Two of my great, great uncles, Marion Oma Gano Tucker and Riley “Bud” Mayo, were ghostbusters in Texas and Oklahoma during the great depression. According to stories passed down by the family, times were tough, so for work they traveled from town to town and asked locals if there were any haunted houses or buildings in the area. If there were, they offered to live in the house and investigate what was really going on. In exchange, the town gave them food. This provided them with room and board during difficult economic times. It also gave them a lot of good ghost stories to tell their relatives.
The Cat
Often, Gano and Bud were able to solve the true mystery of the haunted house. For example, locals in one town put them up in a house near a cemetery. The townspeople reported seeing a ghost come up out of a grave and come up to the window of the house every night. After staying there awhile, the two men discovered the sounds came from a large, stray cat that lived under a tombstone and often wandered up to the house looking for food. Ghost story busted.
The Cowboy
Sometimes, however, my uncles could not find a logical explanation for what they witnessed. One home they stayed in near Conroe, Texas had a very strange story. Often, during the night, people heard the sound of a man on a horse approaching the house. They heard the hooves against the ground. They heard someone dismount and approach the door, spurs clinking, but no one was there. They saw the door open, the sound of footsteps through, the house, and creaking as if the invisible figure were sitting in a rocking chair.
The story was that a young man had fallen in love with a girl in secret. He met with her regularly in a barn down the road. They made plans to elope. Her father discovered their affair and tailed the man to the house one night, shooting him through the window as he sat in the rocking chair.
Gano and Bud, of course, didn’t believe any of this. The townspeople asked them to help the ghost be at peace. They went in expecting to bust the story. Instead, they witnessed all of the noise for themselves on several nights, but they never could see anyone or anything making the noise.
The Body
Gano and Bud also guarded the bodies of the dead prior to funerals. When someone died, the undertaker or the family would dress the body up, often in nice clothes or some sentimental jewelry that could attract thieves. In these situations, Gano and Bud offered their services, setting up with the dead overnight and guarding the body. One night, the two were in a house near the cemetery playing cards late at night, guarding the body of a man laid out on the table next to them. He had coins laid over his eyes, as was the tradition at the time, and the room the table sat in had two windows–one on either side of the body.
Suddenly, the body sat up and let out a terrible moan. Gano and Bud, the story goes, jumped from their seats and leapt out of the room–one through one window, the other through the opposite window. Gano ended up in the cemetery, fell into the freshly-dug grave, and passed out after hitting his head on a shovel. Bud couldn’t find Gano anywhere, so he ran home and told his wife, my great-great aunt Ruth, what had happened. Bud was too afraid to go back, so Ruth (who told this story to her grandchildren), returned on her own and found Gano.
Only later, when they had time to catch their breath and think over things, did they realize what had really happened: Rigor mortis had caused the body to stiffen in such a way that it sat up on the table. This put pressure on the lungs, forcing out air through the mouth and making that eerie groan. Ruth ended up being the one to push the body back down flat onto the table. The men had had enough.
Do you have any ghost stories in your own family?
Great stories! Thanks for sharing them.
Great stories! Thanks for sharing them with us.