About
Voorhies' Wands is a fictional wandmaking company based in Central Illinois. However, while our backstory is historical fiction, our wandmaking is completely real! (Although our wands don't actually work, sorry!)
HISTORY of VOORHIES' WANDS
Aalt, of the prominent Dutch family the Voorhies, was banished early in his life because of the strange occurrences that would often happen in his presence. Being the first in the family to have magical powers, he soon moved into the shadows. With some difficulty, he finally stumbled upon others of his kind and eventually married a witch named Femke. They soon gave birth to a little girl which they named Zandra.
Her childhood was as normal as any magical family. Very bright and ambitious, she was apprenticing with some of the best wandmakers of Europe by the age of 9. At age 23 she felt she had learned all she could and decided to move to the New World.
She boarded the French ship L’Hermione and put a charm on herself to appear as General Lafayette's assistant, as women were not allowed on the ship. Landing in Boston, Massachusetts in 1780, she gathered supplies and moved inland to start her trade. She had brought wand core supplies with her but soon discovered many new magical creatures existed here in the New World, and after procuring a broom spent much time scouring the countryside, finding and collecting new core materials. But she made sure to never kill any of the creatures she got wands cores from, a tradition that carried on into later generations. After some trial and error, she had made a name for herself among the witches of Salem.
At this point, she noticed the plight of the native peoples and was dividing her time between her wand making and helping with their struggle. Realizing being more centrally located would afford her more time to devote to both of these endeavors, she moved to southern Illinois around 1790. This made it much easier to procure wand core materials from the western lands. It also gave her the opportunity to become friends with the Egyptian wizards that inhabited what would become known as Little Egypt in later years. And being closer to the bluff dwellings of the Piasa Bird along the Mississippi River was a great advantage. Shavings of the Piasa Bird's fangs make particularly strong wand infusions. But the Piasa Bird's main prey is humans, and with the strong magic the bird possessed it would take several witches and wizards to subdue one. She found her Egyptian friends to be of very good help.
Piasa Bird
It was at this time that the greatest wand made in the New World and one of the great wands in magical history came into being, known as the Piasa Wand. During a foray into the Piasa Bird's lair, they had stunned the bird and removed slivers from its fangs when the stunning charm failed, and the bird awakened. In the ensuing battle, Zandra's wand was broken and they became trapped in the back of the lair. Zandra found a remarkable stick laying on the floor. While her children, Ansel and Lavinia, continued the battle, her husband, Omar, used his wand to insert the Piasa fang sliver into the stick. With the new wand, they easily overpowered the Piasa bird and escaped.
Piasa Wand
The wand is of a primitive design with bark covering most of it. Wrapped in ivy, the wood is of an unknown species and is 15 1/2" long.
Zandra and her children kept the Voorhies name because of the notoriety of the wands, and this became a family tradition.
At the age of 100, Zandra died, leaving the wand making to her son, Ansel.
Around 1900, the Voorhies family business moved to central Illinois. They began farming as a cover and built a home with a turret on both sides, which led to the house being referred to as a castle. The wands were produced under a large barn with a tall clock tower.
The Voorhies family eventually abandoned the house and moved into quarters under the barn. By the early 1970's, the property had become known as haunted among the non-magical (Ordie) community because of the strange comings and goings of the Voorhies, still running the family business under the barn. Taking advantage of a severe storm that came through the area in the mid-1970s to explain its disappearance, the Voorhies placed a charm over the barn, cloaking it from non-magical people.
Although Voorhies' Wands has never reached the notoriety of other wandmakers, Zandra Voorhies always felt that it was her place to be humble and provide wands to the common witch or wizard, a tradition that has continued through the generations. The Voorhies family continues to make fine wands to this day.
