This is the month for tales of witches, ghouls, and ghost stories and I have my favorite.
When I was a little girl my granddaddy, Big Daddy, lived in an old ramshackle Civil War house out in the country close to the Montgomery and Attala County lines. The house was once owned by Richard Wiley Strain who is buried in the New Salem Cemetery where my Price ancestors are laid to rest just a few miles from this old house place.
The old house was built on the Greek Revival fashion but when my kin lived there it was more of the “dilapidated design”. You could readily see it was once a house and dwelling of classical beauty and splendor. The main floor had a large hallway running the depth of the old house with rooms on each side. At the construction of this house the kitchen, like all kitchens in this era, was detached and was a separate small structure just outside the back of the house.
No cooking was done inside. At that time the servants would cook and bring the meals inside to be eaten. During the time my family lived there they had moved the kitchen inside into one of the rooms to one side of the hallway and added a wood stove and kitchen table to use.
The other rooms on the first floor were made into bedrooms and sitting rooms. I remember my mama and me spending the night in the front room when my daddy and his brother would set out hooks and fish all night on the Scooba Chita River right down the hill from the old house. I also remember one night they slipped back in after dark and made clomping noises upstairs and we were ready to run.
We had been told from the time that Big Daddy moved into the old home that it had a rich and intense history dating back to the Civil War Era. I was and still am fascinated with these past times. It was said to embrace the ghost of one of the young women who had originally lived in the home when it was at such grandeur. At some time during the War between the States, this old house had been set fire by the “Yankees” and the top floor was burned and the woman’s husband had been killed during the fire. Legend goes that every October 31, the date of the horrific flames, she walks to the front of the top floor, opens the portico doors that overlook the rolling hills and calls to her love.
One of my favorite first cousins, Betty Lou lived in the house with her mama and my Big Daddy and she and I were certain that this tale of the morose and grieved lover was true. One Halloween night when we were still young enough to be influenced by ghostly tales, we decided we would hide out behind the huge Willow Oak in the front yard and just see what happened at midnight.
As the time slowly trickled by heading toward this witching hour, we at first decided we were on a wild goose chase but could at the lest now debunk the legend old tale. Then we began to hear a very distant sound, almost the sound of a woman wailing. About the same time, then old shattered and barely hanging doors flew open and a big gust of wind brushed our faces. Well….I really don’t know what happened after that phenomenal incident because we no longer were that fascinated in the ghostly tale and we found ourselves inside where the illusion of the poltergeist could not reach us.
This tale may or may not be genuine but as a child we were confident it was totally actual. Now looking back, I’m still not 100% sure either way.
GHOST PUMPKIN PIE – 2 – 10-inch unbaked pie crust. 4 beaten eggs, 3 cups of baked, skinned, and pureed white ghost pumpkin. 1 cup of sugar, 2 t. cinnamon, 1 t. ginger, ½ t. ground cloves, 1 – 14 ounce can of condensed milk, 12 ounce can of evaporated milk, 1 t. pumpkin pie spice. (The white “ghost” pumpkin is a little lighter in taste and a little more spice is needed for taste.) Pour all ingredients into pie shells and bake 425* for 15 minutes.
