THE "WITCH" OF ASHFORD HOLLOW
Sophia never married. She lived with her parents on their Ashford farm. Following the death of her parents, she remained in the family house alone. Her parents were buried in a private plot on the property. When Sophia died, she was buried right alongside them.
According to reports, people were afraid of Sophia. As the stigma of her "evil" reputation grew, her protective reclusiveness increased in proportion. This might explain why, even in her 70's, she was doing chores too strenuous for her age instead of employing the help of the young people in her neighborhood.
A longtime owner of an establishment in Ashford was related to one of the only women who maintained semi-regular contact with Sophia. It was from this source I learned how much Sophia resented being treated as the community outcast. Sophia used to say, "When I die, I want this entire community to REMEMBER how they have mistreated me!" I doubt she knew at the time just how PROPHETIC her words actually were!
One bitter cold winter day, while chopping wood, this elderly woman suffered an apparent stroke. Maybe her life could have been saved... it's hard to say... but it was days before her only friend found her snow-covered, frozen-solid body in front of the wood pile.
Eventually Sophia's property was sold and turned into a most intriguing sculpture park. Overgrown with weeds and shrubs, the graves of Sophia and her parents rest undisturbed on the outskirts of this park.
Strewn all over the park are towering metal sculptures of humanoid figures, strange creatures, and unusual abstract designs. Touring the park gave me an eerie feeling! On the very same property where Sophia FROZE to death are motionless sculptured representations which appear to be FROZEN in time!
If I allow my mystical mind to ponder, I can't HELP but think that these hard, lifeless sculptures are memorializing Sophia's neglected frozen body... the very wish she declared while yet alive! And the fact that all of this has occurred on the same land acreage seems more than coincidental to me!
Why did the new owners turn Sophia's property into a sculpture park? Was it just coincidence? Or did the power of Sophia's words attract and inspire the new owners with the idea?
We will probably never know the answers to these questions. But this much I do believe... words spoken with intense meaning are carriers of power. Creative and/or destructive forces are released which can continue long after the words have been spoken... and yes... even long after the speaker has died! The Bible says it this way... "Death and life are in the power of the tongue..." (Proverbs 18:21).
When we really mean what we are saying, we all have the ability to influence the course of life-events (for good or bad) by the words we speak.
Some people display more verbal powers of persuasion than others. Was Sophia among them? Maybe so! Either way, I question whether she was the "evil witch" many believe to be her legend. If she was truly evil she could have cursed the town with a strange paralyzing ("freezing") virus which led to death, rather than blessing the Ashford community with a sculpture park!
If you ever get the chance to visit Griffis Sculpture Park near Ashford, New York, remember to pay tribute to Sophia's memorial by being kind to all people everywhere... no matter how "different" they might appear to be.
