THE PUMPKIN LADY
Down here in Georgia, things start to change come October. The long blistering days with 9pm sunsets quickly turn to chilly mornings, cool afternoons, and dark rides home from work. The leaves start changing, even falling from the lower trees, leaving the sidewalks lined with the craggy bones of leafless dogwoods and cherry trees.
I’ve lived within 20 miles of where I grew up for all my life; well, other than my first year, but we’re not counting that. My epicenter was Stone Mountain, Georgia. As I have mentioned in prior posts, Stone Mountain was a fantastic place to grow up in the 70’s. We had Historic Stone Mountain Village, which was built in the mid-1800s and had a barber shop in an old bank, a hardware store in an old hotel, and a pharmacy with a soda fountain inside. There were train tracks running down Main Street and an old train station in the center of town. The streets surrounding Main, like Ridge, Manor, and Mimosa, had sidewalks lined with trees which led to old southern mansions, occupied by the same families that built them a century prior. At our house, we had a book, that I would read often, which told the history of those old houses, most of which served as hospitals during the Civil War. One story of the Stillwell House always stuck with me; the current residents, at the time the book was written, told of hearing laughter and dancing from the attic which once was a ballroom before it was turned into a hospital.
Main Street ran you straight down to Stone Mountain Cemetery with graves dating back to 1850. As kids, we would spend hours exploring the wooded cemetery with acres of graves under large oak trees. We would try to peek inside the stained glass windows of the mausoleums, walk through the rows and rows of unknown confederate soldiers, and hold our breath as we ran past the graves of the Venables, who were known for leading the KKK and burning crosses in the field near my childhood home (a story/nightmare for a different day). The cemetery also includes some oddities like the very large grave of George Pressley Trout, a Civil War soldier who is buried with his horse, and a marker for Andrew Jackson Thompson, who’s gravestone is inscribed with, “Born July 28, 1824 – MURDERED Dec. 20, 1876”.
I attended first grade at Stone Mountain Elementary, which was next door to the cemetery, and fondly remember taking walks up Main Street to visit the Sue Kellogg Library where we would gather around for story time. In 1975, a new elementary school was built and many of us were transferred to the brand-new Stone Mill Elementary School. I have wonderful memories of Stone Mill, but especially around this time of year. With Halloween approaching, we were all getting ready for the annual carnival and planning our costumes for trick-or-treating. Fall was in the air, and everything was turning shades of orange, yellow, red, and brown. The teachers pinned up the cardboard skeletons and witches with the hinged elbows and knees onto the bulletin boards in funny poses, and the big plastic light up jack-o-lanterns came out of storage for a few weeks (until everything turned to turkeys and pilgrims for Thanksgiving).
But my favorite memory of Stone Mill was when The Pumpkin Lady would come for a visit. To this day, I have no idea who she was, but only knew her as a very large woman in a giant pumpkin outfit. We would all gather ‘round in the back corner of the library and the lights would go dark. The Pumpkin Lady would sit in the center with a flashlight on her face and tell us the most incredible spooky stories… and THEY WERE SPOOKY! She was a fantastic storyteller and had all our imaginations running wild. For example, she would say something like, “now I’m going to tell the story of the night some teenagers dared each other to survive one night in that haunted house… you know the one I’m talking about, right?” Of course, I’m thinking of the Stillwell House with the haunted ballroom in the attic, but the kid next to me might be thinking of the old burned down house on West Mountain Street, and the kid next to him might be thinking of the “devil worshipers house” on Memorial Drive. We each had our own “real” haunted house in mind as she continued the tale of how the teenagers spread flour on the floors and later that night found the footprints from someone in large boots; the prints leading right to a wall and then continuing on the other side. The Pumpkin Lady made those stories real, and personal, and for YEARS I told the story of the teenagers who spent the night in the Stillwell House and were spooked out of their minds, because in my head, that’s where it all went down.
I can’t find anything about The Pumpkin Lady in our yearbooks which didn’t start until I was in fourth grade, so I assume that she was no longer telling stories by then. But now, 46 years later, her stories continue to leave their mark on me. Especially this time of year when I still tend to walk a little faster later in the day, as the moon is rising high, silhouetting the bony trees while the wind is rustling the leaves around my feet. Quickening my pace as I walk past the dark houses on my way home, with a chill running up my spine as my imagination starts spinning stories of what might be going on behind those dark windows. Thank you Pumpkin Lady, whoever you were, for lighting the spark that made me love the art of storytelling. You had a gift, and it left a lasting impression on me.
Typewritten tales of life 
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