In Memoriam 

 Kathryn Tucker Windham

(June 2, 1918 ~ June 12, 2011)

Master of Yarns and Tales

 

 

Graveyard Shift

      Hoyt “Hambone” Ledbetter was always quick to cock his head back and proclaim that he was the toughest man in Cherokee County. “I ain’t skeered uh nothin’ ner nobody.” And most of the folks in Rusty Springs, Georgia believed him…until the night of January 18th, 1968. 

     Rusty Springs was an off-the-beaten-path town of just over 600 people, mostly older folks who had retired up north and moved south to escape the cold, harsh winters.  Ancil Griggs’s Peace in the Valley Funeral Parlor was the town’s largest employer with seven workers, which included the “interment site attendants,” as the uppity Mr. Griggs liked to call them. (Everybody else just called them grave diggers.) Rusty Springs was a quiet, peaceful community until a rash of burglaries hit, of all places, the funeral parlor. That’s when Hoyt Ledbetter’s life began to unravel.  

     In small, closely knit towns, news, good or bad, spreads like a sagebrush fire…and Rusty Springs was no exception. In the darkness of a cold November morning, the town ne’er-do-well, Mickey Joe Clayton, was caught red-handed inside the funeral parlor. The word around town was that he was stealing embalming fluid and selling it to deer processor Carl Haskins, obviously for “preserving   purposes.” But the town folks saw right through that ridiculous rumor, fairly certain that it was the work of Harve Brantley, the town’s other deer processor. Mickey Joe was actually helping himself to the unclaimed personal property of accident victims…rings, watches, women’s jewelry, even pocket change. But on Halloween night of ’67, the granddaddy of all burglaries, or pranks, if you will, took place.  A threesome of boys from the nearby junior college got into the funeral home, made off with the training cadaver, rode it all over town,  its head stuck out the window, and then sat it in the front seat of a friends pick-up while he and his date were in the high school gym attending the annual “Halloween Booger Bash.” Mr. Griggs had had enough.  

     After pondering the situation for what seemed like months, he decided on the obvious…a night watchman. It would have to be the only person who had the intestinal fortitude to work a graveyard shift at a funeral parlor…Hoyt Ledbetter!  

     Hoyt had been fired from his truck driving job with the county highway department after he threatened to “whup” his supervisor, so when Mr. Griggs offered him the job, he didn’t even blink. “I reckin ye gotcha self a man.”  “Then be here tomorrow night at ten ready to go to work. You’ll get off at six in the morning. And I don’t put up with any foolishness,” Griggs replied, in his trademark gruff voice. “In addition to making rounds through the building, your job will include some minor janitorial work...sweeping, mopping, cleaning the toilets, and the like.”  

     The night of January 18 was a typical mid-winter night…cloudy, cold, wind whistling through the trees, which made for an especially eerie night at the small-town funeral parlor. Having finished his cleaning, Hoyt stepped outside for a quick smoke when the ringing phone ended his break. Concerned that it might be the county hospital reporting a death, he hurried back in…maybe in too much of a hurry. When his feet hit the newly mopped, still-wet floor he slipped and started falling backwards, grabbing the nearest thing he could, which happened to be the arm of the dearly departed Aunt Maudie Tullis, still lying on the prep table. Being a big, strong man, he accidently pulled Aunt Maudie right off the table, her corpse landing face down on top of him, with her cold, hollow eyes staring straight into his.  

     The next morning, a truck driver reported to the sheriff’s office that around 4:15 AM, he had seen a man running at top speed down Highway 49 toward Aldersville.  

     Hoyt Ledbetter was never seen again in Rusty Springs, Georgia, and for the rest of his days, Ancil Griggs wondered if hiring a night watchman to work a graveyard shift at a funeral parlor was such a good idea. 

 

 

    

Speedy Atkins: His Story

     In May of 1928, as Charles “Speedy” Atkins sat on an old wooden pier on the banks of the Ohio River fishing for what probably would be his supper,  he suddenly tipped over, fell into the water, and drowned. Two nearby fishermen pulled him to the bank and tried to revive him, but it was too late, testifying later that Atkins “appeared to have dozed off, slumped over, and just fell into the river.” Having no relatives to claim the body, undertaker A. Z. Hamock took custody and kept the corpse at his funeral home until some decisions could be made. With no apparent means to pay for a funeral, Atkins was given a pauper’s burial in Maplelawn Park Cemetery……66 YEARS LATER!

      Charles Henry Atkins had rightfully earned the nickname “Speedy” for the fast and efficient way he could strip, tie up, and hang tobacco leaves. He was seen almost daily headed, on foot, to one of the drying barns in and around his hometown of Paducah, Kentucky.

      Hamock, out of curiosity, had concocted a preservative he thought might mummify a body if properly administered…and under the circumstances, Speedy might be the ideal prospect to try it on. He never revealed the formula but told that the “fixins” could all be bought in a grocery story.” And the townspeople let it go at that. 
 

     Unlike other processes where the body is rubbed with salt then wrapped with strips of linen, Hamock’s preservative was simply injected into the body’s bloodstream. And strangely enough, the process worked well. With the exception of a reddish skin tone and a wooden-like texture, the physical appearance of Speedy was almost true to life.
 

     After A. Z. Hamock’s death in 1949, the funeral home was sold and his wife, Velma, assumed custody of the body. After considering a limited number of options, she decided to keep Speedy, standing in a closet, in her home where he remained for the next 45 years. With the strange story of the “mummy in the closet” being featured in newspapers, magazines, TV programs, and on Paul Harvey’s popular radio program, The Rest of the Story, Speedy became a circus-like attraction, with people coming from near and far to “visit” him. And with her usual cordial manner, Velma would always welcome them into her home.
 

     Soon after Velma Hamock’s death in 1994, the people of Paducah, agreeing that Speedy should have a proper and respectful burial, raised the necessary funds for a short and simple graveside service and interment. On the bronze marker at the head of his grave is this simple inscription:  ~ Charles “Speedy” Atkins ~ Lived 53 years as a pauper…buried 66 years later as a celebrity.