Helen Peters Nosworthy (1851-1940) was an American spiritualist and medium who named and helped patent the ouija board and is now known as the Mother of the Ouija Board.[1]
Early life
editHelen Peters was born in 1851.[2] Her affluent family was part of Southern society had many ties to the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. Helen and her siblings would often take buttons from dead soldiers after battles.[3]
Ouija Board
editThe spiritualist movement began in the United States around the time of Nosworthy's birth. The movement gained further popularity following American Civil War. Mediums did significant business in allegedly allowing survivors to contact lost relatives.[4] Living in Baltimore, Nosworthy became a medium and spiritualist herself. Her sister, Mary, had married Elijah Bond who had invented a talking board with his business partner, Charles W. Kennard. Nosworthy became a stockholder in the Kennard Novelty Company but they needed a marketable name to manufacture the board. One night in 1890, they decided to hold a seance and ask the board what it wanted to be called. Nosworthy repeatedly asked the board, and it answered O-U-I-J-A. When they asked what that meant, the board answered, G-O-O-D L-U-C-K.[5] Nosworthy was wearing a locket at the time containing a portrait of English novelist Ouida whose signature below seemed to spell out "ouija".[6] The local patent office at first refused a patent of the talking board. Bond and Nosworthy then traveled to Washington, D.C. where they were also denied a patent until the chief patent officer asked the board to spell out his name, which it did.[7]
Later life
editSometime in the years after the ouija board patent was granted, Nosworthy's family's collection of Confederate buttons went missing. They asked the ouija board who had stolen them, and the board implicated one of the family members. Nosworthy refused to believe the board and disavowed it, spending the rest of her life telling her family that the board ‘told lies.’[8] In 1891, Nosworthy married Ernest Nosworthy, a Shakespearean actor and later traveling salesman and relocated to Denver, Colorado.
Nosworthy died in 1940. Little was known about her life or contributions to the ouija board until the Robert Mulch of the Talking Board Historical Society found correspondence from ouija board inventors Charles Kennard and Elijah Bond published in the Baltimore Sun. On September 22, 2018, the Talking Board Historical Society, the mayor of Denver, the president of the Fairmount Heritage Foundation as well as descendants and onlookers gathered at the gravesite of Nosworthy in Denver's Fairmount Cemetery to dedicate a memorial in her honor.[1]
References
edit- ^ a b "Helen Peters Nosworthy". Archived from the original on October 7, 2023. Retrieved 2023-10-07.
- ^ "Helen Peters and the Ouija board". Gender Desk. 2021-10-28. Archived from the original on September 26, 2023. Retrieved 2023-10-07.
- ^ "Calling the Unknown by Name: Helen Peters Nosworthy and the Naming of the Ouija". Tumblr. 2021-06-08. Archived from the original on September 26, 2023. Retrieved 2023-10-07.
- ^ "The Ouija board's mysterious origins: war, spirits, and a strange death | Life and style | The Guardian". amp.theguardian.com. Archived from the original on September 26, 2023. Retrieved 2023-10-07.
- ^ "The Ouija Board has a Denver connection". Denver 7 Colorado News (KMGH). 2018-10-31. Archived from the original on September 26, 2023. Retrieved 2023-10-07.
- ^ "Out of the Shadows: On the Forgotten Mothers of the Occult". Literary Hub. 2022-10-31. Archived from the original on September 27, 2023. Retrieved 2023-10-07.
- ^ Distasio, Steph (2019-10-19). "The Ouija Board: Summoner Of Spirits Or Vintage Dating Game?". Ripley's Believe It or Not!. Archived from the original on September 26, 2023. Retrieved 2023-10-07.
- ^ "Helen Peters Nosworthy: The Medium Behind 'Ouija'". Burials & Beyond. 2019-01-07. Archived from the original on September 26, 2023. Retrieved 2023-10-07.