The doctor had purchased a deluxe coffin with a small glass window in the lid so that the face of departed could be viewed.
The neighbors were invited for a visitation and plans were made for burial the day after. Later that evening, when everyone had left, the doctor approached his wife to console her. But her grief had turned to rage and she blamed her husband for letting the boy go to war. The doctor hung his head in sorrow and disbelief.
The next day the doctor was called out to handle a birth some miles away. In his absence his wife hired some neighbor men to carry the coffin up to a room upstairs. There, she arranged a table and rocking chair and sat down by the casket and wept.
When her husband came home he found that the coffin had been moved. He went upstairs and knocked on the door but the only answer he got was that his wife had no intention of ever abandoning her vigil. She swore that nobody would ever separate her from her son. And there she stayed.
Meals were sent up to her but rarely touched. She lost weight and hardly slept. She made no effort to keep herself clean and only indulged in a grief so severe that it was akin to madness.
The doctor was beside himself with worry and finally hit upon a plan to save his wife. He thought that he would send for his wife’ s sister, knowing that they were very close, to come for a visit. At some point during the visit the doctor would dose his
by Cindy Steele
wife’ s coffee with a drug to incapacitate her and then they would load her into a carriage and the sister would take her back to the sister’ s home. It worked. While the wife was absent the doctor had the coffin taken out of the house and far into the woods and buried it in an unmarked grave. He then sent word to his sister in-law that it was time for his wife to come home.
When the doctor’ s wife arrived she leapt out of the carriage, ran through the front door and up the stairs to the room that she had shared with her son’ s body. The doctor went to her and explained what he had done and that it was for her own good. At this news, what was left of the wife’ s sanity fled her. She became a screaming wraith, all fists and claws, attacking her husband and demanding to know where her boy was.
Realizing that his wife was beyond help, the doctor managed to restrain her and had the second floor of their home made into place of asylum for her. And there she lived out her life, escaping occasionally to search for her son’ s grave. She would be found sometimes by hunters, sometimes neighbors and returned home. In time she died, smothered by her grief and she was buried in the family graveyard.
To this day, in the right season, on the right nights, there are reports of a weeping woman, dressed in mourning and carrying a lantern wandering a stretch of woods somewhere just south of Brown County. •
Helmsburg GENERAL STORE
Available at Spears Pottery in Nashville, IN
( On South Van Buren Street near the stoplight / courthouse)
New, Spacious Look Inside. New Owners: Sharon & Leonard Richey
Pizza & Wings, Groceries, Ice Large Selection Domestic / Craft Beer & Wine LOTTERY, Tobacco Products Camping Supplies, Live Bait & Tackle Hunting & Fishing Licenses Check Station, Firewood
State Road 45 and Helmsburg Road Intersection •( 812) 929-7797
Jan./ Feb. 2020 • Our Brown County 51