Conversation between Jo Ann
Rife and Mrs Lillian B. Sears
Elm Springs, Arkansas
December 29, 1955
Reel 235 Item 1
JAR: Mom, tell me about the woman who had so many names.
LBS: Who? Antenette Presivelle Beauty Ann Johnson Ford Flynn?
JAR: I guess so.
LBS: Well, that was— she claimed all of those names. Well,
do you want me to tell about her helping my grandmother
with her cooking?
JAR: Uh huh.
LBS: Grandmother kept a stage stand, and this Antenette
Presville (as we called her) helped her with the cooking.
A tall, lanky fellow called Ed Flynn was the hostler,
who took care of the horses and changed them— and they
did that twice a day, once in the daytime about three
o'clock and once in the night about three O'clock in
the morning. They met and were married there, and Uncle
Ed stuttered; later in his life, after those days had
passed away, they lived near and she believed in ghosts
and in putting strings across the door to keep the hawks
away from your chickens and everything like that.She liked
to fish, but she didn't want to go by herself, and she
would get one of the children to go with her, and it was
nearly always me; and she would sit on the bank and
whisper ghost tales to me until I couldn't sleep at night.
I remember one time she told me about some great ogre that
had one big eye and nobody could get away from him and
couldn't get out of his sight, and that night I woke up
in the night and by chance a shingle had been knocked
off the roof and there was an eye looking through which
I guess was a star. And I propped myself up on my elbow,
and spent most of the night watching the eye while the eye
watched me.
JAR: Do you remember any ghost stories that she used to tell?
LBS: Well , I don't remember them very well, but one that she
told that was not a ghost story, but it sounded ghostly.She
said that they were roaming in the woods one day— she
and her sisters— when they were younger, and she said
they came to a sort of castleshe called it, and said that
it was really an uprooted tree, and all of those roots
had been washed white, and everything on the inside was
just as clean, and it was a curtain of white roots hung
down all around. And they lifted the roots aside and went
in to see what was on the inside, and they thought that
they had. found two white angels— they were beautiful—
and before they got away, the mother of these two little
Collected by Jo Ann Rife
Transcribed by James Lee
Collected by Jo Ann Rife
Transcribed by James Lee
Conversation between Jo Ann
Rife and Mrs Lillian B. Sears
Elm Springs, Arkansas
December 29, 1955
Reel 238 Item 1 (cont'd)
white angels came and what do you suppose it was— a
buzzard.
JAR: Not so much like an angel then were they? Well, do you
remember anything else about Aunt Nett, or Antenette
Presivelle?
LBS: Well, I don't think of anything else about her, but there
is lots I could tell about her, but I will tell you
one about Uncle Ed as we called him. In his later years
he drove a huckster wagon, after all the stage coache
days were over. And he picked up eggs over the country
and chickens if you had them to sell and bought and produce
and other things, and there was a still house as we called
it down below the town of Elm, and Uncle Ed occasionally
would go by the still house and get him a few nips. He had
had a little too many that day, and he came by my aunt's
home and stopped, and she brought out a basket of eggs and
said ," I have some eggs Mr. Flynn; where shall I put
them?" And he stuttered— and he said," Oh, uh, oh, 'est
pour them in the feed trough."
JAR: Mamma, what was that that you told me about someone that
had a chain on their feet?
LBS: Well, his name was Bill Williamson— he was demented—
back in those days you know they didn't have a place
to keep people who lost their minds, so once in a while
they escaped. He was loose, and all the men in town
were looking for him, and of course everybody had the
jitters about what he might do or where he might go. And
my mother had a young baby, and she was at home alone, and
while the men were out looking , she heard his chains
go through her yard. He went around the house and on
through the town— they finally caught him before morning,
but it gave her quite a scare.
JAR: Well, did they keep him chained up in his folk's home or
somethinglike that ?
LBS: Yes, they had a room for him, but by some means he had
broken a window or slat or something and escaped.
