The High Society Ghost

In the upper-class University Park section of Dallas, Texas on quiet, tree-shaded Amherst Lane, is a nice, well-kept, but otherwise unremarkable 14-room home. Most of the home is impossible to see from the street due to the lush landscape and healthy trees on the property. Until she died in 1972, it was owned by Bert DeWinter, one of Dallas' highest of High Society and, apparently, she refuses to leave the home she loved even today.


For over 30 years, Bert was the head of the millinery department at the original Neiman Marcus store in downtown Dallas. At a time when women's hats could be as expensive as furs and were considered to be an absolute must for the well-dressed woman, anybody who was anybody came to Mrs. DeWinter for her to pick a hat for them. Bert was always immaculately groomed and exquisitely attired. Everything she did was with flare and perfect taste. When she bought something, she only purchased the finest. She had her dry cleaning packaged and sent to be done at The Ritz in Paris. Financially, she was very well off and often appeared in the high society pages of the papers and magazines as having entertained the rich and famous at her beautifully decorated home. Powerful politicians, foreign heads of state, actors and actresses, writers, poets and power brokers were the usual guests of honor. She was well-known for being a lavish hostess and having perfectly orchestrated dinner parties. An invitation to a Bert DeWinter dinner party was coveted by all.

At one such party, a certain up and coming Dallas politician and his wife were invited. The wife, being several weeks overdue in her pregnancy, tried to decline, but she was told it was just a small dinner and besides, one did not refuse a Bert DeWinter dinner invitation if one wanted to keep or enhance one's position on the society ladder. Knowing the importance of the invitation to her husband's career, she accepted in spite of her physical distress and hideous maternity wardrobe. Arriving precisely at the appointed time of 5:30, the couple was escorted in and the husband was given his first drink of the evening while a fruit drink was given the wife. By 6:30, sixteen more guests had arrived for the "small dinner" and the husband was on his 3rd drink. By 8:30, dinner had still not been served and it was obvious the husband should have stopped at least 1 drink ago. When the guests were escorted to the formal dining room at 10:30, the husband had to be helped by the staff and was in danger of nodding off into the soup.

Just as the main course was being served, the soon to be mother began having labor pains. An older lady seated next to her whispered that she needed to see her in the powder room. They made it to a bedroom where the lady told her, "I can see you need to go have a baby and you need to go now!" After suffering through another pain, the wife agreed. The older lady went back to the dining room and announced, "This girl needs to get to the hospital to have her baby now. Somebody needs to drive her." Sitting at the head of the table, Mrs. DeWinter was heard to mutter, "Can't she wait?"

The husband came out of his near stupor and said he could do it. None of the other guests dared leave Bert's party so one of the staff was assigned to facilitate getting the girl to the hospital. Once in the car though, the husband demanded the staff person leave as he was the husband and he would be the one to drive his wife to the hospital. Just 2 blocks into the drive however, it was painfully obvious the husband was in no condition to drive so the wife persuaded him to pull over and she drove herself. They made it safely, but by the time the wife parked the car, the husband was passed out in the seat and his wife couldn't wake him. She walked into the hospital and had her baby alone. The husband didn't see the baby until he woke up and stumbled into the hospital the next morning. The couple was never invited to another Bert DeWinter dinner and the husband's political career died. The wife blames it all on Bert, saying, "She never forgave me for interrupting her dinner."

In the 1960's as Bert got older, some of the upkeep to the house began to slide. After a short illness, she passed away in 1972 and her once beautiful home which still contained many of the antique furniture pieces sat empty for over a year before a prominent tax attorney named Don purchased it for him and his family. The house was in a pretty run down condition and needed extensive work before it could be occupied again. The wife, Diane, a professional photographer and writer, took charge of the restoration work. Walls were stripped of their elegant, but faded wallpaper; the black slate floor in one room was ripped up and replaced with wood. In general, spirits do not like change and Bert must have been particularly upset over the way her home was being changed. During the modification, the worker's tools would often come up missing one day only to appear again the next morning right where they had been left. Power saws would quit working for no reason that could be found and then work perfectly several minutes or hours later. Without giving a reason, several Hispanic workers refused to work in the house after dark. Eventually though, the renovation was completed and the new owners and their four children moved in.

Not long afterwards, the family began to hear footsteps downstairs in the dining room at night when they were all in their beds upstairs. It sounded like someone who was wearing flip flops or open-heeled house-slippers was slowly walking back and forth, back and forth. Don, with a protective baseball bat in hand, investigated the first few times the pacing was heard, but the sound would stop as soon as he turned on the lights or entered the dining room. He never found anyone and the family, for the most part, learned to accept it and sleep through it. The house began to creak and occasionally pop very loudly. It was thought to be just the usual settling of a house with the usual creaking and popping of boards, but the only time it happened would be at 3:00 AM. Paranormal investigations have shown that for some reason, 3:00 AM is the time ghosts are normally most active. One day, the youngest child screamed in fright. Diane ran to her room and burst in to find her child sitting on the bed staring at the curtains which were standing straight out! The weather was calm and besides, the window the curtains covered were closed and locked. A few seconds after Diane ran into the room, the curtains dropped back to their hanging position. The young child told her mom it was "the lady who comes to watch her." Another child told her a woman comes into her room at night and stands at the foot of her bed watching her. The child would cover her head with the sheet until morning. All four children said they hated the night because that's when "that woman" would come into their rooms. Pieces of jewelry which did not belong to Diane would often simply show up on the fireplace mantel or the dining room table or on the kitchen counter or a side table in the living room. Several times Diane, upon finding the jewelry, took it upstairs and placed it in her jewelry box and closed the lid. The next time she had occasion to be in the box, nothing would be disturbed, but the piece in question would be gone.

The family endured this for almost a full year. While the disturbances frightened them, they all said they felt like the spirit wouldn't actually harm them, it just wanted to be in charge. Whenever the owners threw a party, the wife said she always felt like she wasn't alone; that there was a presence with her. She didn't feel threatened, but had the distinct feeling that whatever she did in preparation for the party just wasn't good enough. "I just felt like she was telling me that no matter how nice we had fixed up the house, we could never compete with her excellent taste in decorating and entertaining."

On a trip to New York City, Diane was introduced to a lady who had lived in Dallas and had been a close friend to Bert. As they talked, Diane told her she thought their home was haunted by Mrs. DeWinter. When she described the footsteps as being the sound of flip-flops, the lady exclaimed, "That has to be Bert! She always wore "mules" (a heelless shoe in fashion back then) when she was home. Diane went on to describe several pieces of the jewelry which showed up out of the blue and the lady confirmed they were owned by none other than her friend Bert DeWinter. 

Not long afterward, the family reached their breaking point and even though they were no longer particular upset about the spirit which lived in their house with them, they were annoyed enough by all the strange happenings that they consulted a priest about cleansing the house. Told it would take an exorcism, they were concerned such a rite would somehow harm or anger Bert so they didn't take the advice. Then a friend told them about an old folk remedy for curing a haunting. That same night, they went home with a 12-candle candelabra that was made with wrought iron and had angels in the design and walked through the house, the candles flickering, while they sprinkled salt in every corner. As they performed this ritual, s thunderstorm began to rage outside.

The family didn't hear the house creaking or popping that night and over time, the curtains stopped standing straight out, the children were no longer visited in the night and even the footsteps came less and less. Even so, the family decided to sell and move to a newly constructed home which, hopefully, would have only them living in it, a house they could call their own home. The current owners of the beautiful home on Amherst Lane say they have not heard footsteps or seen curtains sticking straight out. They have not experienced anything of a haunting nature at all actually. They are confused, however, with occasionally finding a piece of beautiful jewelry in the house which they do not own. They say the jewelry is probably just pieces left behind by different guests after they attended a party in the house. They are not sure why none of their guests claims ownership though and they have no explanation as to how the found jewelry somehow always gets misplaced and simply disappears, seemingly into thin air.