The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer

by Joyce Reardon

  THE DIARY OF

  ELLEN

  RIMBAUER

  My Life at Rose Red

  EDITED BY

  JOYCE REARDON, PH.D.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  17 APRIL 1907—SEATTLE

  11 MAY 1907—SEATTLE

  18 AUGUST 1907—SEATTLE

  12 NOVEMBER 1907—SEATTLE

  13 NOVEMBER 1907—ABOARD SS OCEAN STAR

  19 NOVEMBER 1907—ABOARD SS OCEAN STAR

  15 DECEMBER 1907—THE SOUTH PACIFIC ISLANDS

  19 APRIL 1908—KENYA, AFRICA

  15 MAY 1908—KENYA, AFRICA

  15 JUNE 1908—CAIRO, EGYPT

  4 JULY 1908—CRETE, GREECE

  9 SEPTEMBER 1908—PARIS, FRANCE

  9 DECEMBER 1908—SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

  CHRISTMAS EVE, 1908—SEATTLE

  16 JANUARY 1909

  13 MARCH 1909—ROSE RED

  14 MARCH 1909—ROSE RED

  16 MARCH 1909—SEATTLE

  1 APRIL 1909—ROSE RED

  9 SEPTEMBER 1909—ROSE RED

  23 SEPTEMBER 1909—ROSE RED

  24 SEPTEMBER 1909—ROSE RED

  27 SEPTEMBER 1909—MADAME LU’S

  16 JANUARY 1910—ROSE RED

  10 JULY 1910—ROSE RED

  9 APRIL 1911—ROSE RED

  21 MAY 1911—ROSE RED

  23 JUNE 1912—ROSE RED

  24 JUNE 1912—ROSE RED

  23 JULY 1912—ROSE RED

  10 NOVEMBER 1912—ROSE RED

  4 SEPTEMBER 1914—ROSE RED

  4 SEPTEMBER 1914—ROSE RED, EVENING …

  5 SEPTEMBER 1914—ROSE RED

  10 OCTOBER 1914—ROSE RED

  12 OCTOBER 1914—ROSE RED

  THANKSGIVING DAY, 1914—ROSE RED

  20 FEBRUARY 1915—ROSE RED

  26 FEBRUARY 1915—ROSE RED

  13 MARCH 1915—ROSE RED

  9 SEPTEMBER 1915—ROSE RED

  12 SEPTEMBER 1915—ROSE RED

  17 FEBRUARY 1917—ROSE RED

  3 A.M.—ROSE RED (SUKEENA’S CHAMBERS)

  20 FEBRUARY 1917—ROSE RED

  22 FEBRUARY 1917—ROSE RED

  13 MARCH 1917—ROSE RED

  1 APRIL 1917—ROSE RED

  9 MARCH 1918—ROSE RED

  19 JUNE 1921—ROSE RED

  16 NOVEMBER 1921

  9 JUNE 1922—ROSE RED

  19 FEBRUARY 1928

  AFTERWORD

  19 FEBRUARY 1923—ROSE RED

  26 FEBRUARY 1923

  1 MARCH 1923

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT

  Joyce Reardon

  Department of Paranormal Phenomena

  Beaumont University

  Seattle, WA

  Dear Reader:

  In the summer of 1998, at an estate sale in Everett, Washington, I purchased a locked diary covered in dust, writings I believed to be those of Ellen Rimbauer. Beaumont University’s Public Archive Department examined the paper, the ink and the binding and determined the diary to be authentic. It was then photocopied at my request.

  Ellen Rimbauer’s diary became the subject of my master’s thesis and has haunted me ever since. (Excuse the pun!) John and Ellen Rimbauer were among the elite of Seattle’s turn-of-the-century high society. They built an enormous private residence at the top of Spring Street that became known as Rose Red, a structure that has been the source of much controversy. In a forty-one-year period at least twenty-six individuals either lost their lives or disappeared within its walls.

  Ellen Rimbauer’s diary, excerpts of which I offer here, set me on a personal course of discovery that has led to the launching of an expedition. Shortly I will lead a team of experts in psychic phenomena through the doors of Rose Red, the Rimbauer Estate, in an effort to awaken this sleeping giant of psychic power and to solve some of the mysteries my mentor, Max Burnstheim, was unable to solve before he went missing in Rose Red in 1970. (I never met Dr. Burnstheim, but I consider his writings the most progressive in the field of psychic phenomena.)

  THE FOLLOWING ARE EXCERPTS TAKEN FROM ELLEN RIMBAUER’S DIARY, DATED 1907–1928. ANY AND ALL EDITING HAS BEEN DONE AT MY DISCRETION. SOME EFFORT HAS BEEN MADE TO PROTECT THE INTEGRITY OF MRS. RIMBAUER AND HER DESCENDANTS, THOUGH NEVER AT THE COST OF CONTENT. WHAT FOLLOWS ARE THE WORDS OF ELLEN RIMBAUER, IN HER OWN HAND, WITH AS FEW EDITORIAL COMMENTS AS POSSIBLE.

  —JOYCE REARDON, NOVEMBER 2000

  17 APRIL 1907—SEATTLE

  Dear Diary:

  I find it a somewhat daunting task to endeavor to place my thoughts here inside your trusted pages, I scarcely know if I am up to the task, but as my head is filled with lurid thoughts, and my heart with romance and possibility, I find I must confide in someone, and so it is to your pages I now turn. I have lived these nineteen years in full premonition of that time when a man would come into my heart, into my life, and thrill me with love, passion and romance. That time has now come. I swoon just thinking of John Rimbauer, and some of my thoughts are not at all becoming of the lady I am expected to be.

  My physical desire does at times possess me. Am I influenced by my reading of popular novels, as my mother is wont to say, or am I sinful, as my father has implied (no, not with words, but by branding me with his raised eyebrows and scolding brow)?

  I must admit here too to the simultaneous impression that danger lurks within an arm’s reach. Death. Dread. Destruction. Born of guilt, I wonder, for the unladylike fantasies to which I succumb when alone in the dark? (Or is the source of these images something, some force entirely exterior of myself, as I am prone to believe?) Does another world exist? For it seems to me it must: a force apart from human experience. A power, all of its own, and not one familiar with the God to whom I pray. Something darker, external, other-worldly. Something altogether unknown. It lurks in the shadows. I feel its presence.

  I would be lying here if I did not admit to a certain thrill this looming sense of the future, of the unknown, affords me, both the unknown of what John Rimbauer’s touch might bring to my life, as well as this sense of a larger, darker force at play.

  John Rimbauer is a partner in a large oil company, Omicron Oil, along with a Mr. Douglas Posey, an affable, quiet gentleman whose company I’ve had the good fortune to keep, along with that of his wife, Phillis. Oil, I’m told, holds great promise as a fuel for lighting homes, and perhaps someday even heating them. John says that oil water heaters for the home are all the rage in the East. Kerosene is being used in motorcars. I hope someday to perhaps take the train with John back to Detroit, where he does business with the Rockefellers. Oh, but my head spins with such fancy: dinner with John D., himself! A banker’s daughter from Seattle, Washington! And yet … I sense the world is about to unfold at my fingertips. John is the key to that world. I feel certain we are to be engaged within the month. Dare I say that with such honesty? Only here in your pages, Dear Diary!

  John has ordered the construction of a grand house. Grander than any house in all the state, perhaps in all the land. He tells me of it often, as if it is to play a significant role in my life as well, which I now feel (nearly) certain it will. (I am blushing as I write this!) He has offered me a motorcar ride to the construction site, and I have accepted. Within the week we shall ride together to what may prove to be the site of our future happiness together. (One hopes for happiness. This dread I feel—will it too play a role? I can only hope and pray that this sense of impending doom will be overcome by the light and love my future husband and I shall share.)

  11 MAY 1907—SEATTLE

  With trembling hand, I find myself reluctant to record in your pages the horribl
e events of this day. Several weeks have passed since my last entry, weeks given to one delay after another brought on by John’s business affairs (or so I’m told), my own infirmity (a woman’s monthly “ritual of roses” as my mother refers to it) and John’s apparent inability to arrange a convenient time for the two of us to visit the construction site. At last that time was set, for to-day, this very day, and I awaited John’s arrival on the front steps of my family home with what can only be described as a beating breast. Such anticipation!

  Much to my disappointment (and to my mother’s, too, all things confessed) an offer of betrothal has not been received. Certainly not by me, nor has John approached my father (my mother has informed me in the strictest of confidences) with any discussion of dowry. My, but the weeks have crawled by slowly. Twice, I’ve been told by trusted friends that John’s motorcar, or one just like it, was spotted late, late at night on the high road between the city’s loading wharfs and the Hill where John currently makes his residence. I am confident that these excursions can be easily explained by the importing of barrels of oil to those wharfs—as this happens at all hours, night and day. But of course a tiny part of the woman in me fears another truth altogether, as that part of town is known for its debaucheries. Who is this man I hope to marry? I scarcely know!

  My fears have found their way into my prayers, and I find myself in sin, making silent requests to the powers that surround us to punish John Rimbauer if any transgressions be known. Just last week, as I made such a “dark prayer” at the side of my bed, an enormous wind—quite like nothing I’ve ever seen—took wing and delivered not only a branch but an entire tree to my window, shattering glass and throwing debris as it was ripped from its roots. Oddly, no other tree in our yard was affected, nor did any neighbor report any such wind. I attribute that reckoning to the very substantial power of prayer, though my mother calls such reasoning foolish, despite her being a woman of Christ. Dear Diary, let me tell you this: if that tree had anything whatsoever to do with my prayer, it had nothing to do with Christ. On that evening, neither Christ, nor God, were in my prayers. Oh faint of heart, dare not read on. For it was to Him I prayed. The other Him. The other side. For if transgressions have been made, then John Rimbauer has already switched his allegiance, whether aware of it or not. It is to His Power that I pray.

  I have taken a moment to lock the door. (I am staying these nights in my sister’s room while repairs continue to my own.) Increasingly, I feel as if someone is reading over my shoulder as I write. John? My mother? I know not. But it is a disturbing notion, and one that requires of me certain precautions to which I have now dedicated myself. I not only lock the binding of this diary, but I secure it safely in a locked drawer as well, the small keys kept around my neck, and hidden down my dress, on a silver necklace once worn by my great-grandmother Gilchrist. Certain small oddities, events unexplained, continue to perplex me and drive me to these precautions. (Just yesterday my hairbrush switched sides of the sink, all of its own, as I ran water on my face. I swear it’s true! I lifted my head to find the brush available to the left hand, when only moments before it had been held in my right!) Some furniture has been found out of place. One of my dresser drawers stuck yesterday (the one bearing love letters from John) and would not come open, even under the efforts of Pilchert, our butler. To-day, I’m told Pilchert will remove the back of the dresser in an effort to reach the drawer’s contents. If taken individually, not one of these small events would matter to me. But collectively? Are they to be ignored? I find myself both terrified and thrilled—so perhaps I am to blame, not only for my sinful prayers to the other Power but for my innate curiosity and fascination with the other-worldly quality of these apparently disconnected events. The Devil’s due, do you suppose?

  But wait! To the events of this day!

  John Rimbauer picked me up this morning at 10 A.M. in an automobile made by Olds. It is one of only a few such vehicles in all the city. The buggy was quite loud, and the experience altogether exhilarating, though bumpy and somewhat terrifying at times. John drove—I believe quite well, though who am I to know? West on Spring Street to the site of the construction that preoccupies him. The trip consumed some fifteen minutes—the house is to be built atop a hill that overlooks the city. Twice I was nearly thrown out the side (or so I imagined! John assured me I was safe all along.).

  John Rimbauer, ruggedly handsome, is a pragmatic man (which possibly accounts for his success in the oil business), extremely sure of himself and even given to moments of conceit. He remains calm in the face of adversity, whether a four-horse team blocking the road or a storm on the high seas. (John is extremely well traveled, having visited Asia, the Americas and Europe.) I find his strength both comforting and disarming, in that John is often an unpredictable mixture of tolerance and intolerance. I have never been on the receiving end of his ill temper, but woe to those who are. Of course I don’t wish to be, nor will I tolerate such ferocity directed at me or our children. (Just the thought of children floods me with a keen, passionate warmth, the likes of which I’ve only read about in my novels. Perhaps Mother is right!) I should like to relate here my recollection of an exchange we had on the trip over.

  “John, dear,” I said, “do you suppose I should have offended my mother by my refusal of a chaperone?”

  “You’re a grown woman of nineteen, El.” (I love this nickname for me he has chosen!) “Your mother was married and with her second child by the time she was your age. I doubt very much you could do anything to shock her.”

  “You don’t know her as I do,” I said.

  “I am twice your age. I should imagine that concerns your parents. Especially as to my intentions.” He lowered his eyes to me, running them down the full length of my dress to where I felt faint. He understands full well this power he has over me, uses it playfully, but on this occasion—and there have been others, truth be told—it was not so much playful as provocative, and he made no effort to disguise or conceal his lust. I felt certain of it at the time. And what was I to do? I giggled, all nerves, of course. Blushed no doubt. I felt the heat in my cheeks. But I kept my chin high and my eyes on the muddy road ahead.

  “And what are your intentions?” I asked, suppressing a smile.

  “To ravish you, of course. To pluck your innocence from the vine of youth and leave you for the next man to marry.”

  “And my father will come after you with axe and rope.”

  “And you? Will you refuse me?”

  “Your so-called ravishing, of course. Until we are married.”

  “Engaged or married?”

  “We’ve had other … fun, John Rimbauer.” Certainly I must have blushed again for I felt it in my face. We had touched. We had kissed. His strong hands knew the shape of my bosom (though never skin to skin!). Once, while dancing, he had pressed himself to me and I had known of his arousal. But he had yet to know of mine. Mother’s cautions of “a lady’s behavior” fall flat on my ears. She lived in another time. All the girls talk of touching their men—of pleasing them, if for no other reason in an effort to quell their desires and protect their own virginity, that most sacred of marriage rites. John’s age perhaps has accounted for no such need on my part. He is experienced. I treasure his worldliness, and believe it affords me much opportunity.

  “And more to come,” he said. “I trust we both will find …,” he searched for his words, “great reward in marriage.”

  “John!” I blurted out, like some sniveling twelve-year-old. “Marriage?”

  “Patience, my dear. Never push me. Never challenge my decisions. If you hold to these two virtues, we will never have a single quarrel, you and I. I am lord and master of my house. I have worked long and hard to earn not only a small fortune but the right to stake out my own territory, and that territory includes opinion. You understand that, don’t you, dearest?”

  “Yes, John.”

  “No reservations.”

  “None.”

  “Because I am
well aware of suffrage, and have no quarrel with a person’s striving for individual freedoms. More power to them. But not in my home, you understand? You will find I can be a most generous, most loving partner, my dear. But just ask Mr. Posey what happens when my partners betray my trust or break agreements. I am offering you many things in sharing a life with me. Freedom is not necessarily one of them.”

  “John Rimbauer, are you proposing marriage to me?” This, I fear, is all I was thinking. All that I heard. Only now as I write down my recollection of events, only now as I recall those words of his clearly, do I feel their full import.

  “Patience, my dear. Patience.” A smug smile. I felt for sure I knew what this day held in store. As it turned out, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Neither John, nor I, could have possibly foreseen events as they were about to unfold.

  The property John purchased to hold his mansion, his grand statement of achievement and success, is nothing short of spectacular. It is crowned with a tall forest of cedar and pine, and workers have cleared nearly six of the forty acres to hold the house—if something so large can be called that! (I could not believe the plans John showed me!) Though well out of the city, the house sits at the muddy end of Spring Street. From this location, one can see the entire city below. Spectacular! Just west of the property is a tract that I’m told runs all the way to Canada, and south as far as Mexico. How my imagination runs wild with the thought: one road spanning the entire country. Just think! The redwood forests. San Francisco. Los Angeles, where they are now making films. (Not quite two years ago, when a traveling projectionist brought it to town, I saw Le Voyage dans la Lune [A Trip to the Moon], adapted from the novel by Jules Verne—I loved this book! The film was fifteen minutes long, the longest ever made at the time, and was shown at Father’s bank, of all places, because it had the largest white wall that could be found.) I adore motion pictures, simply love actors and actresses and hope that John and I will include them as our guests when we make our home together—but I’m getting ahead of myself! The property is accessed from the west. John parked the Olds quite some distance from the construction—a gigantic hole in the ground is all!—and, bless his heart, had had workers lay a string of redwood planks, wide enough to walk upon, so I might avoid the mud and ooze. Horse-drawn wagons came and went, burdened and brimming with materials ordered by the foreman, Williamson, a big, Irish-looking man with florid cheeks, a broad mustache and a surly disposition. He did not appreciate a woman being on the premises, I can tell you that. (He made several insinuations upon my arrival, that is until dear John led him aside by the elbow and had words with him, after which he ignored me with full contempt though was loath to outwardly reveal his disapproval of me. I can only wonder now if this brief altercation with my beloved, an altercation that resulted from my attendance there, had something to do with the events that would soon transpire. Oh, Good Lord, pray let it not be so! Nay, do not curse me with the burden of lost life!)