The John Burrison Georgia Folklore Archive recordings contains unedited versions of all interviews. Some material may contain descriptions of violence, offensive language, or negative stereotypes reflecting the culture or language of a particular period or place. There are instances of racist language and description, particularly in regards to African Americans. These items are presented as part of the historical record. This project is a repository for the stories, accounts, and memories of those who chose to share their experiences for educational purposes. The viewpoints expressed in this project do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of the Atlanta History Center or any of its officers, agents, employees, or volunteers. The Atlanta History Center makes no warranty as to the accuracy or completeness of any information contained in the interviews and expressly disclaims any liability therefore. If you believe you are the copyright holder of any of the content published in this collection and do not want it publicly available, please contact the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center at 404-814-4040 or reference@atlantahistorycenter.com.
This is the second of a two-part recording. The interviewer, Carl Van Baker, is the son of Paul V. Baker. This part starts with Paul V. Baker describing Uncle Ben, an African-American man who lived alone in a cabin on his fathers timber land. Ben told ghost stories to Baker and his friend, and, after he died, they sensed something spooky in his cabin. Next, Baker tells stories from 1917 and 1918. He and his father loved fishing in Hannahachie Creek, near the Chattahoochee River in Omaha, Georgia. Granny Webb, a rumored witch said to haunt the area, had a fishing hole near the creek. Although they never found anything suspicious, Baker, his father, and his brother once noticed lights dancing around her house. Baker then describes a party during which his friends mother asked him to put a sheet over himself to spook her guests. Everyone ran away, after which Baker himself saw a ghost floating behind him and ran off. He later found out it was Mrs. Childes herself dressed in a sheet. Carn Van Baker turns the interview to Paul V. Bakers grandfathers house in North Carolina, the old Hubbard House, where he alternatively lived or used as a vacation home. He retells a story about a young girl who lived in the house and died of grief; after her death, her neighbors could still hear her organ playing. One day Baker and his cousins heard the organ music, only to learn that it was another cousin playing the instrument. In another 1918 story, Baker saw his mother faint on a rocking chair at her mothers house. She said that before she fainted she saw a coffin sitting on the dining room table. Years later, upon returning home after her mother died, the first thing she saw was the same coffin on the dining room table. Concluding the series of supernatural stories, Baker talks about a time he and his brother drove past a cemetery where they found a young girl. They gave her a ride, but she vanished before they stopped the car. The woman inside the house said the girl was her daughter who had died seven years ago. At the end of the recording, Baker retells tall tales involving chickens at Easter and hunting ducks. Then, he sings songs with Mr. and Mrs. T.K. Brown, P.J. Hudson, and the other interviewees, including Mansions Over the Hilltop, Ill Fly Away, Land Where Living Waters Flow, The Eastbound Train, Two Little Orphans, and Give My Love To Nell.
Neal E. Grant (1879-1972) married Carrie Grant (1879-1940) and they had one son, Alton (1919-?). The family lived in Dawson, Georgia, where Grant worked as a farmer. He completed elementary school through his fifth year. Clifford T. Lancaster (1899-1985) was born to John T. Lancaster (1874-1965) and Lula Lancaster (ne Wright) (1875-1952). He married Mary Anglin (1913-2001) and they had two children, Bobbie Ann (1930-?) and Jack H. (1932-?). They lived in Dekalb, Georgia, where he worked as a farmer, plumber, and spring maker. Rufus Glen Gilstrap (1901-1953) was born to Elijah Gilstrap (1859-1931) and Nancy Emily Gilstrap (ne Bramlett) (1864-1935). He married Mary Clyde Andrews (19031988) and they had two daughters, Martha N. (1935-?) and Sarah J. (1937-?). Gilstrap worked as a mechanic and lived in various locations in Georgia, including Alpharetta, Dekalb, Atlanta, and Milton. Paul V. Baker (1907-1974) was born to farmers James Pinkney Baker (1876-1960) and Rose Estelle Baker (1880-1955) in Catawba, North Carolina. He worked as a post office clerk and died in Burke, North Carolina. Thomas Kyle Brown (1920-?) was born to Leonard J. Brown (1894-?), a farmer, and Ila Marie Brown (1895-1987) in Flowery Branch, Georgia. Additional biographical information about the interviewees has not been determined.
Dogtrot; Fishing hole; Voodoo; Hex; Moonlight;
c. Van: The first part of my report will be ghost stories told by my father which he learned as a boy in North Carolina and Georgia. Mr. Baker: Wel~ another thing happened too around Thanksgiving, 1917. My brother was a student up at Georgia Tech, and he had a friend by the name of Ernest Childes who was also a student at Georgia Tech. They roomed together, and they came home for Thanksgiving vacation. Anyway, had this old colored man, called him Uncle Ben; he lived on my Daddy's place. My Daddy had a big on lease and some timber land and old Uncle Ben lived in this cabin. It had a dogtrot and two rooms same as other one. Anyway, old Uncle Ben lived up there alone. Daddy kept him up, fed him. He didn I t work, he was way up in his eighties or" nineties; no one knew how old he was. He claimed he had been a slave back before the Civil War. And he was a real white-headed, old colored man, and he lived in this cabin. He only lived in one room. The other room was empty. And he kept him a garden in the summer. He raised sweet potatoes and outside every fall he'd have a big mound of dirt that he'd put his sweet potatoes in and pile ihem up and he'd eat them all during the winter. As I said, no one knew exactly how old he was. But he was very venerable. And we boys use to go around there a lot at night time occasionally. , I, J& rI~ !it, I, I -2- And he had a great big ole fireplace in the cabin, big ole clock on the mantle, great big ole bed. And he cooked in the fireplace. And he lived completely in that one room. And he use to tell us ghost stories a lot. We'd go down there and sit there at night with him. Three or four of us and he'd tell us about ghosts and about this cabin that he lived in} that someone over in the other room had been murdered years before. And he could hear the ghost come back at night, wail around the house, especially when the wind was high at night. And he use to keep us really entertained with these stories. Well, anyway the man died. Dadd~ didn't really have undertakers in those days way back in the country in the sticks like that. So my Daddy went out ther~ and he and some other fellows and dressed the man up and put him on a board between two chairs over in the vacant room, put a sheet over him. And, as I said, my brother and his friend were home from vacation. This happened around Thanksgiving, when the old man died. So my Daddy asks us if we wouldn't go sit up with him. The old man didn't have any family or any friends so far as we knew. So we volunteered and said we'd go sit up with the old man So we did. We'd gotten, dug some potatoes out of this potato mound out there, and was baking them in the fireplace. Sitting there and the clock strikes I -3- twelve and we Were talking about the old man and his ghost and Ernest said, "Well, this is about the time for the ghost to start walking." About that time we heard an awful noise over in the other room. Sounded like somebody had taken a plank and put their foot on it and slammed it on the floor. So my brother said, "Uh-oh," said, "looks like old Uncle Ben had fallen off the plank." So we took the lantern)my brother, the lamp rather, took the lamp off the mantle. through the dogtrot. Tne wind was kind of blowing /iJu-~ And we went across~anJ the door of the other room was standing wide open. So my brother held the lamp up real high,and we were peering around in there to see the sheet was off the old man/and the old man was still on the board,though. And about that time we could all feel just like somebody had come up behind u~ and they blew the lamp out. There was a definite huff that blew the lamp out and scared the real dickens out of us, and we ran. And, needless to say, we left the old man there by himself the rest of the night. Mr;, Baker: Well, these stories I'm about to tell all happened back along in 1917 and 1918. We lived in Columbus, Georgia, and I was just a boy about ten years old then, and my Daddy was in the lumber business. And his headquarters was down below -4- Columbus around the community ar~maha, and Charles, and Louvale just directlYAof now what is Fort Benning, Georgia. And it~ real rich in lore and old stories and what have you. But we loved to fish; we had this creek called the Hannahachie Creek; it ran in to the Chattahoochee, down there by Omaha, Georgia. And we fished that creek; we seined that creek and we heard about this fishing hole up there a good little distance away. Said it was ole Granny Webb's fishing hole. Now ole Granny Webb lives in an old, had lived rather, in thE old cabin up on top of the hill overlooking and facing the Hannahachie Creek. And it was reputed by the colored folks around there that she was a witch and that she would put the hex on people t and voodoo ~em. And her death was under mysterious circumstances. And they said that the place was haunted, that you could see lights around it at night and various things happening. And you couldn't get one of those colored people within a half-~mile of that place after dark. But anyway, we decided we was going down there and try Granny Webb's fishing ~ hole. So we had an old 19l7~Dodge touring car; we got it within about a mile of the place or there abouts. Had to get out and walk the rest of the way. We had two hound dogs, good coon dogs, one's name was Rang; one's name was Liza, bitch was Liza. And they could fight a coon right down to a nub -5- any ole day, both of them. So we had our dogs with us, and we had a lantern. We got down there about dusty dark, and Granny Webb's fishing hole was in a bend in the creek,and there was a great big ole cane-break around the place. We got in to it all right, as I sai~ right before dark. And we started fishing, and we were catching catfish and WAd~'t brim and just having real good luck. Wouldn't paying much attention to the time of the day, and it got dark, got pitch dark. We had this lantern, so my Daddy lit, the lantern)and we were sitting there fishing there after it got dark. And all-ofa- sudden,we heard this walking. You know how when you walk in leaves, dry leaves or something like that; and we stopped and listened. It got close~ and it ) got qloser, it just kept walking, but we never did see anybody or anything. And instead of the dogs barking like they normally would have done or gone out there, and, if it had been an animal, the dogs would have gotten on to it. But they acted real cowed, and came over there and tucked their tails and kind of whinning and got up close to us. And my Daddy said, "Well, it's nothing but an ole rasor-back hog or a cow loose." So he took the lantern and he went back in there and looked around and came back in a few minutes. But when he went out to look for it, the walking stopped. So he came on back, said he hadn't seen anything. Well, my brother and I sat there -6- scared half-to~death while he was gone in the dark, o-.h the dogs with us. An9'. wellJto make a long story short, this happened about three times. And every time he would go out, my Daddy would take the lantern and go out there, wellJthe doggone walking would stop. And finally my Daddy came back, and he wouldn't say that he was scared or that it was a ghost or anything like that, but he said he thought we better go home. So we picked up our fishing and we took of4 and as we got up on the road we looked up there on the hill, and it looked like there was, oh I don't know how many~ lights just dancing around that house up there. And believe you me we took off up that road and we never did go back to Granny Webb's fishing hole. Van: That really happened, huh? Mr. Bakerl Yeah, it happened. Mr. Baker: Okay, we had another deal happen down there. +was telling you about this friend of my brother's, Ernest Childes, now this is his real name. It's real people I'm talking about. He came from an old, old family, a family of Fitzgeralds. His mother was a Fitzgerald. And they had this old antebellum home down there. And they had three daughters and Ernest. And Mr. Childes was a Senator, a Georgia State Senator, and they were real fine people. And we lived not too far from them there for quite a while. And one -7- summer, we were down there of course from Columbus, Mrs. Childes decided to have what they called in those days a "sunrise party." And) had a bunch of courting couples. I don't know, there must have been about 8 or 10 couples. The whole idea was, of course, to sit out on the front porch and talk, and tell jokes, and sing, and what-not till the sun came up. It was an all night, kind of like a spend the night party. Of course, properly chaperoned. So, as I said, this happened in 1918, and I was 11 years old. And I was really fond of Mrs. Childes as she was of me. And she invited me over there that night to be with the young people. Well, she had a daughte~ to~ that was about my age named Xabelle. So I went, of course, with the rest of them. And the party was going along; got down along 2:30 or 3 o'clock in the morning and things started getting kind a dull. And the young people acted kind of bored. So, ~ Childes came to me and she said that she wanted to liven the party up a little bit. And up /iJ.RJu-- the roadAa little piece, oh about a quarter of a mile, had the old Fitzgerald family cemetery. It was sitting back up in the field there, a little piece off the road. And had quite a few people buried in it. Had an iron fence around it with a big old iron gate. Anyway, Mrs. Childes came over there about 2:30 or 3 o'clock in the morning; said she was going to playa joke on I )*fern. It was a real moonlight night, you could just -8- see for, I don't know how far. And she said for me to slip around the back way. She gave me a sheet to put on. And told me to hide behind one of the tombstones, and she was going to go out there and suggest that the young people hike up to the remetery and go in and read the inscriptions and what not. So, I thought that was a wonderful idea. It didn't occur to me to be araid to go into the cemetery at 2:30 or 3 o'clock in the morning, since I was going to playa trick on somebody else. Anyway, she gave me the sheet and I went o~er there and got across, climbed across, the fence. And pretty soon, I heard the young people coming up the road laughing and (telling jokes and)talking. Laughing and talking, nice beautiful moonlight night. They got up to road where the road turned up to the cemetery. And they came up there, and the young men were real gentlemanly and solicitous abdut helping the girls over this fence, over the gate rather. The gate was locked, and they had to help the girls over to get into the cemetery. So after they all got in there, and they were running around and they were looking, looking at tombstones and reading inscriptions. So, I guess they had been in there 10 or 15 minutes. And I just came out from behind this big ole tombstone that I had been crouched behind with that sheet over me. And I just kind of gave a sigh, and did my hands out in the air (demonstrates by lifting hands up high), and those young people saw me and -9- I want you to know, it was every man for himself. They hurdled that doggone gate, they left, the boys did, they left the girls for their own,-.devices. And they took off up the road, well I was standing there just a laughing and just tickled half to death. And I heard this funny noise and I looked around behind me and there was the awfulist ghost I ever layed my wRAlil{ eyes on. Great big ole rath just kind of floating around in the air. And I took off, I hurdled that fence, I mean the gate. I didn't even touch it, and, of course, the other people had gotten up the road a little piece, and they saw me coming and they thought it was the ghost chasing them. (laughter) Well, anyway. FI'nQ,l/~ 1 iT "'''ffU! eJ that Mrs. Childes had gotten down there behind me. and it was she that I had seen in another sheet. But it really did waken that party up. Van: What about that one, that one about that girl in North Carolina, that night y~all were up there? Mr. Baker: Oh. that one, woohl Well, this didn't happen in Ge~rgia. happened in North Carolina back at my Grand Daddy's place. It was an old home, it was built in 1792 and it was in a ceder grove. And the house was in an "L" shape, and it was 2Y;; stories high. Well, it was 2 stories and it has an attic. Anyway. I use to go up there quite a bit on vacation, we'd moved. and that's where I was born. But we'd moved away when I was about 7 years old, and there was a lot of tales. My Grand Daddy had fought in the Civil War, my Grand Daddy Baker, he and his two -10- brothers. And it was called the old Hubbard House, and part of it still stands to this day, so far as I know. But the parlor, the "L" was up toward the fence. There was a big ole fence all away around the place, and the parlor was downstairs and the closest room to the gate, to the front gate. And the story went, that back during the Civil War li.ed +helle there was this young girl~and she had a sweetheart that was in the Confederate Army.. And he was killed. They got word that he'd been killed. Now this girl was an accomplished organist; you know the old time organ you had to peddle and pump. And she was a real accomplished organist. Well, it wasn't long after they got word that her sweetheart had been killed in the Confederate Army that she started just, her heart was broken, and she just started kind of pining away. She wouldn't eat; she just grieved. Finally she died. And the story went, that ever so often, especially on a right with a real bright moon, that they could hear her down there playing that organ. It was real soft. Said that she never did play it loud, but real soft. And then a lot of people had seen her walking around the porch at night, too, after ol''fClI1 . theAmusic had stopped. Well, one night, one summer rather, my brother and I were down there visiting all my first cousins and grandparents. And we'd been across the river to see this family, this girl, a bunch of sisters. A~d we came back, and it was a real moonlight -11- night, we were coming down the lane, and before we got to the front gate, we were talking about this business. About this girl that played the organ. And just as we got to the gate, we could hear that organ playing, just as soft and sweet, and we stopped. We stood there, there was about six or seven of us. We stood there and we listened to that music. And finally it stopped. And w~ were afraid, we didn't know what to do, either to go toward the house or run. We didn't know wht to do. Cause we thought it was that girl. And about that time here she came out on the porch just as white, just like she was floating. And it scared us half to death, and we started to run. And about the time we started to run, somebody yelled at us and wanted to know who that was. And actually what had happene~ it was one of my first cousins, name of Mamie, who was an accD~plished organist herself. And she had gotten up in the night and was down there playing that organ but she scared the living daylights out of us. Van: I guess so. Mr. Baker: Well, it was fall of 1918. Like I said, we lived in Columbus, ~eorgia. And had a maternal grandmother her name was Dagenhart, that was my mother's maiden name, lived in Greensboro, North Carolina. And we were sitting out on the porch one night, just early fall, and we had neighbors over there that had a swing'. And my mother was sitting in a chair. Our home in Columbus -12- had a big long hallway that went from the front porch from one side of the house all the way back to the dining room. On the right going back to the hallway was a parlor. And my mother was sitting in a rocking chair, right in front of the hallway. You could look down the hallway into the dining room. I was sitting on the steps, the front steps. Like I said I was about 11 years old. Anyway, we were sitting there. Our friends from over across the street were there and talking. My mother was just rocking, and she was kind of, the chair was kind of catecornered to the hallway, and she turned her head, apparently, and glanced back into the dining room. And all of a sudden she gave a little kind of a funny noise and she faintedl Right there in the chair, just fainted dead away. So, there was a Dr. McDuffey who lived directly across the street from us. We tried, rather the Garretts tried, to bring her too, but they couldn't. I ran across the street and got Dr. McDuffey. He happened to be home, and he came over there and revived my mother with something, I don't know what it was. Anyway, she said that when she turned her head~he had seen a coffin sitting on the dining room table. She was real perturbed. Well, the company left, and everybody, we all went to bed. And about, oh, about 3 or 4 o'clock that morning, the door bell rang, and it was Western Union. And it was a telegram from Greensboro, North Carolina, that my grandmother Dagenhart -13- had died. And they wanted my mother right away. So all the neighbors got together, and we got her off on the first train that left in the morning. And the whole point of the story is, that when she came back from Greensboro, she told us that the first thing she saw when she went into that house was that coffin just like she had seen it sitting in our dining room. And that really happened, that's a fact. I Mr. Baker: Well, anyway, I guess the grand daddy of ~em all, as far as supernatural is concerned, happened to my daddy and me. It was along in the fall of the year, and like I said, he came home every weekend. And back in those days the roads, didn't have any hard surface roads. And had to have chains and when it rained, it got muddy. And it was real, kind of, rough traveling. But I had been down there over a long weekend with my daddy, and we'd started home. In this ~uring car, like I said, this old Dodge touriag car. But they had to have curtains. And it was kind of, it was early fall and there was kind of a cold rain. The roads were muddy, and we had chains on the car. And we were only about 45 or 50 miles from Columbus. But it took us afuout 3 hours to make the trip. And this one particular night, we had left kind of late in the afternoon, and dark caught us before we got home. And we were approaching -14- Columbus; we weren't too far from Columbus when we were going pass this cemetery over on the right hand side of the road. And we saw this woman standing over there. She was dressed rather skimpily, and she was wet, and looked cold. And my daddy said, "Well, my goodness, look at that woman over there." So he her if we could help her. stopped and asked I A _ '. D And she said, "Yes, I ~ you can. " She said, "You can take me to this address. " She got in the car, in the back seat, and she handed him this little piece of paper, had an address on it. So we went on up the road. We were just on the outskirts of Columbus. And we tried to talk to her, but she wouldn't talk much. So we just kind of forgot about her and went on about our business. And, of course, Columbus, my daddy knew Columbus real well. And we went over to this address to the street where she had given us. And stopped the car and looked around, and she wasn't back there. She was gone. And it kind of, kind of, rattled both of us, that she was gone, cause we hadn't stopped the car. But, anyway, we had the right address and my daddy got out; I went with him. Went up to the door and rang the door bell, one of those old, you know, twisting type doorbell rings, not an electric type. And this real grey-headed elderly lady came to the door and wanted to know what we wanted. We told her and handed her this piece of paper with this address -15- written on it. Said that we have picked the girl up about 3 or 4 miles out of Columbus. And she looked at the writing and she invited us in and h~d this old piano sitting over there and had this picture up on the piano. And she said, "Does this look like the girl that you picked up?" My daddy said, "Yes," said, "that's her." She said, "Well," said, "that's II my daughter," and said, "She has been dead 7 years. Van: Do you know any tall stories, or yarns, or whoppers or anything like that? Mr. Baker: Well, yeah, I don't know what ya call ~m, tall stories or whoppers. I'm just telling you the -tit tru. One of them I know, I had a bird dog. My daddy p~id a hundred dollars for that bird dog, had him trained. And that dog wouldn't break a point if his life depended on it. And he was a real rare bird dog. You know, a covey of quail, when you're hunting quail, you know how they will do. Get a dog, a setter. a pointer, and he will, the pointer will, get a point. And those doggone blasted quail will take off in the underbrush to the left or to the right. But this dog got it, had it, all figured out. They started sneaking off to the left, he'd raise his left paw and point off after him. (demonstrates this by pointing his left arm) He'd keep his nose right straight down on his original point. ~~d if they would start off to the right also, he'd take that tail and twist it around. Point off to where they were going to the right. And I know one time a doggone rattlesnake, while he was -16- pointing, bit him right in the rear. Struck him right in the rear and he didn't bat an eyelash. He still kept that point. Mr. Baker: And)speaking of bird dogs, reminds me of a chicken I had one time. I got that chicken, my mother gave it to me, as an Easter present. You know how kids get chickens and ducks and this and that and the other for Easter. Well, my mother gave me this little chCken for Easter one year. ~~d I made it a nest, we lived out in the country kinda and had a wood stove. And I made the chicken a nest along the range, cook range. I named that chicken Susan;' it turned out to be a hen. And that doggone chicken stayed in the house all the time. And she'd go out, cr course. Night time came, roosting time came, she'd come into the kitchen} boy. She'd cluked and she carried on, until we let her into the kitchen. But there was one strange thing about that chicken. We had company, she was in her nest there in that doggone kitchen. And every morning when we get up for breakfast why she'd lay the number of eggs for what ever we had. If we had just the family, there was four of us or five of us, she'd lay 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 eggs and think nothing of it. We always had fresh eggs,for breakfast. And one time though, we had a family reunion. And that doggone chicken woke up and all those people in that kitchen, and she died from a heart attack. -17- Van: What about that time you were hunting ducks? Mr. Baker: Oh, yeah, hunting ducks. Well, I had this double-barrel shotgun. Came to this creek, there was a whole bunch of ducks sitting out there in the creek. It was the Hannahachie Creek, like I talked about before. And some of: the ducks took off and flew off to the left and some flew off to the right. And I could see the situation real ~ick like, and I just took my hands and bent the barrel of that doublebarrel shotgun (demonstrates by spreading his hands) and discharged the thing. Killed all the ducks going up stream, killed all the ducks going downstream. But the kick-back was something awful. Kicked me off into the doggone creek. And I had on overalls. And when I came up, I had my doggone bib full of fishl Van: Know any more? Mr. Baker: Well, not right now. I would have to stop and think I guess. Van: Well, I think we are about to run out of tape. Mr. Baker: Okay _____________________________________----l -18- Van: What's the first song youTe going to sing for us? Mr. Brown: "Mansions Over the Hilltop." Van: Okay, you can start when you're ready. Mr. Brown, Mrs. Brown and friends: PI'm satisfied with just a cottage below a little silver and a little gold. But in that city where the mansion will shine, I want a gold one that's silver lined. I've got a mansion just over the hilltop, in~at bright land where we'll never grow old. And someday yonder we never more wander, but walk the streets that are purest gold. Don't make me poorer, deserted or lonely. I'm not discouraged, I'm heaven bound. I'm just a pilgrim in search of a city. I want a mansion, a harp and a crown. I've got a mansion just over the hilltop, in that bright land WEre we'll never grow old. And someday yonder we will never more wander, but walk H the streets that are purest gold. Van: What are y'all going to sing next? Mr. Hudson: We're going to sang for ya one here that we've been sanging a long time, "I'll Fly Away. " Mr. Brown, Mrs. Brown and friends: d Some glad morning when the battles over I'll flyaway. We'll have a home on God's celestial home. I'll flyaway. I'll fly away, oh glory, I'll flyaway. When I die, hallelujah by and by, I'll flyaway. Just a few more weary days and then I'll flyaway to a land where joy shall never end. I'll flyaway. I'll flyaway, oh glory, I'll II flyaway. When I die) hallelujah by and by, I'll flyaway. -19- Van: What are y'all going to sing? Mr. Brown: "Land Where Living Waters Flow." Van: Okay. Mr. Brown and Mrs. Brown: "Some glad day my soul will fly way up high in the sky far above the land of grief and woe. With my Lord I'll flyaway on that day, happy day, to the land where living waters flow. Chorus: Oh the land where living waters flow, my soul is longing to be there. And some glad day I know I'll go to live forever in the air. Tis a lovely land, a wonder~ land where the angels sing. Round that throne, shining throne, prasing heaven's King. And some glad day I know I'll go to the land where living waters flow." Mr. Brown: That's all there is to it. Van: That's good. Van: Do you know any ballads? MIS. Brown: I know one. Van: What is it? MIS. Browc: "The East Bound Train," Van: Would you sing that? MIS. Brown: Be glad to. Van: Okay. Mrs. Brown singing: "The east bound train was crowded one cold December day. The conductor shouted tickets in hiS old-time fashion way. In a corner sat a little girl, her hair was bright as gold. no ticket)~nd then her story told. She said;'I have , My father he's -20- in prison, he's lost his sight they say. I'm going for his pardon this cold December day. My mother's daily washing to try to earn our bread. While my poor, dear old blind father is in prison almost dead.' The conductor could not answer; he could not make a reply. Taking his shaking rough hand he wiped the tear drops from his eyes. He said,God bless you little girl just ~y right where you are. You'll never need a ticket while I am on this car. ' " Van: Would you sing me one more ballad? Mrs. Brown: Oh, this is a sad one, it's "Two Little Orphans." Mrs. Brown singing: "Two 11ttle children, a boy and a girl, stood by an old church door. The little gii5 feet were all brown as her curls that fell on the dress that she wore. The little boy's clothes were all tattered and torn, the tears shone in his blue eyes. Why don't you go home to your mother my dear, and this was the maiden's reply. My mother's in heaven, she's left go away, Jim and I alone. We came here to sleep for the close of the day for we have no mother or home. My father got drowned on the sea long ago, he waited all night on the shore. He was a sea captain, you know, and he never came back an more. Sexton came early to ring the church bell, he found them beneath theffiow white, the angels made room for two orphans to dwell in heaven with mother that night." -21- Mrs. Brown: I didn't get all those words. Van: Would y'all sing just one more? Mr,. Brown: "Give My Love To Nell." Van: Okay. Mr. and Mrs. Brown sing: ~ree years ago since Jack and Joe set sail across the sea'. Each vowed a fortune he would make before returning horne. In one short year Jack gained his wealth and started horne that day. Joe's parting words were 'Don't forget to give my love to Nell. Give my love to Nellie Jack and kiss her once for me. The sweetest girl in all this world I'm sure you'll say is she. Treat her kindly Jack ole pal and tell her all is well.' His parting words were 'Don't forget to give my love to Nell. 10'
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Professor John Burrison founded the Atlanta Folklore Archive Project in 1967 at Georgia State University. He trained undergraduates and graduate students enrolled in his folklore curriculum to conduct oral history interviews. Students interviewed men, women, and children of various demographics in Georgia and across the southeast on crafts, storytelling, music, religion, rural life, and traditions.
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