Who are
some of the
Ghosts of
Franklin?
Well,
Sallie Carter for one. A
beautiful and crafty Confederate spy, Sallie used her charms and wiles to gather information during the Civil War.
Sallie, born Sarah Ann Ewing,
was a high-born Franklin girl orphaned at the age of 12. Married for the
first time at 15, she bore three children to a husband dead eight years
later. Sallie's life was full of both tragedy and adventure. She
was called "one of the famous beauties of Middle
Tennessee" by a Union soldier. Little did he know she was working
hard to defeat his army.
Here's
an excerpt from the book:
The
Original Steel Magnolia
It
was approaching midnight on a swelteringly hot night in the summer of
1980. Shelley Snow, award-winning Tennessee artist, was
painting late in her studio at Shuff’s Music Store, 118 Third Avenue
North, Franklin. She was alone.
Shuff’s
Music had opened in 1978 in the elegant 19th century Greek
Revival house in downtown. Ron Shuff, the owner and an accomplished
musician himself, rents out the rooms in the house to music teachers,
composers and musicians of all kinds, and also sells musical instruments,
sheet music and supplies.
However, in
the early days the studio was not fully rented with musicians, and when
Shelley asked Ron to rent a room for her painting studio, he agreed.
Shelley was
working late that night because she had a commissioned work on a deadline.
As she worked later and later, she began to get sleepy. But with the
deadline looming, she stayed at it. Finally, her eyelids heavy, she
decided to take a nap on a couch she kept in the studio just for that
purpose. She curled up and drifted off.
Suddenly, in
the fog of sleep, Shelley heard a loud and unexpected sound. It went like
this: crreeaak-crreeaak,
crreeaak-crreeaak. Shelley sat up. Crreeaak-crreeaak, it continued. It
wasn’t coming from anywhere in the room.
Shelley's
first instinct was to bolt, but being naturally
curious and unafraid, she followed the sound, passing through several
rooms and finally coming upon its source. The creaking sound was coming
from a room with the door closed.
Shelley eased open the door, and peered in. There, in a
room facing the street, gently rocking back and forth in a rocking chair
by the window, was the spirit of a very old woman.
“She
looked very wrinkly and tired,” Shelley remembers, “and was wearing a
long white gown and night cap.”
The woman continued to rock: crreeaak-crreeaak, as she looked
at Shelley, who was frozen to the spot and staring disbelievingly.
Finally, the spirit spoke, and said,
“I
used to live in this house.”
There's
waaaay more to this story. To hear the rest, you'll have to buy the book!
Regular
Price: $19.95. Internet special, just $14.95.
Purchase Ghosts
of Franklin
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