Let me say "Happy Monday" to everyone and "Happy Halloween" to those who celebrate this Autumn tradition of trick-or-treating, costume parties and pumpkin carving projects. Have you given some thought to walking through a cornfield maze at a nearby pumpkin farm?
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| IMAGE (above): Halloween postcard, circa 1900-1910 from the Wikimedia Commons. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Halloween_Vintage_05.JPG. |
Today for Amanuensis Monday I have a "ghost" of a story to tell you. So instead of the normal document for me to transcribe, today I thought it entirely appropriate to share this since Halloween happened to come around on a Monday this year.
The primary character in this story is Thomas "Tom" Eugene Brown who lived his entire life in Casey, Guthrie County, Iowa. Tom was born on 25 June 1874 and died on 28 October 1935. Tom the first born to Murray Orville Brown and Lucinda Patterson. In 1897, Tom would marry Anna Nittler and they would have five children. Their oldest, a son, was Eugene John Brown (1898-1987), my maternal grandfather.
I came across this undated, unidentified story in papers left by my granddad, Eugene. It is a mimeographed copy of a typed single-sheet paper. When I saw it, it reminded me of test papers I used to get while in school. The near-purple text was a dead give away. The first time I held this paper, I brought it up to my nose to see if it still had that telltale smell that came with mimeographed papers. I was expecting to smell the near "rubbing-alcohol yet different" aroma that I can almost recall. But no, that memory-filled odor must have long since faded away. Do you remember seeing papers like this when you were in school?
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| IMAGE (above): "How to Exorcise Ghosts" by John Buchanan. From the Brown-Shinn family files held by Darlene Steffens. |
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| IMAGE: Close up of story's graphic and title. |
-------- transcription begins --------
How to exorcise ghosts
By JOHN BUCHANAN
Probably every small town in that old, haunted, wooded country of the midwest where I grew up had elves, goblins, witches and ghosts.
There were several well-known haunted houses, haunted bridges, and haunted woods in and around Casey, Iowa, and one of the most reliable ghosts, in regularity of appearance, roamed the woods along Middle River west of town.
It lived near a heavily timbered promontory we called Bunker Hill, and it appeared most often near a bottomless lake, I know the lake was bottomless because everybody said it was and I know the ghost existed because Tom Brown had a personal encounter with it one night, and you can't have a personal encounter with something that doesn't exist.
The ghost always appeared at night, of course, and people got to avoiding that road.
Tom Brown, who operated a horse-drawn dray [a low, strong cart without fixed sides, for carrying heavy loads] at Casey, said he wouldn't be afraid of the ghost. Some people said he was bluffing.
So Tom said he had to pick up some cordwood out near Bunker Hill, and he'd make it a point to make the return trip after dark.
"Oh, Tom, don't try it," his friends said. But he went ahead with his plans.
On the appointed night, a couple of Tom's friends stationed themselves near the bottomless lake to help Tom if he needed it.
They told later how Tom came driving his dray along the road, and how bright the October moon was, and how the wind rustled the oak leaves and cornstalks.
As the dray rumbled along close to the lake the ghost jumped out and ran into the middle of the road, just like it was supposed to. But Tom didn't panic, like he was supposed to.
He clicked his tongue at the heavy muscled draft horses (they regularly won the pulling contest at the fall festival), and they never broke their stride.
The ghost didn't seem to know quite what to do. Just as the team veered around it, Tom—a big, muscular man—stood up and shouted some things to the ghost that no one cared to repeat, and heaved a chunk of log at it.
The log hit the ghost square in the ectoplasm. Tom shouted in a bull-like voice that he'd unload the whole wagon full of logs if the ghost didn't get out of the way.
Which the ghost did, and that the last anyone ever saw of it.
And that's kind of too bad, because there aren't enough elves, and goblins, and witches and ghosts these days.
-------- transcription ends --------
Wasn't that fun? I enjoyed it well enough that I became curious about the author. Was he possibly a relative?
I found a John William Buchanan, in the 1940 U.S. Census, who was 21 years old, a newspaper journalist, who lived with his widowed mother Effie Buchanan in South Boulder, Boulder County, Colorado. According to this census, they both had lived in Casey, Guthrie County, Iowa in 1935.
Then I next found him in Ancestry.com's U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 database that stated he was born 15 October 1918 in Casey, Gutheri [sic], Iowa and died 22 May 2003. I then able to follow him to Findagrave.com where a bio there stated he was a "University of Colorado at Boulder journalism graduate. Former assistant editor of "Empire," formerly a Sunday magazine of the Denver Post;" also stating his Casey, Iowa birth and Denver, Colorado death.
I am dissuaded from thinking John was related to me.My current thinking is that John Buchanan wrote this story while in school in Casey, Iowa. Possibly for a writing assignment or contest; thus the mimeographed paper. It could have been written possibly between 1933-1937 while John was in high school.
There are a few points about Tom Brown, the main character in the story, that bear true. Thomas E. Brown, my gr-grandfather was a drayman, who lived in Casey, Iowa. Although he was a good-sized man, his size within the story may be exaggerated. Did his horses win pulling contests? This is something I can work to verify. So there is more work to do while I let you ponder the story.
Amanuensis Monday is a weekly blog theme that was started by John Newmark, the author of TransylvanianDutch blog. John defines Amanuensis as "A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another." I also appreciate the good work and format examples of San Diego genealogist Randy Seaver of the blog Genea-musings. Thanks guys.
Transcribing helps me to learn what a document contains. I have learned over time that I have a tendency to "skim" over an item; a bad trait for a researcher who needs to learn even the smallest details documented records contain. Transcribing helps me to slow down and "smell the roses," and to capture all aspects of the paper in hand.
Wishing you a good day and a great week. Thank you for stopping by today.
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The URL for this post is: http://homefolktales.blogspot.com/2016/10/amanuensis-monday-story-of-thomas.html.
Please comment regarding this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then use the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post. I would like to hear your comments. Let me know too if you are connected to the individuals I write about. Or you can contact me by email at dsteff4246[at]gmail[dot]com.
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