
In 1904, Winchester purchased a large property near the hamlet of Burlingame, north of Coyote Point, then bought a houseboat, or ark as they were called at the time, instead of building a house. Winchester subsequently purchased a home for the couple closer to the train station for Fredrick to travel to work from. One of the homes was offered to Daisy and her new husband to live in, which they accepted. That same year, Winchester purchased several homes and properties in Atherton. In 1903, Winchester paid for Daisy's wedding to Frederick Marriott III. They attended charitable events together and were paying members of Associated Charities and the Red Cross. Merriman became Winchester's administrative assistant, looking after business correspondence and banking. In 1890, Winchester's niece, Daisy Merriman aged around twenty-one, came to live with her. Since the property reminded her of Llanada Alavesa from the Basque area, she named her new home Llanada Villa. She purchased the property from John Hamm which included a two-story, eight-room farmhouse. He showed her a forty-five-acre ranch for sale that was located near San Jose. In 1886 Edward "Ned" Rambo, a San Francisco agent for the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, took Winchester on a tour of the Santa Clara valley to look for a home. Winchester invited her three remaining sisters to follow her to California, which they did. Winchester, Heiress to the Rifle Fortune, her doctor's recommendation, her happy memories of traveling to San Francisco with her husband in the 1870s, and advertising about the weather and health benefits of California were possible factors in Winchester's decision to move. According to Mary Jo Ignoffo in her book Captive of the Labyrinth: Sarah L. In 1885, at the age of 46, Winchester moved to California from New Haven, Connecticut.

Around this time she began developing rheumatoid arthritis and her doctor suggested that a warmer and drier climate might help improve her health. In 1884 her eldest sister, Mary Converse died. She was left with a large inheritance from her husband. īetween the fall of 1880 and the spring of 1881, Winchester's mother, father-in-law, and husband died. Diagnosed with marasmus, she did not thrive and only lived a month. In 1866, Winchester gave birth to a girl named Annie Pardee Winchester. She married William Wirt Winchester in 1862.


Sarah Winchester, always called Sallie, after her paternal grandmother, was born in 1839 in New Haven, Connecticut.
