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June 07, 2004

Messing With The Family's Stories

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Since our family reunion has become a tradition with more than a decade of regular get-togethers, we are building some new customs of our own. First, we hold our meetings at the old home place, built a hundred years ago by our grandfather, and secondly, we sit around a Saturday night bonfire in the front yard until midnight telling and retelling the family stories. This last part is what I want to tell you about, specifically the account of the 1951 murder of one of our neighbors.

The first time we sat in the fire-splashed dark telling our stories--that would be May of 1994--I decided to bring up the story of Mrs. B's murder. It was the most exciting thing to happen in our county for years and the young folks had more than likely never even heard about it.

"One Saturday morning in September of that year," I began, "Uncle Ted pulled his pickup into the yard--right over there--and called out that Mrs. B had had her throat cut last night. At that very moment she was lying on her front porch. Somebody had gone to Double Springs for the sheriff. We all piled into the back of Ted's truck and went to see for ourselves. It's just a mile up the road here. I was 11 that year, and can still recall standing there on the porch staring down at the sad spectacle lying in her front doorway. The sheriff still had not arrived."

I went on to tell how my mother Lois and our grandmother Sarah had been sitting on their front porch the previous evening and had seen local character Claude Greene walking up the road, headed north. Late that evening, our uncle Grady (his grandchildren were taking all this in) heard screams coming from Mrs. B's house, but dismissed them when they stopped.

That Saturday morning, the sheriff located a bloody walking stick with "CG" carved into its wood, and put out a call for Claude Greene. The manhunt lasted two weeks. When he was finally apprehended, Greene bore scratches on his face which he said were caused by briars and brushes as he fled the law. The sheriff pointed out they were vertical--such as fingernails might inflict--whereas briar scratches would be horizontal. Greene was tried, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison.

At this point, several family members chimed in with their own additions to the story. My mother Lois told of seeing Claude Greene that evening. My father Carl told how he joined the manhunt, not so much to catch Greene, but to keep some of the hotheads from killing him on the spot. My brother Glenn told how he cut classes at the high school in Double Springs to attend the trial. "That was more educational than anything the teachers had to offer," he said.

Then, cousin Mike entered the discussion. He has owned the story ever since.

"Now, I was only four when all this happened," Mike began, "but I've researched it and know quite a bit about it. Mrs. B was known locally as a horse-trader, meaning she would trade with anyone for anything. That Friday, she had done business in Jasper, 12 miles away--and she walked it; pretty good for an 80 year old woman--and she had money with her. She carried her money in a small tobacco pouch inside her dress. Claude Greene had heard rumors of money buried on her place. So that Friday night, he lay in wait for her to return home. He chased her around the house, they fought, and he killed her. Then, he tried to set fire to her clothing and burn the house down. The blood put the fire out. The evidence against him was circumstantial and his relatives deny his guilt to this day. Some ten years later, he was diagnosed with cancer and allowed to come home to die, which he did soon after."

The fifty or sixty relatives in this nocturnal circle too young to have personal knowledge of the murder were enthralled by the story and by Mike's details. They had all heard stories of murder and mayhem from television, but this one happened right up the road and involved members of their own family. Police Gazette ran a highly fictionalized account of the Claude Greene story within a few months of the event, even manufacturing him a beautiful girlfriend to dress up the article. Someone volunteered, "I hid that magazine under the hay up there in the old loft. If the rats haven't chewed it up, it's there right now." No one wanted to check.

Every year since, as the family visits and eats in the day, when dark comes they pull their chairs into a circle, someone lights a fire, and the stories begin. All the tales of childish pranks and eccentric relatives are preliminary to the main event. We're there to hear Mike. After a little gentle urging, he rises and begins to tell his story. "Quiet," someone calls to the others, and "Speak up, Mike," another calls.

"I've found some new details from my continuing research into the murder of Mrs. B," he says. A few days ago, the last time we met, Mike's narration centered on Mrs. B's witchcraft.

"Cousin Jimmy and I used to walk up to her house," Mike said. The rest of us tried to visualize these two four-year-olds entering the yard of this strange white-haired woman whose very appearance frightened older men. "She used to give us cups of Kool-Aid. Years later, we found out that she had a brew of her own concoction, and we think that's what she was giving to the children." Voices called out of the night that "this explains a lot of things about you and Jimmy," followed by laughter. But Mike went on.

"She put curses on people. And she could take them off. There is an old legend that witches would not step over brooms, and some of our cousins decided to give her a test. They hid the broom under the doorstep when they saw her coming. She reached under the steps and brought out that broom and handed it to their mother."

I asked my 87-year-old mother about the witch business. "Well," she said, "Mrs. B had a way of appearing out of nowhere and then disappearing. And she would steal anything that wasn't nailed down, including the biscuits out of your pan if you invited her in for breakfast." Eccentric, definitely. But a witch?

"I haven't actually done any research," Mike confided to me a couple of days ago. "Most of this stuff I pick up from other family members. Cousin Joan told me about the witch business. And I just made up the Kool-Aid story. I do know some more gruesome parts of the murder, though, which I am not going to tell in a family setting." Mike is determined to check out the Police Gazette website and chase down their story on Claude Green. That ought to make for some juicy story-telling come next reunion. But don't expect truth to come anywhere near the place.

I told Mike about the time, some two or three years after the murder, when my brother Glenn entered Mrs. B's house. The back door was open, so he walked in and looked around. All the rooms were completely bare, not a stick of furniture in the place. Suddenly, he heard a loud noise from the room where he had just been. Glenn bolted out the back door and ran all the way home. That confirmed what we all suspected: the house was haunted. Later, it was torn down. Today, a small trailer park sits there.

You have to wonder what kind of tale our children and grandchildren will tell the next generation concerning the murder of Mrs. B. My brother Ron laughingly says cousin Mike invents new details every time we meet. It's great entertainment, so long as no one needs to know the truth.

Embellishing stories happens all the time. Writers take artistic liberties. Speakers dramatize. Usually the consequences are harmless or even entertaining. But suppose one has a great story, one which is totally true, on which the fate of a lot of people depend, and which he wishes to protect from adornment by his friends and distortion by his enemies. The best thing to do is write it down, date it, put his name on it, copyright it if possible, and give it wide distribution.

A Friend of mine did that. You probably know His story. "Now, in those days, there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed."

It's the greatest story in the world. All it needs is telling, not embellishing.


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Comments

Joe, this was very enjoyable to read about your family's telling stories of the past and present.
It reminds me when we have a family gathering and six of our seven grandsons tell about some of the things they did when they were younger. They all lived within a block of each other and us and we parents and grandparents thought we knew all they did, but apparently we didn't. Good thing I guess.
Take care and God Bless,
Billye M

Posted by: Billye Morgan at June 9, 2004 12:43 AM

Your family reunions remind me of my own. I descend from Andrew McEver's son John, who was murdered in the Cherokee Nation ca. 1808. [Last name spelled any way the imagination carried you].
I'm left with being the story teller about long ago happenings. My Irish grandmother filled me with tales when I was a child & those tales delight my grandchildren today. Thanks for sharing yours. Charlotte

Posted by: Charlotte Bond at June 21, 2004 01:25 PM

Mr. McKeever,
I love family stories. I've written about the life of my grandmother and self published it for family members. She's presently 92 years old. They LOVE it!

I've recently started a Memory Moments journal that sets out on a nearby table. Whenever something special, funny, and/or memorable happens, someone in the family writes it down. We've just begun, but already have laughter and smiles recorded for our children's children.

Thanks for encouraging storytelling!
Cindy Sheppard
Georgia

Posted by: Cindy Sheppard at June 22, 2004 10:58 AM