Gundella, A Rotund Witch With A Deep, Happy Laugh

St. Petersburg Times, November 7, 1972 (enlarge)

It took me 5 years to find the article matching the press photo of Gundella by Judy Sedgeman which I posted previously in 2012.

It was from her speaking tour of Florida in 1972 where she was a guest of Marcello Truzzi's New College Occult Series and doesn't add much to her legacy but these sort of one-offs usually don't. However, it does give some incidental knowledge.

One thing that I learned is that her large spider necklace was a gift from a neighbor that Gundella wore because she thought it interesting and not due to some magical power that is possessed.

Another incident is a Halloween where she and her daughter had to pretend they were going shopping and check into a motel to avoid curiosity seekers hiding in the bushes. Only after they had privacy did they go to their coven meeting in Ann Arbor. A subject to which Gundella was adamant that she didn't influence her children to become or not become witches and often attended Catholic church on Sundays. She claims that there was no conflict with being a Catholic and a witch at the same time but I assume that the church didn't and wouldn't agree on that subject even in today's "tolerant" culture.

She also writes about exorcising a house in Ann Arbor that was owned by schoolteachers and haunted by a coughing man. He had died in a nursing home and wanted to go home but his spirit didn't realize that he was dead. So Gundella helped him pass on. Or so she says.