Ghostwriter: The Spirited Life of Kathryn Tucker Windham

oop this program has been made possible in part by a grant from the alabama state council on the arts and the national endowment for the arts the federal agency additional funding has been provided by and jack productions seven years ago a lot of my friends gave me a poem which i like very much a sunday july flame and unless some way home should prompt you to reveal it let her who knows the story best tell you the quickest way to do that say she was happy

say she knew me these things that's right it's based on this because it's been going for a few from historic capital was a musical in charleston west virginia welcome to another mountain stage with your host larry gross is back her name is kathryn tucker

windham you may have heard her voice on all things considered where she's done a commentary for years she's has a friend named jeffrey a ghost has a christian or house that she had tell stories about when it so much i've got all sorts of stories but ghost stories among my favorites now my co stars garth you do not have to believe in ghosts to enjoy good go still but that will start make you wonder could that really true do you suppose that really did happen and then it all along and that he's not saying and yelling why beauty of the night and as lainey avocado cemetery that played them suddenly added that cemetery way of rappers play a military man on great courses the buttons on the universal believed in them as white gloved hand resting gently on the

science team can ring down that road to lead them as their coats the carriage columns let's say the sixth man one on one side and six on the other various us and iran and eighties and as they came close to the care of the horses that the law would ryan shadow what happened matt priest in ghost stories got stirred up some twenty years ago when something that we come to a freaking believe in our house in selma alabama nobody's ever seen jeffrey in a password that is built but strange things happen in our hands derek his praises the weekend ahead of footsteps clamping

down the hall and doors open for you and these are rocking janna levin pressed gently sway back and forth but there's nobody with college jefferson was a scary at first and then there's a list and you know that isn't going for it i wonder what that was back in october of nineteen sixty three rudin and i heard him of footsteps on them that holman the door to my sunday and then all that slime now maybe it didn't come home from birmingham southern college he'd have that same no idea that in the hands

of a few days later dale to those in june issue in our boat back in this memorial service in their footsteps i looked over the top wait to battle this i am sleeping giant banner that rocket engine on its display in them tested upper hand if they would tear it out there and build it with terribly frightening so we thought maybe we had some while the children named in cheerfully gifts of waning in the pit they're doing is performing different men and have said i believe i've always said that he had given one night when i'm going uphill fight europe i applied senate that didn't commit crimes here and alice toddler to go to bed and stuff going on

that they couldn't open the door mom dated been moved over crossed window of soda again one thought of that song hello to about a town hall event in the nomination didn't do things that like when we did you remember that history there was hearsay no banks have been loaded in the room now and that we had in this is that i don't think that was in a traumatic events that took place there at ninety every came to stow and go off by it's pleasant mr nelson

singing well thank you prize for rotating are ridiculous file time done in a row that in alabama ghosts and jeffrey arnett so fascinated with these ghost tails these snipped from our heritage so i almost went on a crusade of collecting these tables when and other states they did in georgia ghost the best known of georgia's coast i said making tennis a ghost baking mississippi said the ghost and then jeffrey andrews as they came most of them go but also gathered at mexico's to write a good book the alabama won big on politics the chance and then i felt a crying need to be said that some western stations health campos buzzards to have those rainy and it

includes basic sell them if you still think of the city was a writer than to start over in great deal more time to stow and i almost saw the blank ha ha i'm reading never seen a ghost but i've enjoyed the ghost tales and i love to tell them and collect them what do not have to be frightened i'd go out southern folklore is filled with a way to protect yourself from evil and if you have a scary out of anything when you go to bed at night if you'll put your shoes under the edge of your day with one told morning one way and one toe in the opposite direction and say fall i happen to have that happen and you know and if i have any claim that his wish i'd known that one album drawn out because i had a big brother who would just mean just hardball he telling the most gruesome stories not believe every word you tell me

but the wild thing ever tell me was that there were little people and in having a decades and i didn't have any from a show known for my elbows dam and blood dripped constantly off of each bone if angle and they live and on demand a sauce pan many restless mayor for life but i did not know that fixing some fancy season and john adult jails and thank you for being five a great audience i think back then our land waiting for us to discover and listen to them one the baton and sharon without a story it's a powerful forbes it's a wonderful thing

to test out and it grieves me that we have robbed two generations of children of the jolly of listening to families tail still is what i'll sit in front of that black box and let people who cared nothing on that has come into our homes to bring so called anti tank and every member of the family has stories to tell and all you get divorced or just waiting to come out of some i have to listen to stories brands of families together you go to a family gathering in and let one place and start to tell the story and to somebody else it rated enron saying but don't you remember but don't you remember but don't you mean one story a story to

it and just to gather it brings back memories it says our lofty back pj storytelling demands to hand from the towel on an energy and it's in kiev or else the good stories really a gift and a gift of love why we started a merged the time that we spend all of africa's best to weave stories about own family and a quiet campus turn this one day as they restored our heads tell it they have to tell a day about it but i think it's funny list jim carrey the scale of it that country from thomas whelan that was really

rural the head of a beautiful bejeweled magnificent white beard fluffy and salt and sky sting groopman code and kept you forget that they are cutting so proud of it it's really want a few things he had to be proud of what he was proud of that being one day he was smiling as high a drop some ashes on his beard and it's around the bed daddy heard about it and he knew that upset with cantor would be about the damage to be up so that it went out to see him to commiserate with him a little bit and get a certain you know mr tucker if i hadn't been right thigh on monday and what a bond oh oh the father was the oldest of land sounds my grandfather say that his own baseball team and as

the oldest son growing up during those reconstruction plans he had little opportunity to attend screw in fact is education consisted entirely of three months of school they learned how to read and he said in about it you could read at all of the world to ninety percent it starts when they've been on down and tom's well ma'am their hometown extends all the way through college days on this day the number of children who came from a birthday party i would have planes at

turin with pulses various characters from history or famous portrait house the age of innocent time with a half mast was filled with books i never remember that it was painted my whole life and always need a painting in the wallpaper needed replacing and things were always out of faith but that will books everybody laughing in the rain we'd never bothered in nevada who was reading a theory about what it was you're tying it was a sacred chant african lion that rather a nigerian you didn't have to sweep the poet so i say ok and you could just read there they haven't read about what we had re setter and supper table at night i

knew that on the front but which was some talk about what we had rain and this is the house that i grew up in it had all along yale when i knew that i wouldn't stay at when i was growing up and i have it just made up but they thought as an easter egg hunts with were children sitting on the stage here that when balanced as we're like those on the poll which these wooden steps they squeaked and my advice started going out on dates with violet in cause they don't know if three things you want to hear in quick succession when i came in at night you want to hear the prado was slammed soon as we drove up in front and then you want to get the five steps we can anyone hear that's going door slam in quick succession and i always remembered that allows laid her in revenue could be additive nightshade if those sound didn't come quickly

but here's where we sat down stories over a banjo on that wall living room all by monday's jailers powers over his graying rock instead the chairs along the poll which he'd finished it up his feet up on the banks tell stories here and this may wonder was in london i go to sleep in that room and listen to the unbuilt spoken poetry and story has thrown off by contrast de

neef the standout only stay if he is president of the bank my first vote to close a revenue that to apply and that means the front doors close but united a bit miffed frank i knew that the side door was always open even close to five six o'clock in the afternoon and you well then that will air live i am going to bed below the saddle of the bank they're bad in its day of the waking day at his office near the back of that i go in his office that in a candidate and she wanted to do as long as you wanted to invoke allow the post office right mix know and then it was the council terms a weekly news by one point when i was growing up and ask to the current plan and outline to write a few things and

they are road movie reviews and that at every page the right and the only southern state came here when the silent pictures and they had somebody playing an upright piano rabbinical seized play at national grange to blame they follow the action onscreen family issues yeah i love this piece of turks don't know if you caught a whale of a world that that's gone across the street i love that though and those are hardwired to doshi are used to sit on a garbage came in right on the collarbone the side wall and he said then little on his false teeth they'd never did get their way and you see most of those are holding his teeth and what's going on triple mechanism actually have there was a trough in the people is a game

and i had an unusually tall the highway name means the show or hate it if you have five small valve and beans would set up a bat mitzvah both until a car would stop and get read to start off and beans would run and hop up on the running board of the college when the automobile said for the wide roundtable it all up and beans with radical with whoever was in that car he loved the right on the rhine gold and white and being thrown to all the way to arlington which was that when i'm out of road road with a tram and salesman who did know the dog was ahmed ryan bowling that there's not that aren't analysts though is being top of the violet still recognize being fall and it happened that a couple from tom ford had been the sale when they start by that low stolen from mary lou grant so what that looks like names and they say campaigns and maintain run it

thank you and thereby leaving to come for passage in the law and a little less than a lot of pasty the thing now sits nearly done had why don't prevent whites little with turtlenecks well with t h e s that were cut out of failed him staged on the from nothing to fear from now to head home phones of years they have to get them lead those cheers which is a state and there was a lot of that it's boutwell had a tie going wrong and we have a client who drove a lot of good ol now when they make

a pie when they get together they shouldn't be a scrap jeff watts at hokkaido wife that bulldog off the map and seeing the wind you're going out of my hand here we can look to a lot of girl will feel like i had been denied a girl late at night the next mine data came in the room and ice how much money and brought back from colin three four dollars maybe he said well it's all the money we've got in the world bank though it has come from norway thing for teenagers to know what real privation washington and as i say it

was the depression and people were so poor and remember children saying linehan according to apple and i say go in any habitat commission was a freshman incumbent in that silver hair don't have unveiled the taint cause them to their whale and the head we had to wear hats to turn one hundred and a friend had way ahead and gloves when you depression and how so houghton and why a national youth administration wanted a government programs to help people who needed it get education and replace a somewhat and

someone's life and a man that hadn't been there to help prepare the cats and the faux to be dissected in the rough introduction to the world of science for iraq would have been living in college but it was a great time to go to college everybody who was the iowa who are in the same condition financially not let him like mooney but then we have kept up this class of ferdinand is the best guys that have greatly quite true this modest than most from member the cleverest in and movement and clarifies of that we would have kept until it says

it's been it makes an idea that says and it only as a poet and i think that's what kind of loss of exposes you to sew that was a friday when we graduated in may and that's happened and maryam a meal again that's that we just went away said the

state can we were only once in the class who in many of the years when we are but as we were watching out singing get it on the stage of the theater that the jury and those faculty member back they're taking up that gets a look back at virginia did give a sign that something horrible is about that and she had not broke ranks and came out while assad goes and for what's going to get back up debris and some that are supposedly came back the petition rise but

it's big it's mainly at home why of that growing up in a small time being close to the people who live by gave me a treasure thinks tour at the time of not aware of it but i didn't really know thing about julia tutwiler do federation years except the circus trivial things that most people know about i think it probably it made me conscious of what a truly remarkable woman she walks and it laid the foundation being able to write about her as she walked in and not with all these little banks they could accuse an embellishment but just plain simple truth of that duty to and for their

own so addictive nina julia tutwiler push you already know that up in interviews last fight here now because my name but he and spit it for coming this afternoon depress and speaks to me of your friendship your support back of the bow and depressions also a shows me that view is that the injustice of merriment was president of alabama law more triage they've taken away the title of president america's to you know

stripped me of that armoire and maybe that's true too good for a one one day ahead for by gave a tone perhaps you're saying when some alabama leaning groups saying it on occasions such as this i know that i cannot stand around so i can sing anything in our bodies to say you know you know you write the songs but please let somebody else in custody of peeling hobson asked if can get out massive shit women were not given a great deal of prominence in life about in alabama especially in the south grew up during slavery times about a father with a very famous

educate all grew up similarly bound books fathers green springs group of hours at a remarkable latter and we had many many books in our home mother and father always read to us children all a lot of applause and then one glorious and then island to me eager to share this inside an apartment with someone else was our heart and to the backyard and summon my playmates the children follow the slain father passed a small caf when athens out old implant what you didn't hear you i'm teaching them to really feel proud it is against the law in alabama to teach a slave to read you walk away to combat don't keep the steam engines going to and they all have show was to do

if you were in a body you sent your son to professor couple hours green to find proof of olives and she grew up at that scrutiny tended the classes with the ball is they're listening to the sirens if private matter of abolishing the slopes guilt given how much of a shock when she tried to enroll in college and i told the sec when man in the question and she became aware that the advice of alabama will also quoted question last crusade to get perfectly inviting was successful in that and that can just teaching in livingston was pressed into college over by what is now live at a new litter started as a small academy and she was no more from the beginning noted that who

alone she provided education for girls who would never have been able to afford those who had not been finished doing things one not much compassion and pensions and determination what she thought she would arrive there was no deterrent we found that only six tables in the entire state where he did a bun and the better it's called well i'm not one single jay all have a separate system while was supplied to the prisoners at the whim of the gao the center is also that say they can use but it was the grant the state in the star receiver wide publicity and an outcry the jailer of foam swept across alabama and a team at a session of alabama legislature was about to convene after

manning was exactly the rough side protester franzen attended that legislative session i was pleased to see a legislator au menu rather whale standing in the rotunda he had been on a father's pupils a green springsteen degraded mccoy doing quiet about father's health and then he said to me you know let's do you i really dont think you should be here the capital during a legislative session is no place for a lady on a skull and other women affected by the laotian at where oh it's been i should be the cavaliers as much as possible the melting of those laws so it's a we women i've been mad the privilege of voting we should certainly be up caught in the courtesy of having our opinions lexington and falling off of it but furthermore when they will involve something that will

mean there were no women pressing each time this legislature convenes and some of those women would meet members of this legislation look at me is not last minute phone wasn't interactive she said if she lived her life and more an hour i tried to put on a book and she'd wind in the book she wanted somebody acting out online something online and the press and none of that you know fifty a more performances are unlimited and in los angeles about two summers ago a collision of contemporary art and i was in our show have a go at that since they should you know it's a the media on me but it was going to

solve this and at the minute photos on the newspaper reforma our profession and when i get interested in the story you have to do a lot of research on the issue you have the main driver of the day says if banks bailed correctly that the violence surrounding the occurrence of action actually so it is when you think that a war zone they can live on ours a police reporter for the alabama journal among them with that nineteen forty was placed women police reporters an

sat word on this occasion after a national guard and came lining have to defend against bayonet attacks never had a different brain i had done some string a wedge in the song walk the bottom of a pressurized and museum director the college newspaper right away from honey than i'd ever want to do with the unusual for an hour and then a couple months before graduation don't apply for them and it doesn't work on the spy you knew this ad helped him hawke plays pi placed in is too thin to standbys desk talking to and he looked up at me and said if you were a man out how i love radio stuff and you write

well but i'm not will having women working for months now so shocked because it never occurred to me that being a woman was a hindrance in one wounded and promptly he never did and be turned down for the job i wanted to come out of the war when more than one of the bandstand so i went that conflict i graduated and the mother in the insurance office and get some more newspaper i'd in some freelancing go one day the taliban which was the afternoon paper of the montgomery advertiser got a telegram from him saying that they're columnist and police report out in nineteen ten and john i have fords and they needed a

replacement protocol that would save them an act of a letter trials in family get promoted if you would call it that covering the capital frank dickson was government then he held a press conference every afternoon and there came an opportunity to move but an evening before what to yourself with the names have quite a career woman move to sail when america and moved here and had three children cause of life in northern active in our sort of hours and it's been in the news this favorite for two hours and new and more than most people know about arizona's new sometimes a non native proven and it also gave me the liberty of asking

people questions that were none of your business not to my son has made a new phone number where boys silence and white and white creation and what was really striking now working for them buying again news at the time michelle had just come back from world war two the top commander in the navy that played in picture isn't waiting rival married an afternoon ceremony and counsel in the methodist church and the honeymoon trip they handle all that while fans in a pitch of a college champion of but the band up to knocks from lexington on it and no one can still overwhelmed and no benefits and for what happened to connecticut state of war and

came back and to get out of the girl who came back and settle down and this is a scrapbook that an isolated the family started it so naturally narrative when far from amman went backwards into the sister who notices to edith and the phone's camera that i ever remember what it was for folding called i can act took many pictures with it we would go take it well as one would go to heels preston took pictures around the house and the family and the pants and and i liked that idea of preserving on a piece of tape up a moment in time when a person is they look just at that time when i began working with newspapers i now use a speed graphic like the country stores and that because the people sitting on polling

team might go way out a photograph of cemeteries in our churches and old houses tenet has is that they're disappearing so many of them they're in the house as character would rather live in one and i don't blame anyone else would not want to live in mumbai there were parts of southern landscape has dissipated the disappearing so there's that and then now here we are with katie being bol baby girl windham bonnet three fifty pm on december seventeen points seven plants in that act and that the whole of bail for the salem baptist hospital with ninety seven dollars and fifty cents but that's actually the baby doll and they

say no and i'm holding some knitting and edited and living life and domestic point had a baby and then and this was that are typically can you think it is best friends and so often written in pictures of pretty ladies koreans live on bolivar was with this one just playing my sources so talented and do in the north kid pictures of cavemen did a q now here comes something still knew as a chemist and derivative and so a patient or they haven't been banned and bone figures

showed it didn't look like he had to spit up on my shoulder looked their way up like a little brother from the very beginning when they brought him home from the hospital she was waiting at the top of the special an upstairs apartment that offer favorite colors and talk just family had another little chat with henry cultivates choose to a good beautiful and david and she won the first prize his halloween her first halloween couldn't go on some little town

and now psychic that made sense and then my youngest chance to record a great a birmingham convention and visitors' bureau communications and we're blessed to have children who live close enough so that we can get together fairly often there is elastic and coming home as much as i would like for them to come but to celebrate the other special occasions especially both days that scrappy look at all of the pictures and lyon fin tell stories and then i spot on it is there we'll have a look forward to these events again that has grandpa the talk

of mining on their name in haiti haiti are you have these very little county and that is just so awesome downstairs to have a group take your main ray i'm kind of that runs in families most famous of these people took him to me as his cousin's son putting this is that ants are relatively new though she's not been working to be a time when some of the family stands in the stands from the phrase that i failed from grace in may oh man i've been going and he's been

an hour is to narrative that says it's different isn't a second that is set in the years ahead almost no contact rule sometime has never planned there that is going to use re recording and they ask me to do that recording that we're coming just talk to the people and ask a few questions as possible to let them talk about what they won't talk back and watch them and awaken your friends family ties

in a ceramic stories a collection of tale about growing up in southwest alabama nineteen twenties and thirties or osha originally so that my grandson david linden would know something about the family the law changed that he came to the family were low and when he and interesting analysis system then they're floated as our wind washington wants someone took the children out there and now we're going in there and they have been banned by authority that an automated mean i didn't have ocean with a man she is well the sun embrace it wow that that they finally i'm going to try the michael shelley a regulation

which said you had to have options mrs ma says pickett himself in the hospitals that the first of his hot item whoo and that means for in recent that a massive outpour in their parents homes and when he on the radio talk show and the engineer came into front yard into this question from white house to let low and an in southwest alabama where i grew up with on southern railroad he is manager of

radio station in tuscaloosa that you lay out as if i would do some recollections of growing up your cell phone and tell a tale of two maybe on their stationery he sat some sign up to washington to national public radio in the people who herd them via approved of it in used among all things considered all be seen then in charleston west virginia public radio station has an awakening show called mountain stage but i imagine what life is one of our i'm just a bill produced by

west virginia public radio for npr national public importance that i was still in the oven awards maybe a half that have been from schoolchildren who write you know some say that the history of the books and they're going to write when they get help not need to feel how from teachers who say that i have susan our clients who will not read anything and when i tell them a story of two from hugo books it's doesn't interest in reading in them and they will get those books out of the library and struggle to read them in their first books that they've ever shown an interest in trying to meet in a fact encourage him back to learn to me because

it's a whole world of knowledge can usually hit in london so ladies and gentlemen we're proud to present the nominees of the nineteen eighteen and catherine t when the girl of the year and dallas county elson a student council vice president and a member of the national honor society she's been treasured the bank a club for two years don as the nineties so long american has those dunes with a chant eleven and twenty fourteen she is also a member of the nationalist a sappy and new

apple fight him an honorary an audience of the day i'm pleased to present the nineteen eighty nine campaign team win them grow up the year christina jones well bono optimist that i get discouraged despondent sometimes of the things i say in here and they're angry by that i still believe in me in the goodness of human being essentially that no matter how far we stray

that at some call it we're going to have to recognize the fact that we are dependent on each other and that we need each and something is going to draw us back together right so that we can only depend on each other but silicon valley followers believe that if people that it forced a bond was perhaps stronger than any other bomb that thought he said you can never hates of nine and i'd like to lie so that

things out of proportion we've lost our perspective that's embedded within our accept and then acceptance of the fact that we are not perfect and we should not expect perfection from others who god made a solid lead he gave love us we are love but it was

up in northeast alabama that her tale about a golf ball dog named buster and prodigy and i don't know why i just sat down and roth i liked working house intelligence and that that that the spotting fake ids need if a nation needed to work on cars no way it has been in an official has been disconnected or people interest me and i like to know what lincoln and while a lot of that day the way that i love i will also wowed implausible and so i did that it's what we do with

it this program has been made possible in part by a grant from the alabama state council on the arts and the national endowment for the arts a federal agency additional funding has been provided by and jack productions