Halloween: A Ghost Story

50 this morning, overcast with threat of rain. Cool all day.

A good story for this Halloween evening, from Greenbrier county, West Virginia. Meet Sam Hart.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Thurmond, Post 3

Still more photos from Thurmond. Can you tell I loved the place? And have added yet another abandoned railroad town to visit--Nuttalburg. We just need to find a time to go there.

We didn't venture up this curving road; that will be for our next trip to Thurmond. What will we find, I wonder?

The red house is privately owned, and is being renovated with an eye to overnight rentals. How I would love to stay there, just for one night, and wander the town in the dark.

Under the tangle of vines and overgrowth is a low building. What was it? No idea.

I was trying to photograph a flower, and ended up with this spooky picture instead.

Surprise! Trucks can go on railroad tracks too--as long as the truck has specially fitted wheels, that is. CSX maintenance crew, passing by and waving.

Porches--I do like them. This one makes me wonder, who sat out here, waving at the trains? 

More vines; not sure what this one is, but the color was arresting.

Another porch. Larry would not go back here with me; he was worried about copperhead snakes, which is a real possibility in this rocky, overgrown environment. This porch is actually right up against the hillside and must have been a cool retreat on hot days, and a sheltered one in cold weather.

One of the houses now belonging to the parks service.

Vines and vines, this one English ivy which is not native. I wonder if there was a flower garden up on the bank?

Wild asters bloomed in profusion on the hillside.

Hideaway? Well, it was once a home, now in the care of the park service.

Such nice work went into building the bank; this carved stone caught my eye.

Remember the alley I referred to in yesterday's post?

What intrigued me, besides its steep slope, was the stone and brickwork. Here, you can see that the masons didn't bother to finish the stonework, since it was hidden away up the alley.

And here, from almost the top of the alley, looking down, you can kind of see where the rough finished stone meets the finished, on the right.

Beautiful work on this arched window opening.

And here, some very rough, inexpert work closing in one of the window. Surely not the work of a trained mason.

The unfinished stone, yet again.

And here, the finished stone. This was very likely the work of Spanish or Italian masons, who were the primary stonemasons in West Virginia during the boom years of coal, timber, oil and gas production.

I was intrigued by this perspective.

Here is what is called dry-laid stone, with no mortar between the joints. Can you tell I'm married to a former mason?

I think this is a fig tree? Growing out of the stone wall above. What an odd thing to find.

And now I will close the door on Thurmond with one last door photo.

Until our next visit, that is. 

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Gather In

44 this morning, windy and cloudy, then sun, then showers. Warmed to lower 60's.

Today's garden bouquets. The one in front is in an Early American Pattern Glass jar that is missing its lid, but doesn't it make a perfect vase?

Lavender plants came in the mail yesterday, so you know what I had to do today. The tiller came out--again--and new ground was worked up to plant them. My flowerbeds are so full there's no room for more plants. And since I seem to keep ordering them, I had to find a place to start a new bed.

This is not the perfect way to start a new flower garden, I know, but I seem to have put the cart before the horse. Last week I tilled ground for new peony plants, today for the lavender and for several other plants now on their way. I have to admit I'm excited about this. It's been years since I established a new garden. I kept thinking it was time to scale back since I'm getting older, but this year I've decided what the heck, plant while I can and enjoy it, and when I'm finally unable to care for them, we can just let them go. In the meantime, we'll have lovely flowers. I hope.

Since the day warmed up nicely, we spent most of it outside, cleaning up and putting away. It always surprises me how much must be done--garden tools that had accumulated on the cellar house porch, garden chemicals, flower pots, hand tools, garden ornaments, etc, all needed to be put away for winter. There were wheelbarrows--count them, we have at least 6, most destined eventually for our booths--to be put up, a garden bench to be moved to a better location, some tomato stakes to put away, and on and on. It took several hours, and there's still a bit to do, but we made a really deep hole in the list.

It's fun to be out in the gardens at this time of year, although sobering to see how the vine-y weeds have run amuck while I was so busy canning. Even so, some plants that struggled through the summer are blooming like crazy and growing well. The dill re-seeded itself and now we have some lovely young dill I can harvest and freeze. A few squash plants are still hanging on and have a few blooms, and the calendula has seeded and spread all over a part of the walled garden and blooming nicely. The cannas I started from seed have a few blooms, and I must remember to dig the roots this year. There are green onions because the potato onions I planted have sprouted, and beets and kale and of course turnips.

And flowers. Flowers everywhere. Roses, zinnias, those ones I call stevia, Victoria salvia, the calendula, a few marigolds, chrysanthemums, all are loving this cool, damp weather. There are chives in abundance, basil still growing, and the perennial herbs have tender new growth. It does my heart good to see all this, and I feel grateful because the plants have managed quite well without me. Even some small lavender plants, some that I started from seed and others that I bought, are looking strong and healthy and I am hopeful they will survive the winter.

I will have to get back out there soon and do some cutting back and cleaning up, but for right now it's all good. Now I'm looking forward to the arrival of seed catalogs, when the whole cycle will begin again. I have to admit, it's exciting. Because next year, in the gardener's mind, will always be better, there will be more time, less weeds, and fantastic results. 

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

More from Thurmond

46 this morning, and hasn't warmed up much. Very chilly, overcast with occasional winds, but no rain.

I want to go back to our visit to Thurmond a couple weeks ago; there were so many things to photograph there. So here's a few more.

The turbulent New River, far below the trestle.

Morning glories, still in bloom even in mid-October.

And honeysuckle, usually a spring bloomer.

Pokeweed berries, a favorite with children to make "ink" and war paint, but poisonous to eat.

There are several homes tucked up in the hills, most of them now owned by the National Park Service.

Abandoned, what used to be the Thurmond business district.

On this house you can see the louvered shutters installed by the park service as part of preservation efforts. I think these might be part of moisture control, to prevent mold and the like.

I cannot remember what this plant is, but it seems to thrive in its growing place in the stone wall.

I have more photos of this alley for a later post. It fascinated me.

Coal, lots of it, loaded onto many many coal cars that rolled through while we were there.

The Thurmond Town Hall, still in business, although that's about all that is.

Virginia Creeper showing its fall colors.

A hand cart rusts away outside the post office.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Ghost Stories

Ghost stories abound at this time of year. Fall is a time of death, really, as trees shed their leaves and frost kills what is left in the gardens. Night comes early and the chill, damp air lifts fog from the valleys to cover the land with an ethereal glow. It's a time for drawing in, hunkering down, shuttering the windows, stoking the fire and contemplating the end of life we all face at some time. Why are there so many ghost stories? What gives this particular type of tale its longevity and popularity? The answers are as varied as the tales themselves. In West Virginia, we have many such tales, from vanishing hitchhikers to malevolent peddlers to crying ghost babies. The degree of "hauntedness" varies. Some are fragments, really, a mere whisper of a tale or piece of memory passed down as a "they say" story. Others are well-known, documented in books and occasionally on film or in photos. My interest in ghost stories started as a child when my parents told us the story of the haunted house in Royston, England, where they had an apartment as newlyweds. Add to that the big old house in Manassas where we lived when I was a child, with its chipping plaster walls, spooky basement and Civil War relics in the yard, and my fertile imagination was well supplied. When I moved to West Virginia, however, I found that I had moved to the mother lode of ghost stories. It seemed like every place in the state had a story connected with it. In my own county, I heard almost a dozen stories of haunted places or events. As I learned more about my new home, I found books by Ruth Ann Musick, collections of ghost stories from around the state. Many were vague, others were more developed with names and specific locations. The stories grabbed me because they were told by ordinary people living their ordinary lives--except there were these weird things that had happened that they knew about and were willing to share. I wondered why we had so many ghosts in this state. Was it because of the valley fogs that can look pretty spooky in the evening light? Was it that people who live here just have more active imaginations than people in other places? Did it have to do with the ancestry and cultural background of West Virginians? Did religion play a role? I've come to the conclusion that it is all of the above. We are a state of storytellers, as you would know if you stood in line at any grocery store. We talk to strangers and we talk in stories. West Virginians tend to be a religious people too, and ghost stories often carry lessons of forgiveness, retribution, unrest because of a grave sin, or warnings to listen to elders. We're imaginative--some of my posts recently demonstrate the imaginative and creative minds of our residents: the plane van and the big eye, for example! Our heritage here is Scottish, English, Irish and German predominantly, but with a good helping of Italian and a seasoning of Polish, Russian, African-American, and many other nationalities. British folklore, particularly that of Ireland, includes revenants of all kinds, along with both little people and giants. Some of those tales were simply transplanted and adapted to a new environment. The German tales also moved to the mountains, with their often darker themes. Then there is our environment: towering dark mountains, deep shadowy hollows, evening and early morning fogs, the intense quiet broken only the falling leaves, an owl's call, the cry of some unnamed night creature. All lend themselves to a sense of the supernatural, of someone or something watching, lurking, in the dark and hidden places along our roads. On this Halloween, take some time to travel into the countryside. Find a quiet place, stop your car, get out and listen. You too may find, even if you are not in West Virginia, that there is something in the air that sends a shiver down your spine, and has you looking over your shoulder. You may go home with your own tale to tell.

I've posted many ghost stories here in the past 3 years. Here are a few you may want to go back and read:

My most recent ghost story was written from a prompt in a newspaper article.

The story my parents told about their haunted house in England.

A couple of ghostly poems; and here is another. And a classic from Thomas Hardy.

Ghost story and comedy, all in one! The Gatehouse Ghost story is a true story that happened to me.

Links to other ghostly information.

Strange photos we took at the old Moundsville State Penitentiary, which now does ghost tours.

Raw Head, Bloody Bones was a look into the background of this chilling tale used to scare little children.

A recipe for Bony Fingers? Why not?

Jump Tales for Halloween--just the bare bones, but easy to develop for telling.

West Virginia's most famous ghost story, The Greenbrier Ghost. This is on my new CD Beyond the Grave both as a ballad and a story. (Yes, I finally found a melody for it)

A ghostly tale from Rowlesburg, West Virginia.

The Wizard Clipp, another famous story in our state. Another one that's on my new CD.

How to keep the haints away from your house--timely tips!

Short tale, easy to tell.

I've written about the "why" of ghost stories before; this older post contains a good booklist.

A true story of something that happened to me. It still gives me shivers to remember it.

One of the stories from Jackson County, Sidna is a tale I often tell. It's on the CD!

A story told to me by a young girl, this story is on my new CD too.

Want a copy of my new CD, Beyond the Grave; Ghost Stories and Ballads from the Mountains?

Email me at susannaholstein@yahoo.com and I can tell you purchase details.

Weekend Getaway

52 this morning in the place I was staying. Clear and 🌞. 

Home again after a weekend writing retreat. What immersive pleasure! We wrote and wrote and wrote some more, interspersed with conversation, critique, and good food. Lots of good food. This is just a group of four of us, all longtime friends. I came home with many pieces to work on in the upcoming weeks.

This funny guy was in a curve of the highway and you know we had to stop for a photo.

On the way to camp we stopped at our favorite picnic area.

This is the Cherry River. The picnic area is located on the site of a former railroad station.  You can still see the old railbed in places alongside the road.

The beech trees were spectacular this weekend. Just breathtaking. 

At camp, a washcloth hangs to dry on the back porch.

And then, the long road home.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.