I noticed the below ghost story today in the Florence Times Daily which could have occurred in Wayne or Hardin County. The web address to the article is http://www.timesdaily.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20031029/NEWS/310290319/1011. Jerry W. Murphy [email protected] Jerry's Homepage: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~jwmurphy/ Rootsweb List Administrator: ALFRANKL-L, TNHARDIN-L, TNWASHIN-L, TNWAYNE-L BRATTON-L, CAVENDER-L, COCHRAN-L, HAFLEY-L, PATTERSON-L, SOWERBY-L Wayne County, Tennessee Co-County Coordinator: http://www.netease.net/wayne Wayne County Computer Club: http://www.netease.net/waccc ------ 40 years later, man still too scared to talk about encounter By Bernie Delinski Staff Writer This is the fourth in a weeklong series on local ghost stories. It's been more than 40 years, but Geneva Yerbey's brother still doesn't want to talk about it. He would do anything he could to forget it. He intensely wishes he had never even driven along Savannah Highway that night. "He doesn't want anybody asking about it, because he was definitely scared," said Yerbey, who discussed the matter only on the condition that her brother's identity remains a secret. Yerbey is not Geneva's maiden name. "He won't discuss it with me, so I don't press him for it," she said. The story sounds so intriguing, some would consider it an urban legend. Yerbey said she has even heard people say they have read a story similar to her brother's. But, as Yerbey points out, those legends tend to involve anonymous people. This story came straight from the person - her brother - who encountered it. Her brother is not one to make up stories and has lived a normal life, his sister said. Today, he enjoys spending time with his grandchildren and looking back on a successful business and personal life. "The reason I know it's true is he does not tell things," Yerbey said. "As a boy, he wouldn't tell you any problems or discuss things. "This had to really bother him a lot, and that's why he told my mother about it." She said the incident happened under chilly conditions in the late 1950s. Yerbey's brother had a jacket to protect him from the elements. But for a number of days in a row, he refused to wear it. Yerbey noticed he had been acting strangely during those days, and their mother asked him what was wrong. She also had been asking why he was not wearing his jacket. "And finally, he broke down and told her," Yerbey said. "He said it was still in his car, and he wouldn't touch it." Then he told the family what happened. It was a Saturday night, and he had visited his girlfriend, who lived across the Alabama-Tennessee line, Yerbey said. After dropping her off at her house, he pulled onto old Savannah Highway. Soon, he noticed a girl with light brown hair walking along the roadside. He pulled up beside her and asked if he could give her a ride. She said yes, climbed into the front passenger seat and shivered against the cool weather. The girl didn't have a coat, so Yerbey's brother gave his to her. The girl thanked him and said her mother's house was a couple of miles down the road. She said little else. Yerbey's brother told his family he didn't know why the girl was walking along the road, but it was clear she didn't want to talk about it. He wondered if she had been dumped off by a cruel boyfriend after an argument. Soon, the girl pointed to a dirt road and told him to turn there. He did so and pulled up to an old, white farmhouse. She thanked him and got out of the car. Yerbey's brother asked her name. She said "Violet," then turned and started toward the house. One his way home, Yerbey's brother realized Violet still had his jacket. So, the next Saturday, he stopped at her house on the way to see his girlfriend. He knocked on the door, and an elderly woman answered. "Is Violet home?" he asked her. The woman seemed surprised and asked if he knew Violet. He explained he gave Violet a ride home the previous week and let her borrow his jacket and was stopping by to pick it up. The woman shocked Yerbey's brother with her next statement: Violet died some 10 years ago in a wreck just a few miles down the road. She said they buried her in a nearby cemetery. Yerbey's brother didn't know what to say. He returned to his car and drove up the road to the cemetery. Bewildered yet curious over what had just happened, he got out and looked at some headstones. That's when he found his jacket - spattered with mud and draped over a tombstone. He snatched it off the tombstone, only to find that the first name of the woman buried underneath the stone was Violet. Upon hearing the story, Yerbey and her family were shocked. Her sister went outside and saw the jacket, which had mud stains on it, in the backseat of the car. Their brother refused to ever wear it again and eventually discarded it. He also refuses, to this day, to ever drive along that stretch of road just across the state line or even talk about the location of the cemetery. "It's just a country cemetery somewhere out of Alabama into Tennessee," Yerbey said. "It was off Savannah Highway." A TimesDaily reporter and photographer traveled the route this week and found a small, two-lane road off Savannah Highway, just a few miles past the Tennessee line. The road leads past an old, white farmhouse and to a cemetery. There are a number of small roads and cemeteries in rural areas, so who knows whether this was the right one. There is no tombstone bearing Violet's name. There is, however, a foot marker a few feet from what appears to be the bottom part of a tombstone that has been broken. The first name on the foot marker does not read "Violet." It does, however, bear a similar name, "Viola." Yerbey said her brother's story is featured in Debra Johnston's most recent book, "Skeletons in the Closet: More True Ghost Stories of the Shoals Area." His name is not mentioned in the book. "I talked to him just the other day about it," Yerbey said. "I gave him the book, and he said he enjoyed it but didn't want to talk about it anymore."