Behind the scenes - Beneath the Black Oak

I have lived most of my life in the South, surrounded by family and a rich tradition of storytelling. I grew up listening to my grandmother’s tales from her childhood—those she had lived through, as well as those that had been passed down from her own grandmother. These stories were carried through our family in the timeless vault of our hearts and souls. They spoke of tragedies, humor, romance, and most of all, the perseverance of our family and its history.

The tragedy of my great-great-grandfather, the man that inspired this book, was one of those stories that has always stuck with me. The sparse details of his life; how he was an iron worker and farmer, how he never owned a vehicle and walked everywhere that he went. He was a half-blood Cherokee man who came to be the victim of a known racist—a tragedy that was publicized as an accident, though my family always believed it had been murder. I also remember my aunt telling me how he would always stop at the store for peppermint sticks to bring home to the children after work, and how those ill-fated candies had been scattered around his body on that dirt road. This story has been told and retold over generations in our family, from 1935 to the present day, haunting us for nearly a century now. It lives in me and is part of who I am, along with so many other stories that my grandmother gave into my keeping.

The actual house in Beneath the Black Oak, where they lived, is still in our family and has been for well over a hundred years. In my story, there’s mention of an outhouse still on the property years later, and that is just one of the many truths tucked into this book. Around 1995, as a teenager, my family all gathered for a reunion in Alabama—cousins as far as the eye could see! After the gathering, some of us went to the family house to see my great-uncle Fred, who still lived there. I was absolutely enchanted, walking in my ancestors’ footsteps: the property that surrounds the little ranch-style cottage, the old peanut fields, the remains of an old wagon that had been left to fall apart right where it last sat, the old well, and yes, the outhouse. I asked why it was still there, along with a big metal wash tub on the back porch. My grandma told us that until a few years before—around 1990–92—there had never been running water in the house. Up until that point, Uncle Fred still took baths on the back porch, used the deep well, and the outhouse. I was amazed.

Inside the house, we walked over the creaking wooden floorboards of the simple layout. A living room that had doubled as my great-great-grandma’s bedroom, a small kitchen with a wood-burning stove, a newly added bathroom, and two small bedrooms. I was absolutely charmed by the simplicity of it all, seeing the shadows of generations moving through the space, remembering my grandmother’s many stories that had taken place within these very walls.

One room in particular caught my attention as Grandma gave us a tour. We walked in, and the first thing I noticed was a high shelf that went all the way around the room, lined with mason-jar-preserves that glinted in the light. My grandma explained how they had used every bit of space in that house, and preserves were an important part of keeping food since they didn’t have a refrigerator. She also told us that these preserves had been there since her mother had died, which seemed absolutely unreal to me—the past captured in glass.

Visiting that house was an experience I’ll never forget. No one mentioned anything about it being haunted, but I felt it. And no bodies have been buried in the woods on that property—at least not to my knowledge. Though there have been jokes behind hands about the possibility. There was something else buried in that place though: a deep vein of family history, scattered relics from our past, the spirits of our ancestors, and the story of my great-great-grandfather still echoing like a tune on the record player, captured in the very bones of this ancient structure.

I still don’t know what happened to the man who killed him. He probably went on about his life as if nothing had ever happened, while my great-great-grandfather lay broken beyond repair on that dirt road, and my great-great-grandmother had to go on with her broken heart, raising their six children all alone. So much mystery—so, of course my mind held onto that for years. That was in 1995, the visit, and I didn’t start writing this story until 2022. I was always intrigued by the details I’d collected, but it was never enough— but then my curiosity was sparked further when I saw it all printed in black and white.

A dear friend of mine who was studying genealogy asked if she could use me as a guinea pig in her studies, to which I excitedly agreed. I gave her my great-great-grandparents’ names, asking if she could focus mostly on them, though I didn’t expect her to find much. She surprised me though—she found actual census reports, newspaper articles about the incident, as well as his obituary. From there, my imagination went wild, and the story began to take form.

This tale that I’ve written, Beneath the Black Oak, is a quilted patchwork of both truth and tall tales, facts and gossip. I’ve stitched together our family history, along with my own personal and supernatural experiences, embellishing with the shiny trinkets of fiction. You’ll find so much of me and my family in this book: the mason-jar preserves, the peppermint sticks, the outhouse, the dog, and even the mysterious owl encounter. That all really happened. It’s a fifty-fifty mix of fact and fiction—a quilt of many varied fabrics, worked together into its final pattern. Sending it out into the world, feels amazing, knowing that their story won’t die with me… I think I just needed to capture it so that I could set it free.

I think some part of me just needed to tell this story. Some part of me needed to travel back there, to walk in their shoes, to sit with my ghosts and make sense of something that was so senseless. It feels good to hold space for them, to give their story a conclusion, answering unanswerable questions— even if only through the work of fiction.

Perhaps now their ghosts can rest—at least for me.