How did you come to write Tales from Brookgreen?
Although I have lived many places over the years (North and South Carolina, Virginia, Florida, Vermont, Maine, New York, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, Montana, New Mexico, and Italy; Whew! Quite a list!), my heart has always remained in the South Carolina Lowcountry, especially the area around Murrells Inlet just south of Myrtle Beach.
As I mention in the Introduction to Tales from Brookgreen, my Cousin Corrie often took me with her to work at Brookgreen Gardens when I was a child. She and Miss Genevieve, the two Brookgreen Hostesses, told the most wonderful tales about people who had lived on the four rice plantations that made up Brookgreen Gardens.
I wanted my children to hear the same stories that had delighted me, so I began writing down what I remembered of them.
How difficult was it to remember stories you heard so many years ago?
The more I wrote, the more I remembered.
I also began researching the history of coastal of South Carolina. This helped me make more sense of some of the stories by helping me understand the historical and social contexts of events. The History of Georgetown County, South Carolina, by George Rogers and Down by the Riverside by Charles Joyner (whose wife is a third cousin of mine) were among the most helpful books.
The Rogers book is more of a reference but the Joyner book is quite readable and most interesting. I recommend it to anyone who would like to know more about South Carolina plantation life before the Civil War.
Here and there, I also came across books containing some of the same stories Cousin Corrie and Miss Genevieve told that helped me fill in gaps. An older one of these, The Return of the Grey Man by Julian Stevenson Bolick, was the most useful. Although there are a number of newer books containing some of these stories, most recent versions are a bit different from the ones I remember.
Of course, that is one characteristic of folktales. They evolve with each telling.
Are there other books you recommend to those interested in Brookgreen Gardens and the Lowcountry?
Yes. I have included a list of them in this ebook (see Other Lowcountry Books). Most are paperback but I believe a few are available as ebooks. All are available from online booksellers and through local bookstores.
One special book is Genevieve Peterkin’s Heaven is a Beautiful Place. This wonderful memoir provides a marvelous portrait of Miss Genevieve, who was the author’s mother and a thoroughly amazing woman. It also provides more insight into Gullah culture during the first half of the Twentieth Century, as well as telling the author’s own moving story.
Two other interesting books contain historic photographs of Brookgreen Gardens with notes by Curator of Sculpture, Robin Salmon. They are Brookgreen Gardens and Sculpture of Brookgreen Gardens.
Some of the stories in Tales from Brookgreen involve ghosts. Have you ever had any ghostly experiences yourself?
Not really, although I have always hoped for them.
The closest I came took place a few years ago in All Saints Cemetery near Pawley’s Island, just south of Brookgreen Gardens. One afternoon, a friend and I took my then-teenaged son, Aaron, and two of his friends to the cemetery to visit Alice Flagg’s grave. She is the White Lady of the Hermitage who sometimes wanders the shore looking for her lost ring.
The afternoon was a little wet so we were the only ones in the cemetery. Only the faint whisper of raindrops broke the silence. We found the grave easily, even though the gravestone is not upright but lies flat in the ground. A wilted rose and some greenery lay in shallow accumulations of rainwater on its rough surface. Flowers and other objects are common on the grave, as visitors often leave mementos for Alice. Some report having seen Alice herself in the vicinity.
Aaron took photos (one of which appears on the cover of my ebook, Lowcountry Ghosts), then we wandered nearby for a few minutes looking at other gravestones.
Before leaving the cemetery, we returned once more to Alice’s grave. The rose and greenery remained as before, but now a small silver ring lay in the rainwater on the stone’s surface. None of us had noticed the ring earlier. It isn’t visible in Aaron’s photos.
Had water previously obscured the ring’s presence? We prefer to think otherwise . . .
Several of the stories in your book are Gullah folktales. What does that mean?
The Gullah culture and language developed among African-American slaves and their descendents on Lowcountry plantations. Over the years, elements of African practices mixed with those of the New World. The Gullah experience forms a unique part of American culture, and as such, I find it fascinating.
These Gullah folktales reflect African traditions as well as the demands of life during slavery and its aftermath. They often involve triumph of the underdog, a theme popular the world over.
What sparked your interest in Gullah culture?
My grandmother spoke Gullah. She learned it from family servants in her childhood home in the 1870s and 1880s on her family plantation near Myrtle Beach.
As the youngest of ten children, my grandmother became the special pet of the family cook, Flora Buck. Flora loved to make potato pone because this simple dessert was my grandmother’s favorite. I think Flora must have enjoyed it too.
Even after my grandmother was married, with children of her own and living in Conway, Flora would occasionally walk into town to bring her a pone. The two of them would sit and visit all day, “sampling” the pone until it was gone.
In our family, we still make potato pone for special occasions, using Flora’s recipe—sweet potatoes, brown sugar, eggs, milk, nutmeg, cinnamon, and lots of butter.
By the way, in the Lowcountry, “potatoes” meant sweet potatoes. My mother always referred to the other kind as “Irish potatoes.”
Has Brookgreen Gardens changed much since you were a child?
Oh, there have been lots of changes, most of them fairly superficial. Of course, it is much more of a tourist attraction now and feels less like my own personal sanctuary or playground.
Yet today when I visit, I am thrilled that the beauty and spirit remain the same as when I was a child. I hope my book helps today’s visitors feel some of the same serenity tinged with mystery and romance that Brookgreen has always inspired in me.
Are there other “Tales from Brookgreen” that you didn’t include in this book?
Oh yes. There is at least one more book of them. I am working on it now, but don’t know when I will get More Tales from Brookgreen ready for publication. I keep getting sidetracked with other projects.
Currently, I am trying to finish up a book on Billy the Kid in Santa Fe (where my husband and I live most of the year). It deals with legends and facts surrounding this young outlaw’s two—or possibly three—stays in the capital of New Mexico Territory.
I do keep coming back to the stories from Brookgreen, however. Several of the new tales involve hurricanes, such as “Cousin Allard’s Raft,” included as the bonus story in this ebook. Cousin Allard was a relative, a nephew actually, of Alice of the Hermitage, Murrells Inlet’s favorite ghost. As Miss Genevieve often said, all these stories are connected, don’t you know?