Haunted Holidays

by Roberta Simpson Brown

  I have heard tales, though, about people still hearing fiddle music as they come across that hill in Wayne County. Maybe the two young men are still there, playing the fiddle and thinking of home.

  Our family will always think of Elijah and Malachi Brown and wonder what happened to the two brave young men who went off to be soldiers.

  Thanksgiving Day

  In America, we celebrate Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday in November. According to history, the Pilgrims held a three-day feast to celebrate a bountiful harvest in the fall of 1621. Many consider this the first Thanksgiving.

  Thanksgiving became an official holiday in 1863 with a proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.

  Today our national traditional Thanksgiving feast normally includes roast turkey with stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes with gravy or sweet potatoes, sweet corn, green beans or green peas, corn bread, biscuits, and pumpkin or mince pie.

  Besides the feasting, there are other ways to celebrate. Football is an important part of many Thanksgiving celebrations. Where we grew up, “turkey trots” were held—races consisting of a five-mile run and a two-mile walk, with a turkey as the prize for the winner. In New York City, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade has been held each year since 1924. The parade features floats, balloons, and marching bands. Santa’s float ends the parade, indicating the beginning of the Christmas season.

  Thanksgiving is a spiritual time and a family time, and it often draws ghosts, too.

  Lucian’s Mystery Chaser

  When Lonnie’s father, Lucian Brown, was a very young man, he, like most all other young men in the Gentry’s Mill area, liked to hunt. He took great pride in his rifle and tried to take good care of it. As Thanksgiving approached, he cleaned it and prepared to shoot a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner.

  The day before Thanksgiving, Lucian took his rifle out early in the morning and went off to find a wild turkey. It seemed as though the turkeys knew he was coming, though, and kept themselves out of sight. Eventually, he had to give up the hunt and go home to help his dad work.

  At quitting time, Lucian took his rifle and hurried into the woods again to see if the turkeys had come out of hiding.

  “Don’t be too long,” his mother called. “I’ve got supper on cooking!”

  “Okay,” he called back to her, even though supper was not the first thing on his mind right now. He was determined to get a turkey!

  He kept going deep into the woods, but he saw no signs of a turkey. He was very disappointed because he would have felt very good to have provided the turkey for the family meal.

  The woods began to get dark, and Lucian heard thunder fairly close. It didn’t storm that often in autumn, but he didn’t want to be in the woods even if it just rained with no thunder and lightning. He knew that it soon would be hard to see, so he thought that maybe he should head on home.

  As he was deciding what to do, he heard a noise in the leaves behind him. It was hard to see anything among the trees, and he became uneasy. He had heard a report of a possible bear sighting a few days earlier, and he wanted to take no chances.

  He started to walk quickly toward home, but he heard an odd sound behind him. Was it a growl or a cough? He looked back, but there was nothing visible. He heard the sound again, and he began to run. He stubbed his toe on a log beside the path and lost his balance. His rifle went flying out of his hand and landed in the leaves. Something was crashing toward him now, so, not waiting to get the rifle, Lucian ran for his life.

  He had gone farther into the woods than he thought, so he was beginning to get breathless running to get out. He dared not stop, though, because something was following him for sure. It sounded like something on two feet, and it seemed to be gaining on him. The storm was right overhead now, and the cloud was dark and menacing.

  He ran and ran, his heart thumping loudly all the way. Finally, he saw the light in his house just beyond the edge of the woods. With one last burst of speed, he nearly knocked down the door and fell inside, just as the storm broke.

  The family gathered around, concerned about his heavy breathing.

  “What happened?” his dad asked.

  “Something was chasing me in the woods!” Lucian gasped. “It came right up to the edge of the tree line.”

  His brothers ran and looked out, but with the wind and rain, they couldn’t see anything.

  “I tell you, something was chasing me!” declared Lucian.

  “It was just your imagination,” his mom said. “You were hearing your own heartbeat.”

  Everybody laughed except Lucian and his father.

  “Where’s your rifle?” his father asked sternly.

  “I dropped it in the woods,” Lucian replied.

  “So that’s the way you take care of your gun?” his dad continued.

  “You’re right,” he told his dad. “I’m sorry. I’ll go back now and get it.”

  “Not in this storm, you won’t, young man,” said his mother. “The damage is already done anyway.”

  “But I wanted us to have a turkey for Thanksgiving, Mom,” he told her. “It’s just not Thanksgiving without a turkey!”

  “We will have one,” she smiled. “Your father and brothers went hunting, too, and they got a nice big one.”

  Lucian felt terrible. He had run away and left his rifle, which by now was surely all wet and muddy. It was probably just his imagination anyway. Nothing had likely been chasing him at all.

  He fell asleep, thinking that he would go get his rifle in the morning, even before he ate his breakfast.

  Everybody was already up when he woke up the next morning, waiting for breakfast. Nobody had been outside.

  Lucian went to the door and opened it to see if the rain had finally stopped. He gasped in surprise.

  “Come look at this,” he said.

  The family rushed to the door and stared at the place he was pointing. There on the porch, safe and dry, was his rifle, leaning against the wall by the door.

  Lonnie’s father never solved the mystery. Had a local hunter followed him, trying to give him the rifle? If so, why didn’t he knock on the door and give it to him? Or had some spirit hunter brought the rifle because he remembered how important his rifle had been to him when he was alive?

  Whatever had happened to bring the rifle home remained a mystery, but Lonnie’s dad had a thankful heart when he sat down that day with his family for Thanksgiving dinner.

  The Corpse Candle

  Roberta’s grandmother, Fanny Dean, passed along many stories of the supernatural through Roberta’s mother, Lillian Dean Simpson. Roberta was always fascinated by corpse candles after she heard this story.

  A corpse candle is a little light carried by a ghost. The flickering of the light looks like the flickering of a real candle. It got the name of corpse candle because it is carried by a ghost and is usually seen just prior to someone’s death.

  Grandma Fanny had heard of corpse candles and sometimes thought she saw them bobbing along near the church graveyard by Damron’s Creek when she was a child. It was not in her nature to check out mysterious lights at night, so she never went outside to look up close. Those flickering lights scared her a little.

  When they were first married, Grandma Fanny and Grandpa Mike lived on a farm near Damron’s Creek. Their closest neighbors were a couple and their grown son, who lived up the creek about half a mile. Mr. and Mrs. Byrne and their son, Toby, kept to themselves mostly, but were always pleasant when Grandma and Grandpa met them at church or the store.

  One Sunday, the Byrnes did not show up at church. Later that day, Toby passed the Deans’ house, headed for the doctor. Grandma Fanny decided to walk up the creek to see if she could help. Even before the doctor arrived, Grandma Fanny could tell that Mrs. Byrne was in a bad way.

  The doctor diagnosed it as the flu. In the few days that followed, Grandma Fanny went up every day and helped out all she could. Mrs. Byrne grew weaker and weaker, though, and died with
her husband and son by her side.

  Life was very hard for Mr. Byrne and Toby without her. Mrs. Byrne had always done a large share of the work on the farm, and the two men had to take on her duties as well as their own.

  One day, Grandma Fanny ran into Toby at the store. She asked Toby how he and his father were doing.

  “I’m fine, but Dad is overworking. I can’t get him to slow down or go see the doctor,” Toby answered. “I have offered to get a job in town to make more money and make things easier, but he says no.”

  “Mike works too hard, too,” she said. “I can’t get him to slow down either. There is always something to do on the farm.”

  Grandma Fanny gave the two Byrne men no more thought until she heard at church later that Toby had indeed carried out his plan. He had gone into town and taken a job at the nearby sawmill. It was about two weeks after that when Toby came by and told her about his encounter with the corpse candle.

  There was no phone on the farm, so Toby couldn’t call during the week while he was at work at the sawmill. He planned to go home every weekend and help his dad with the farm work, so he really didn’t need to call home during the week. Late that November the weekend would be extended because Thanksgiving meant that the mill would be closed Thursday through Sunday.

  Toby had taken a room at a boardinghouse near his work. After supper, he liked to sit on the front porch until bedtime, like he had done back home. It was a warm November, and the night air was just right.

  He had worked hard that Tuesday and was particularly happy to relax in the porch swing and enjoy the peaceful night sounds. Suddenly, everything got quiet. No crickets! No fall bugs! Nothing was rustling in the leaves.

  Then he saw something coming down the road carrying a candle. The light was flickering as it bobbed up and down. He couldn’t see who was carrying the light, but he could make out an indistinct figure. It came to the end of the walk and stopped. Then it stepped back a few steps and came to the end of the walk again. It repeated this process three times.

  I think it wants me to follow it, Toby thought.

  He had an uneasy feeling that grew stronger as he explained to his landlady that he needed to borrow a horse to go home.

  “At this time of night?” she asked, very surprised. “What on earth for?”

  “I can’t explain it,” he told her. “There is a light outside that seems to want me to follow it. I am afraid something’s wrong at home.”

  “A light?” she said, looking out the window. “Oh, you must go!” she said to him. “That’s a corpse candle! Somebody is going to die.”

  He saddled the borrowed horse and soon was on his way. The light flickered along in front of him. A few hours later, when he came in sight of his house, the corpse candle went out. There was a light in his father’s window, though, and Toby knew his dad would never be up at that hour unless he was ill.

  Toby tied up the horse and ran inside. He heard his father call out from his bedroom. Toby found him there on the floor. He had become dizzy and had fallen, breaking his leg. He had struggled, but could not get up alone.

  “Thank God you came,” said his dad. “How did you know?”

  Toby told him about the corpse candle.

  Toby helped his father to the doctor. The leg was set and Mr. Byrne was able to spend Thanksgiving at home.

  Toby returned the horse, picked up all the fixings for a Thanksgiving Day dinner, and prepared a feast for him and his father.

  That night they sat on the front porch until the night air became too chilly for Mr. Byrne. As they got up to go inside, a light danced across the drive and disappeared.

  “I remember wishing your mother and you were here,” said his dad.

  Toby nodded.

  “That was your mother for sure,” said his dad. “She came for you because she knew how guilty you would feel if anything happened to me when you were not here to help me. I might have died if you hadn’t come.”

  “Yes,” said Toby. “You certainly might have.”

  “That light at the drive just now was your mother, too,” said Mr. Byrne. “She’s happy everything worked out all right.”

  Toby agreed. He went back to the sawmill and got his last paycheck. He got the few belongings he had left at the boardinghouse and came back home to stay.

  Grandma Dean remembered how she had feared corpse candles all her life, but after a corpse candle saved Mr. Byrne, she wasn’t afraid of them much anymore.

  Grandma’s Pumpkin Pie

  Roberta’s Grandma Simpson said that her Grandmother Alley made the best pumpkin pies she ever ate. Each year the entire family looked forward to Thanksgiving because Grandma Alley made plenty of pumpkin pies for everybody. She let Grandma Simpson help her so she could watch and learn. Grandma Simpson got pretty good at making pies like Grandma Alley.

  The year Grandma Alley died was a sad one indeed. She died in late summer, but everybody was already thinking about Thanksgiving. How could they celebrate without her pumpkin pies?

  Then another event occurred that seemed to make the pumpkin pie possibility more unlikely.

  The Carter family, who lived across the creek, had a young male relative, Hollis, who was visiting from Ohio. Hollis was bored and hated having to stay in the country for the duration of the visit. He knew nothing about farming and only wanted to go back to city life.

  Mr. Carter did not raise watermelons and pumpkins on his farm.

  “Nobody in the family likes pumpkins and watermelons,” he said, “so why should I waste my space, time, and energy to grow the things? I can think of better things to plant in my fields.”

  He was wrong about one family member. Hollis loved watermelon!

  One night, after everybody had gone to bed early, Hollis was restless and couldn’t sleep.

  Maybe I could sleep if I had a watermelon, he thought. It would be so cool! Now, I wonder who grows some around here. Oh, yeah. The Alleys.

  Hollis walked across the yard, picked up a stick to use as a walking stick, and headed to the Alleys’ farm. Everybody was in bed there, too, so he didn’t worry about being caught. He found a watermelon, broke it open with his stick, and enjoyed the cool, juicy contents. As he finished off the last bite, he heard a voice behind him.

  “You didn’t have to steal a watermelon,” said Mr. Alley, holding his rifle. “I would have given you one if you had asked.”

  Mr. Alley felt that Hollis’s family should know what he had done, so he marched Hollis home and told the family what had happened. Mr. Alley didn’t ask them to punish Hollis. He just thought they should know about the stealing so it wouldn’t become a problem.

  Mr. Carter did punish Hollis, though. After Mr. Alley left, Mr. Carter broke a switch from the peach tree and took Hollis out behind the woodshed and gave him a good thrashing with the switch. Hollis wasn’t hurt, but he was angry.

  The next night, he waited even later, until he was sure everybody was asleep. Then he picked up a stronger stick with a keen point at the edge of the yard and walked straight to the fields at the Alley place. He walked through the large pumpkin and watermelon patch and smashed every watermelon and pumpkin in the patch. All were ruined!

  That ended Hollis’s visit. Mr. Carter shipped the young man back home to let his parents deal with him. The parents paid Mr. Alley for the damage, but some of the damage was beyond price. With all the pumpkins ruined, there would be no pumpkin pies.

  Grandma Simpson was heartbroken. She had Grandma Alley’s recipe, but not the principal ingredient. On Thanksgiving eve, the family went to bed feeling very sad.

  The next morning, in the wee hours of Thanksgiving Day, Grandma Simpson put the turkey in the oven to roast. She heard a noise that she couldn’t identify on the front porch. She opened the door and looked out, but nobody was there.

  She spotted something on the edge of the porch and moved closer. There were two of the biggest, healthiest pumpkins she had ever seen! The neighbors could not have brought them because th
ey didn’t grow them. Who could have done such a kind deed?

  Grandma Simpson picked them up and took them inside to make the pumpkin pies. She swore until the end of her life that, as she picked up the pumpkins, she heard Grandma Alley laughing!

  Pearl Harbor Day

  Americans remember Pearl Harbor Day each year on December 7. The surprise attack by the Japanese forces on that date in 1941 on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, killed more than 2,400 military personnel and drew the United States into World War II.

  President Franklin D. Roosevelt called it “a day which will live in infamy” and declared that no matter how long it might take to overcome the invasion, the American people would win through to absolute victory. The day after the attack, the United States declared war on Japan.

  Pearl Harbor was a strategic military base in the Pacific. The U.S. Naval headquarters was there. The United States strictly enforced economic embargos, and Japan, trying to expand, suffered because of this. Nobody dreamed that the Japanese would dare attack the U.S. Navy. In the months that followed the Japanese attack, the slogan “Remember Pearl Harbor” swept the country.

  Today, people across America hold ceremonies and give speeches to remember the sacrifice of those who died in the Pearl Harbor attack. On Pearl Harbor Day, dignitaries often honor the dead by placing flowers or leis in the water.

  In 1994, Congress designated December 7 a day of national observance to honor those who died or were injured in the Japanese attack.

  Pearl Harbor Soldier

  Roberta was born in 1939 and Lonnie was born in 1937. As children we heard talk about the war every day, but we were too young to understand completely what was going on. We only understood that family members and friends were going away to fight in that war.

  Roberta tells this story about something that happened to her sister during the war.

  When my sister Fatima was in her teens, she considered it a very pleasant duty to write to the soldiers she knew. Harsh censorship was applied to letters in those days. I can still remember how Fatima’s letters from the soldiers were sometimes cut into shreds because the government took out anything that might indicate where the location of the soldier might be.