Isabel Merriman
July 1, 2025
Janan Boehme
Winchester Mystery House Historian
As a child growing up in New Haven, Connecticut, Sarah Pardee would never have been short of company. She grew up in a large family, with two older sisters, Mary and Nettie, an older brother, Leonard, and two younger sisters, Isabel (Belle) and Estelle. When Sarah migrated to California in the mid-1880s, her sister Mary had already passed away, but her three remaining sisters came to California as well, along with their husbands and children. Although Nettie and her husband Homer Sprague ultimately decided not to stay in California, Sarah, Belle, and Estelle lived out the remainder of their lives in the Golden State.
Of all her sisters, Sarah was closest to Belle, who was four years her junior. Sarah’s feisty little sister was married to Lewis Merriman, and had two children–a daughter, Marian (often called Daisy), and a son, William–named after his uncle, William Winchester.
Two years after buying the land and house near San Jose that would become her life’s work, Sarah bought another property of about 25 acres with a house on it near Mountain View, in what eventually became the town of Los Altos, California. This property she allotted as a home for Belle and her family. Belle and Sarah began enlarging and renovating the home, and it started to look a bit like Sarah’s house near San Jose. Sarah had decided to call her San Jose estate Llanada Villa (Villa on the Plain). The sisters called the place near Mountain View El Sueño –literally “the dream,” though the sisters apparently translated it as “the daydream.”
Sarah’s San Jose home circa 1888. (Courtesy History San Jose)
The Winchester-Merriman house, 1908, showing the remodeled home three years after Sarah sold it. It bears many similarities to the 1888 version of Sarah’s home. (Courtesy of the Los Altos History Museum)
But the Merriman’s life on the new ranch was beset by troubles. The vineyard that Belle’s husband Lewis planted on the ranch was decimated by a phylloxera infestation that hit California. After that, Sarah set the Merrimans up in a garden supply shop in downtown Mountain View. But the Panic of 1893 –a nationwide economic downturn that caused a panic in the stock market and the closure of hundreds of banks all over the country—ultimately led this venture to fail as well. Lewis and Belle had to declare bankruptcy.
The final blow for El Sueño came when the line for the Southern Pacific Railroad was cut right through the property, separating the livestock from the creek at the other end of the place. Sarah and her lawyer tried to fight it, but lost in the end. Belle finally left El Sueño around 1907, when her sister Sarah built her a new home in Palo Alto.
In spite of all this, Belle always seemed undaunted. The product of a progressive family that numbered abolitionists, animal rights activists, and child welfare advocates among its friends, she became known for championing the rights of children, and animals as well. She was also a strong supporter of racial equity, and became the first white member of the local NAACP after she moved to Palo Alto.
Unlike her sister Sarah, Isabel was never afraid of attracting attention. Quite the opposite! In Palo Alto, she was able to give free rein to the activism that filled her soul. She became an elected officer of the Palo Alto Humane Society, and her name was often mentioned in newspaper articles as she performed citizens’ arrests for acts of cruelty to animals, and rescued abused children. She later became Director of the Santa Clara County Humane Society, and was also named the “Special Humane Officer,” investigating children’s cases. She worked to find homes for foster children or abandoned children, and would even bring children to stay in her home until she could find homes for them. One of these abused children eventually became her granddaughter, after being adopted by her daughter Marian.
While Isabel’s activism was very public, Sarah’s philanthropy was quiet and reserved. Sarah would sometimes give donations anonymously, through her lawyer. She gave to a number of worthy causes, including the Red Cross and the Save the Redwoods League. Sarah also supported Isabel’s activism, by literally supporting Isabel, whose work with the Humane Society was unpaid. Sarah’s largest charitable work was the creation of the William Wirt Winchester Annex of the General Hospital Society of Connecticut, in New Haven, for the treatment and care of people suffering from tuberculosis. She felt strongly about helping to fight the disease that had taken the life of her husband years before.
Ultimately, Sarah outlived all five of her siblings. Her younger sister Isabel died unexpectedly after suffering a stroke on June 13, 1920. Sarah succumbed to illness and old age two years later, in September of 1922.
The following spring, Isabel’s daughter Marian took the remains of her mother Isabel and her Aunt Sarah by train back to New Haven to be buried in the Evergreen Cemetery. Sarah was laid to rest beside her husband William and her infant daughter Annie, while Isabel was buried in her parents’ plot. Strangely, no marker was ever placed on Isabel’s grave. But that changed in May of this year, when the Board of Directors of the Winchester Mystery House held a small ceremony and placed a stone to mark Isabel’s final resting place. We hope Sarah and her feisty little sister are resting in peace.
If you’re interested in learning more about Isabel and Sarah, we recommend that you plan a visit to the Los Altos History Museum, where you can experience “Building El Sueño: Isabel Merriman, Sarah Winchester, and the California Dream.” This fascinating exhibit focusing on the two sisters will run from June 26, 2025 to November 30, 2025. Don’t miss it! Learn more here: https://www.losaltoshistory.org/
Yours in history,
Janan Boehme
House Historian, Winchester Mystery House
The new stone placed on Isabel Merriman’s grave in May of 2025, more than a century after her death, by the Winchester Mystery House Board of Directors. Isabel’s daughter moved her mother to the family plot in New Haven in 1923 where her grave was left unmarked from 1923 to 2025.
