We recently had hardwood floors installed in the house while we were on vacation. We moved all the furniture into the garage ourselves. After coming back from a relaxing 8 days on Maui we hired movers to bring all the furniture back in. The movers were fascinated by what they called the “Dracula Chair”. An old family chair we have always called the “Spooky Chair” pictured below with our cat Sofia. So during the last few days of vacation before returning to work I decided to see what I could find out about the chair.
The family oral history of the chair says it came to my Great Grandmother from a hotel in South Dakota that was going out of business in the late 1800’s. All I had to go on was a partial label under the seat of the chair. That lead me to the “Michigan Chair Co.“. During my search I found a similar chair. So the family oral history may be a bit off on the time frame and the chair may really be more 1930’s than late 1800’s. Now if I could only convince my mothers cousin’s family to part with the matching chair!!
Also, I think that those movers have forever renamed the spooky chair to the Dracula chair.
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- Spooky Chair with our cat Sofia
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- Label under spooky chair
So a personal story about this chair, my grandmother used to keep this chair in the guest bedroom at her home in Wyoming. A a kid when visiting I would “try” to sleep in that room. As you can imagine this chair is the stuff of a child’s nightmare. Some crazy ancestor of mine had also added red rhinestone’s to the eyes. Just imagine trying to close your eyes and sleep at age 7 with this thing in the corner, with long shadows and the moonlight catching the blood red eyes. Did I mention that my grandmother passed away October 31, 2000? Yes, Halloween night…
