubs. It was very slow work, drawing the water up a bucket at a time from the well, emptying it into a barrel, then baling it out again and carrying it to each plant, but it was the only way I could keep things alive. The first day I worked at it all morning and started again after lunch. By 2 o'clock the well was empty. The next day I emptied the well before noon and a few days later by 11 o'clock. After about three weeks I could empty this well before breakfast. So I had to find a new source of supply".

(All of that story to get to the good part ....)

"A short distance away, where the canyon forks to go up to the Harding place was an old shack and a well. From this well I could draw three barrels of water, then I would have to wait an hour or so for the water to seep in again. I made four trips a day, three barrels to the trip. After a few weeks I threw out one barrel and later on tossed out the second one. Toward the end of the summer all the water I could get was one barrel four times a day."

Is this Loretta's well? Is the well wheel from "this" well? Did he keep Madame's roses alive with "our" water .... whooooooooo knows.

We do know that Madame had roses abounding until the time came that she had to sell her dear Arden.

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