Ouija Boards Banned In El Cerrito, CA?
Interesting finds via a recent thread on Richmond Annex (Richmond, CA) neighborhood Nextdoor: a review of old California newspapers reveals that El Cerrito once banned Ouija Boards back in the 1920s. I'll preserve this information here for posterity.
"Ouijamania"
Los Angeles Herald, Volume XLV, Number 107, 5 March 1920
'Ouijamania' Sends 4 Women to State Asylum for Insane
By United Press MARTINEZ, Cal., March 5 — "Ouijamani" has frightened the town of El Cerrito so much that the finger of suspicion is being pointed at every one of its 200 inhabitants.
At a meeting in the town hall last night arrangements were made for alienists to examine all but a few in the town to see if "Ouijamania" has affected their minds. The ouija board will be barred as pernicious.
These developments followed the arrest of seven persons and the finding of a sanity inquest that four of them were insane.
It was declared the ouija board's "mysteriousness" had tainted the minds of four women committed to asylums.
"Seven Italians Became Insane"
Sausalito News, Volume 36, Number 11, 13 March 1920
POLICE BREAK DOORS TO ARREST SPIRITISTS
Priest Gains Entrance to Home First, Then Officers Use Force
San Francisco — Breaking into a house at El Cerrito, just across the county line from Berkeley in Contra Costa county, police officers March 3 took into custody seven Italians who, it is said, had become insane from playing with ouija boards. Those arrested and taken to the insane ward of the county hospital at Martinez were:
Adeline Bottini, 15 years old; Mrs. Sangine Bottini, mother of Adeline; Mrs. Edward Moro, Mrs. Josie Sal davini, Charles Saldavini, Harry Serrario, Louis Serrario
The arrest of the four women and three men forms one of the most unusual stories in the history of spiritism ever bared by the authorities in California.
According to the authorities, Adeline Bottini, fifteen-year-old daughter of Mrs.Bottini, is the direct cause of the derangement of the seven persons because she installed the ouija boards in the house and forced the inmates to hover the mysterious boards day and night. On two occasions twenty-four-hour sittings were held. Five children, the youngest of whom is 2 years old were found in the house. The children's heads had been shaved and the hair burned "to drive evil spirits away," the authorities learned.
On Monday $700 in currency was burned by the occupants of the house in El Cerrito in an effort to cleanse the atmosphere of "evil spirits."
All of the occupants were in poor physical shape and were suffering from lack of nourishment. The children found in the house were in a starving condition when rescued. Neighbors complained to Town Marshal A. H. McKinnon of the strange doings in the house. Complaints were made that children had been lured into the house and kept prisoners.
McKinnon attempted to gain admission and when the people refused to open the door, help was asked of the Richmond police. Inspectors D. V. Shirly and Daniel Cox went to McKinnon's aid. In the meantime McKinnon called Father J. J. Hennessy, pastor of St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Berkeley. Father Hennessy persuaded the people to allow him to enter the house but admission was refused to the police officers.
After Father Hennessy returned to the street, it was decided to break in. Shirly and Cox battered down the rear door while McKinnon broke down the front door. Mrs. Moro. whose husband, Daniel Moro, a blacksmith, died three months ago, screamed a warning not to enter.
"My husband is here and he will kill you," she cried to the officers. Mrs. Moro's daughter, Jennie Moro, was killed two weeks ago on the streets of Richmond by an automobile.
The other women and men did not offer resistance. Four ouija boards were found in the house. Saldavini admitted the occupants of the house had played the ouija boards constantly for the last week, sometimes for twenty-four hours without intermission.
When the officers arrived at the house the occupants told them the ouija boards had demanded the sacrifice of belongings and that evil spirits must be driven from the house.
Adeline Bottini was scantily clad. On March 2 she burned most of her clothes. While waiting to be transferred to the Martinez Hospital the girl attempted to tear from her body what little clothes she had left.
The ouija board, according to Saldavini, told them to make the house a haven for children and by burning the hair and curls of the children the evil spirits would be driven away. The youngest child found in the house was the two-year-old son of Louis Francisco of El Cerrito. The father had missed the child for an hour and was searching up and down the street when the boy was found.
Note: These newspaper articles are in the public domain. Thanks and credit to my Nextdoor neighbors and the California Digital Newspaper Collection, Center for Bibliographic Studies and Research, University of California, Riverside. Text and photographs in this post are Copyleft CC BY-NC-SA 1.0, by me, @zcopley