Jeffrey's Latest Thirteen: More Alabama Ghosts, Commemorative...

A deluxe, commemorative edition of a beloved collection of ghostly stories from famed southern author and folklorist Kathryn Tucker Windham’s home state of Alabama Accompanied by her faithful companion, Jeffrey, a friendly spirit who resided in her home in Selma, Alabama, Kathryn Tucker Windham traveled the South, visiting the sites of spectral legends in Mississippi, Georgia, and Tennessee, among other places. In Jeffrey’s Latest Thirteen: More Alabama Ghosts, a sequel to her landmark Thirteen Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey, Windham introduces readers to thirteen more of Jeffrey's ghostly acquaintances, each with the charm and universal appeal that has created hundreds of thousands of Jeffrey fans.   Among the other hair-raising tales in this collection, Windham spotlights the apparitions of academia. From the three Yankee soldiers who haunt the University of Alabama’s Civil War–era Little Round House to the Confederate soldier who resides in the University Chapel at Auburn University, Alabama’s institutions of higher learning seem to have more than a few paranormal pupils.   Photographs of the sites about which Windham writes are one of the best-loved features of her series of “Jeffrey the Ghost” books. Jeffrey’s Latest Thirteen features the image of a beautiful child who, though not photographed in life, reappeared long enough to be photographed with his bereaved father's borrowed camera. Bewitched readers will find the startling photograph of the child in the next-to-last chapter, just pages before he book’s photograph of Windham’s own spectral muse, Jeffrey.   This commemorative edition returns Windham’s thrilling classic to its original 1982 keepsake quality and includes a new afterword by the author’s children.

Paris Review

“In Windham’s tales . . . myth and fact intertwine to present a picture of the South that is as true as any textbook.”

Huntsville Times

“Almost every town has its own ghostly legends. It’s separating fact from fiction and fantasy that requires someone of Mrs. Windham's expertise.”

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Jeffrey's Latest 13More Alabama GhostsBy Kathryn Tucker WindhamThe University of Alabama PressCopyright © 2016 University of Alabama PressAll rights reserved.ISBN: 978-0-8173-1912-0ContentsThe Piano, The Boyington Oak, The Silent Riders, A Promise Kept, The James T. Staples, Doomed Steamboat of the Tombigbee, "I'll Never Leave You", The Auburn Spirit, A Sampling of University Hauntings, Granny Dollar and Her Dog, Sudden Laughter, The Ghosts at Montevallo's Mansion House, The Locket, "Paint the Gallows Red", Afterword to the Commemorative Edition, Dilcy Windham Hilley and Ben Windham, CHAPTER 1The PianoDr. William Mudd Jordan was a fascinating man. His portrait, hanging now in the home of his grandson, Dr. Walter Jordan Brower, shows his white hair (neatly parted and combed across his high forehead), straightforward eyes, and firm chin. His black bow tie is tied with a surgeon's precision. Only a quizzical lilt of an eyebrow and a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth betray the sense of humor, the zest for living, that marked his life.His pipe is missing from the portrait, and that seems a pity. Friends recall that his pipe was ever present, and when he shifted it from one side of his mouth to the other, the movement signaled the start of one of his famous stories.Many of his stories were about fishing, for fishing was his favorite sport, and he was so successful that tales of his exploits were only slightly exaggerated."I've had a lot of practice fishing," he used to say. "I know how." And he did. He retired from the active practice of surgery somewhat earlier than he had intended to: he became allergic to the soap used in scrubbing and had to leave the familiar operating rooms in Birmingham. So he took up fishing.Dr. Jordan and Ab Sagere, his employee and friend, raised their own bait in elaborate worm beds around his home at 2772 Hanover Circle. He reportedly had the finest worm beds in all of Alabama. When the two men decided their supply of worms was adequate, they loaded Dr. Jordan's car with supplies and headed for the Gulf Coast. Dr. Jordan drove. Ab, who bore the title of chauffeur, rode in the back seat, an arrangement which pleased Dr. Jordan as much as it puzzled his friends."We'll be back as soon as our supply of worms gives out," Dr. Jordan would tell his wife, Augusta Sharpe Jordan, as he waved goodbye. She would smile and wave and blow him a kiss. Looking back at her, standing on the steps and waving to him, Dr. Jordan felt a surge of tenderness and pride: his wife was the loveliest, most beautiful, most gracious woman in Birmingham. Many, many people, less prejudiced than he, agreed with him. Too bad, he thought, she didn't enjoy fishing.With each fishing expedition, Dr. Jordan's store of tales increased, but, though they laughed over his new stories, it was his telling of the old family tales that his listeners most enjoyed.Sometimes he would tell stories he had heard from his father, Dr. Mortimer Harvie Jordan, Jr., about the cholera epidemic which invaded Birmingham in the summer of 1873. The elder Dr. Jordan was one of the heroes of these terrible times, joining with other pioneer physicians who worked day after sleepless day to minister to the sick and to try to curb the spread of the fearsome killer.Will Jordan heard his father tell stories of that epidemic often as a boy (some family members thought those stories shaped young Will's desire to become a doctor), and in later years he read with admiration and interest his father's official account, written at the request of the federal government, of those awful days.Sometimes his father would laugh and say to Will, "You and the cholera came to Birmingham the same year — 1873 — and the combination was almost more than this town could endure!" So the cholera epidemic was almost a personal thing to young Will, linked as it was with the year of his birth.He heard stories, too, of his father's experiences as a Confederate soldier with the Forty-third Alabama Regiment during the War Between the States, stories he recalled years later during the long months he served as a major with the medical corps in France during World War I.And he listened to accounts of the earliest days of Birmingham, of the exploits of men who founded the city. As he grew older, Will Jordan wished he had listened more intently to the tales his father told, that he had written the anecdotes and the trivia that formed the colorful background of Birmingham's early history.Many of those stories were told on the wide front porch of the Jordan home on the corner of Twentieth Street and Fourth Avenue, North (later the site of The Tutwiler Hotel and presently the site of First Alabama Bank). Dr. Jordan and his wife, the former Florence Earle Mudd, delighted in having guests in their home, and their warm cordiality made the Jordan home widely known for its hospitality.It was likely in this big house that Lalla, oldest of Dr. and Mrs. Mortimer H. Jordan's six children, first began her study of music. Both Dr. and Mrs. Jordan appreciated good music, and they were determined that their children should take advantage of whatever cultural opportunities the young industrial city offered. So, as soon as she was old enough, Lalla, who was a year older than Will, began to take piano lessons.Lalla, her teachers discovered, possessed unusual musical talent, and they urged her to continue her studies. Perhaps it was about this time, when her parents recognized and wished to encourage Lalla's musical gift, that she acquired the massive Steinway and Sons Patent Grand piano. Perhaps it was later, after she had married, that the piano became hers. In any event, she spent long hours at the keyboard of that fine instrument preparing for a career as a concert pianist."I like to hear you play, Lall," Will used to tell his sister. "To tell the truth, I'm a little envious of you; I wish I could play the piano.""You could, Will, if you would practice, even a little bit. You're busy with other things, but you really should learn to play. It would give you a lot of pleasure. Maybe you need a piano of your own. Maybe I'll give you this one when I'm through with it!" Lalla laughingly told him.Lalla did become an accomplished pianist, but she chose marriage and a family rather than devoting her life to music. She never stopped playing though, and her music was a joy not only to her family but also to hundreds of other listeners. If, after her marriage to Ignatious Fenwick Young and after their two daughters were born, she ever wished, however fleetingly, that she had continued her musical career, nobody ever knew about it.Lalla was only thirty-four years old when she died in 1906.The piano, the Steinway grand she had loved, went to her brother, Dr. Will Jordan, whom she also loved.Dr. Will was busy with his practice of medicine, too busy to take time to play the piano. He still wanted to play though, and occasionally he paused by the piano long enough to pick out a tune or two with one finger."I'm going to learn to play this piano someday," he promised himself.Meanwhile, until he had time to carry out that promise, he gave the piano to his daughter, Elizabeth Jordan. Elizabeth had marked musical talent, just as her Aunt Lalla had had, and in addition she had dramatic ability and a beautiful soprano voice. Her talents provided an ideal combination for a career in opera, and that became her goal.Elizabeth studied under renowned teachers in New York, Italy, and France, and in 1929 she made her operatic debut in Florence, Italy, using the stage name Elizabeth Giordiani.The Steinway grand was shipped from Birmingham to New York after Elizabeth (she married Walter Scott Brower, a Birmingham attorney) moved there to continue her career as concert pianist and opera singer.Dr. Will was proud, as any father would be, of his daughter's musical success, but his pride was touched with a bit of sadness. "I just wish Lall could hear Elizabeth play her old Steinway grand. How pleased she would be! Elizabeth is doing what Lall always wanted to do," he used to say. And he'd add, speaking to himself, "Someday I'm going to learn to play — not in public but just for my own pleasure."And he did. Dr. Will had a good ear for music (the talent seemed to run in the family), and after he stopped being an active surgeon, he had time to practice a bit. His repertoire was limited. He learned to play only two pieces, John Philip Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever" and Eubie Blake's "Maple Leaf Rag." It was an odd combination, but it satisfied Dr. Will.About the time Dr. Will was mastering his two tunes, the Steinway grand came back to Birmingham. It was sent with other furniture to help fill the empty rooms at 3648 Clairmont Avenue when Dr. and Mrs. Walter Brower moved there in 1949.Dr. Brower, the youngest of Elizabeth and Walter S. Brower's two sons, had moved with his wife and baby son into the old family home while he completed his medical residency at the Jefferson-Hillman Hospital. The Browers' baby was named William Jordan Brower, named for his great-grandfather. Dr. Will was mighty pleased.Nearly every morning, Dr. Will would go by the Browers' home for a visit with his namesake. Before he left, he would lift the little boy up on the Steinway grand and play for him, first "Maple Leaf Rag" and then "Stars and Stripes Forever." They were still the only pieces he knew.The little boy delighted in those early morning musicales and would clap his hands and kick his heels in rhythm with his great-grandfather's music."You're the only one who appreciates my music," Dr. Will used to tell him. "You don't care if I know only two pieces, do you? Maybe this is how you'll remember me, by my music on this old Steinway grand."But before little William Jordan Brower was really old enough to remember his great-grandfather, Dr. William Mudd Jordan died. It was 1951, and he was seventy-eight years old. He was buried in the Jordan family plot at Oak Hill Cemetery. William Brower, too young to understand about death, missed his great-grandfather, missed his daily visits and his laughter and his stories and his music.As the years passed, Dr. and Mrs. Brower kept Dr. Will's memory alive by telling their children (Carl, Caroline, and Frank were born after William's birth) stories about their great-grandfather Jordan. Always they told about his enjoyment of music and of how he played his two pieces on their Steinway grand.About 1970, when Caroline Brower was in the eighth grade, one of her neighborhood friends, Sally Eastwood, was spending the night with her. The Brower family had moved then to 2832 Balmoral in Mountain Brook, taking the Steinway grand with them. During the night, the two girls were awakened by music being played on the old piano."Who's playing the piano?" Sally, startled from her sleep, asked.Caroline, too frightened to answer, pretended to be asleep. Lying there in the darkness, she pulled the covers over her head and she squeezed her hands over her ears, but she could not shut out the muffled, syncopated rhythm of ragtime. The music continued for a long time. When it finally stopped, Carolina fell into a restless sleep.As soon as she heard her mother stirring the next morning, Caroline hurried to ask her about the strange serenade."So you heard it, too," Mrs. Brower said. "It waked me in the night, and at first I thought I might be dreaming. But I wasn't. That music was a tune your great-grandfather used to play, 'Maple Leaf Rag.'" She hummed a few bars of the melody."That's it! That's what I heard last night," Caroline exclaimed. "Who was playing it?""I don't know," her mother answered. "Everybody here was in bed. As I said, it's a tune Dr. Will used to play. But surely —" She told again of how Dr. Will used to play the piano on his morning visits and of how eager he was for his great-grandson to remember him. And she wondered.The eerie midnight concerts continued in the Brower home. There was no pattern or schedule, but occasionally the family would be awakened by an invisible musician playing the Steinway grand, always playing the same two melodies.In the early 1970s, Dr. and Mrs. Brower and their family moved to Cullman County, to a spacious two-story house built of native stone and timbers. The Steinway grand moved with them.So did Ab Segere, Dr. Will Jordan's longtime companion. Ab wanted to make sure that the new house was properly protected from evil by having a child's handprint on a wall. He had taken this protective measure in the other houses where the Browers had lived, and he intended to carry on the tradition.The ghost of Dr. Will Jordan may also have moved to Cullman County. Ab, who was born with a veil, told of seeing the old gentleman sitting at the dining room table eating breakfast morning after morning. Nobody else saw him, but then nobody else in the household was born with a veil.Other members of the family did hear him though, were awakened by music drifting from the downstairs living area up to the bedrooms that circle the balcony. They lay in bed and listened to the now-familiar program of ragtime and march, and no longer were they frightened. It was almost as if a beloved friend had returned for a surprise visit.Sometimes, though, those concerts upset overnight guests in the house. The guests, none of them familiar with the story of the phantom pianist, often come down to breakfast and ask, "Who was playing the piano in the middle of the night? I got up and looked over the balcony, but no one was downstairs. But the piano was playing. And it played the strangest combination of tunes, 'Maple Leaf Rag' and 'Stars and Stripes Forever.' Who was it?"The Browers listen and smile and shake their heads. How can they explain to someone who never knew him that a loving spirit of a doting ancestor lingers in their home? And who would believe that the spirit always plays "Stars and Stripes Forever" and "Maple Leaf Rag," the only tunes Dr. William Mudd Jordan knew?CHAPTER 2The Boyington OakIn 1979, after Hurricane Frederic lashed through Mobile, destroying buildings and uprooting thousands of the city's fine old trees, many people asked, "Did the Boyington Oak survive? Is that old tree still standing?" The Boyington Oak did withstand the furious winds of Frederic. Its deep, spreading roots held fast, just as they have held against the blasts of scores of other hurricanes since the tree began to grow on the grave of Charles Boyington back in 1835.That tree, tradition has it, sprang from the young man's grave as proof that he was innocent of the murder of his friend, Nathaniel Frost. As the tale has been handed down, Boyington said to the crowd gathered to watch his hanging, "I'm innocent. I did not commit the murder. And as proof of my innocence, an oak tree with a hundred roots will grown from my grave."So people watched the mound of earth that marked Boyington's burial place in potter's field, and, strangely enough, a seedling oak began to grow there, began to spread its roots and to flourish. And the people who watched the tree's growth remembered the doomed man's prediction, and they wondered.Charles Boyington left much to wonder about.He had no friends when he arrived in Mobile in November of 1833. He came aboard a sailing ship, but no one knows why he chose Mobile as his destination.It may have been an omen of some kind, an ill-fated omen, that Boyington arrived in Mobile the day after the stars fell on Alabama. Everywhere he went that first day in Mobile, Boyington heard excited accounts of the massive shower of meteors that had illumined the night sky, and he heard muttered predictions, "It's a bad sign."It didn't seem to be a bad sign for Boyington, not at first. With the help of Captain Arnold, master of the ship that had brought him from New York, Boyington got a job as a printer with the firm of Pollard and Dale. He found pleasant living accommodations at a boardinghouse operated by Mrs. William George, and at that boarding house he found a friend, Nathaniel Frost.Frost was also a printer, and he, too, was a native of New England. But, unlike robust Boyington, Frost was frail and sickly, suffering from tuberculosis. Boyington appeared to by sympathetic to Frost and even shared a room with him so that he, Boyington, could help Frost at night when seizures of coughing exhausted his puny strength.On balmy days when Frost felt strong enough (he was able to work only part time), Boyington often took him for walks in the fresh air. They walked slowly and rested often. Frequently they walked out to the city graveyard to read the epitaphs on the grave markers, to admire the work of the stone masons, and to wander among the trees. If Frost became melancholy and talked of death, Boyington cheered him by reciting a snatch of poetry or by singing a humorous song.Boyington was an unusually talented young man. Not only did he have a pleasing singing voice, he also wrote almost classical prose, composed stirring poetry, and played the lute, stringed harp, mandolin, and harpsichord well. Those talents combined with his genteel manners and his imposing appearance (though he was only five feet eight or nine inches tall, his erect bearing made him appear taller) won him quick acceptance in Mobile society.Only a few weeks after his arrival in Mobile, Boyington was invited to attend a holiday ball at the Alabama Hotel, a fine building at the southeast corner of St. Francis and Royal streets. It was at that ball that he fell in love with a young French woman, Rose de Fleur, daughter of Baron de Fleur. Baron de Fleur had been forced to flee France following a duel in which he killed a count who had powerful social and political ties. At least that was the story told in Mobile. (Continues...)Excerpted from Jeffrey's Latest 13 by Kathryn Tucker Windham. Copyright © 2016 University of Alabama Press. Excerpted by permission of The University of Alabama Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

About the Author

Kathryn Tucker Windham grew up in Thomasville, Alabama, the youngest child in a large family of storytellers. For many years a Selma resident, Windham was a freelance writer, collected folklore, and photographed the changing scenes of her native South. A nationally recognized storyteller and a regular fixture on Alabama Public Radio, her commentaries were also featured on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.” Her other books include Thirteen Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey, Jeffrey Introduces Thirteen More Southern Ghosts, Thirteen Georgia Ghosts and Jeffrey, Thirteen Mississippi Ghosts and Jeffrey, and Thirteen Tennessee Ghosts and Jeffrey.

Reviews

News