Sylvia Shults's Blog, page 6

The Twelve Nightmares of Christmas, Day Six: The Lawson Family Massacre

A cake on Christmas Day. What a beautiful, festive way to start the holiday. Marie Lawson got up early that day to make her family-famous raisin cake. The seventeen-year-old Marie might have hummed a carol to herself as she mixed butter, sugar, eggs, flour, and of course, the raisins. She filled two pans with the batter and placed them carefully in the oven. The house began to fill with the lovely, warm smell of freshly-baked cake.

As the cake sat cooling on the kitchen table, Marie’s father was out behind the tobacco barn, slaughtering two of Marie’s sisters.

Marie never got to cut the cake. Within the hour, she too had been killed … by her own father. On that Christmas Day in 1929, Charles Davis Lawson, forty-three years old, murdered his wife and six of his seven children.

Charlie Lawson, a sharecropper, married Fannie Manning in 1911. The couple had eight children over the years together (one boy died of pneumonia at age six).

Lawson worked hard, and by 1927, he had saved up enough money to buy some land near Germantown, North Carolina, close to his brothers’ farms. The property included a 200-year-old farmhouse and barns for storing and curing tobacco.

The farmhouse wasn’t in great shape, and needed some repairs. Charlie was pretty handy, so he did the renovations himself. But there was an accident—Lawson was wielding an axe, which rebounded and smacked him in the forehead. Hard-headed Charlie recovered, but he was never quite the same after that. He’d had a temper before, but now it flared more often, and burned hotter too.

A couple of weeks before Christmas, Charlie loaded his family into the truck and made the thirteen-mile drive into Winston-Salem. He took everyone out clothes shopping, and hang the cost. Then he led them to a photographer’s studio and had a family portrait made.

It was, Charlie told the family, all part of a “Christmas surprise”.

Charlie and his oldest son Arthur, sixteen years old, went out hunting Christmas morning. They ran out of ammunition before they were ready to quit, so Charlie sent Arthur to the store in Germantown, about fifteen minutes away, to buy more. Arthur was still in the store when he got the message that something awful had happened at home.

Charlie’s brother Elijah and his sons had also been out hunting. They had stopped by the Lawson house on their way home to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

But everyone—everyone—at the house was dead. The middle girls, Carrie, 12, and Maybell, 7, had been shot and bludgeoned to death. They were found in the tobacco barn. Fannie was lying on the porch, her chest ripped to shreds by a shotgun blast. Marie’s dead body was sprawled next to the fireplace. James, 4, and Raymond, 2, had both been beaten to death. Even four-month-old Mary Lou was dead.

And where was Charlie? Relatives fetched Arthur from the store and brought him home, where he tried to process the sudden violent deaths of his mother and his six brothers and sisters. Four hours passed, and still police and relatives searched the woods.

Then a single shot rang out, and Charlies’ two beagles were heard filling the air with mournful howls. Searchers followed the dogs’ baying and found Charlie Lawson. He had run into the woods and holed up in a thicket. There, he had paced around a pine tree for hours, long enough to wear a path in the snow down to the brown forest duff.

Then he shot himself.

The Lawson family—murderer and victims—were all buried together in a single plot. There were only seven caskets to bury. Baby Mary Lou was laid to rest in her mother’s arms. The inscription on the tombstone that watches over the mass grave is a cry of anguished confusion: “Not now, but in the coming years, it will be a better land, We’ll read the meaning of our tears and then sometime we’ll understand.”

The massacre was so shocking that over the next five years, thousands of people came to visit the house where a man murdered his wife and six of his children. One of Charlie’s brothers saw a morbid business opportunity, and started charging folks a quarter to get in. People ponied up, and wandered through the Lawson house in droves. Some of them were simply gawkers, eager to see the site of a gruesome crime. But others were searching for clues. What could possibly make a father slaughter all of his children but one? What demons drove a man to kill nearly his entire family in cold blood—then turn a gun on himself?

There was a theory, albeit one that gave many people the cold shivers. The theory was that Charlie had been fooling around with Marie … yeah, Marie, his seventeen-year-old daughter, and had gotten her pregnant. Then he killed her—and everyone else—to cover it up.

Tragedy wasn’t yet finished with the Lawson family. Arthur Lawson, the only survivor by virtue of having been sent to the store for ammo, died in a freak truck accident in his early thirties.

Some reminders of that appalling day remained for years. Some visitors to the house were cheered to see two small children playing in the yard—then horrified to see those same children in that last family portrait and recognize them as Raymond and Mae Bell Lawson. The house was eventually torn down, and some of its boards were reused in a bridge that seems to retain the imprint of the crime. People claim that the bridge, too, is terribly haunted.

And Marie’s raisin cake was preserved as a pathetic reminder of innocent domesticity. Souvenir hunters picked some of the raisins off, so the cake was put under a glass cover. It remained the star attraction at the Lawson home, and later, in carnival sideshows. Eventually, one of Lawson’s relatives took the cake home, and buried it.

This story comes from the new book Grave Deeds and Dead Plots, Volume 2, available from www.bookshop.org and http://www.amazon.com. And did you know? There’s a companion podcast to the book! You can find the true crime-ghost story podcast here: https://www.voyagemedia.fm/show/grave-deeds-and-dead-plots/

Hop into your one-horse open sleigh and go visit the Weird Darkness weirdos at http://www.weirddarkness.com. Tell ’em I sent ya!

The Twelve Nightmares of Christmas, Day Five: Lights Out

Welcome to our annual roundup of Lights Out Extra Christmas episodes! Just follow the links. They’ll take you to the YouTube version of the shows. Enjoy!

The tragic disappearance of the Sodder children, on Christmas Eve 1945, began in flames and ended in enduring mystery. How could five children simply vanish from their bedrooms without a trace? The unsolved mystery continues to haunt West Virginia today. https://five.libsyn.com/show/episodes/view/29097618 (Please note: YouTube is being obstreporous, and for some reason, won’t let me post an MP4 file. I keep getting a message that “it has to be an MP4 file.” Uhhhh…okay? So you’re getting the straight-up podcast version this time, that DID post to all my podcast platforms.)

You know who else has really cool podcasts? Darren Marlar, over at www.weirddarkness.com , that’s who. You should hop on over there and see what’s going on.

The Twelve Nightmares of Christmas, Day Four: Today I Learned…

Communities in New England and along Canada’s East Coast build huge Christmas trees using carefully stacked lobster pots. The finished towers are then decorated with colorful buoys instead of Christmas lights. (from Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: Out of the Box)

What do you suppose is under the Christmas tree over at Weird Darkness? Go check it out!

The Twelve Nightmares of Christmas, Day Three: Karaconcolos, The Turkish Christmas Sasquatch

The karaconcolos is a tall, hairy, ape-like figure that stalks Bulgaria, Turkey, and Serbia. In Turkey, it appears in the “first ten days of Zemheri, the dreadful cold.” In other words, the bitter heart of winter, from December 22 to January 2. In Turkish folklore, the karaconcolos imitates the voices of loved ones to lure people outside into the cold winter night. The karaconcolos hangs out on street corners at night and snags passing strangers to ask them odd questions. If you refuse to answer, the karaconcolos will strike you dead — so it’s in your best interest to try and come up with an answer. And make sure the word “black” — “kara”, in Turkish — is somewhere in your answer. If it is, you’re free to go.

In Serbia, if you come across a karaconcolos during the twelve days of Christmas, it will jump on your back. You’ll be forced to carry it all night while they ride you until dawn, leaving you exhausted. If one gets into the house, it will hang around the doorway to the kids’ bedroom, waiting for a child to walk through. Once a kid does come through the doorway, the karaconcolos pounces, grabs the kid around the neck, and drags them away to be eaten. Sweet dreams, kiddoes!

But there is one advantage of having a karaconcolos in your house. If you invite it in, it will feel compelled to copy you. This is handy, because if you were to set a piece of yarn or thread on fire, it would mistake its fur for yarn and set itself on fire. Problem solved!

And speaking of monsters, why don’t you pop over to weirddarkness.com and check things out? It’ll be fun. They have cookies. If you still haven’t gotten your fill of spooky holiday stories, head to YouTube.com/@CaliforniaHauntsRadio. My friend Charlotte reads from my book Spirits of Christmas: The Dark Side of the Holidays every Sunday in December at 5 pm Pacific.

The Twelve Nightmares of Christmas, Day Two: The Stockings Were Hung By The Chimney With Care

Welcome to Day 2 of The Nightmares of Christmas! Regular readers will remember that I’m not only a geek for the mysterious and macabre and ghostly, but also for history.

The tradition of hanging stockings next to the chimney for Santa to fill with treats has a long and detailed history. The idea came from the story of Saint Nicholas, who was the Bishop of Myra in the early days of Christianity (270-343 AD). According to his legend, St. Nicholas was riding his white horse through the streets of Myra one night, and realized he was passing by the house of a poor widower. The man had three daughters, and was worried that he wouldn’t be able to provide dowries for them. St. Nicholas didn’t want the family to think they were a charity case, so he anonymously threw bags of gold through a window, where they landed in the stockings that the young ladies had hung by the fire to dry. (Some versions have St. Nicholas actually sliding down the chimney to deliver the bags of gold, but this is probably a bit of retrofitting.)

People took this charming legend and ran with it. Soon, St. Nicholas was a fixture in central European folklore. “Sinterklaas” would arrive at a house, riding on his white horse, with a sack full of gifts. Accompanying him was his assistant, “Zwarte Piet” (Black Peter), who rode a mule. (After a while, Zwarte Piet morphed into Krampus, and HIS sack was to drag naughty children off to be beaten.) Children would leave their stockings out to be filled; in some countries, such as Holland, they would leave shoes or boots near the fireplace, rather than hanging stockings. Kids got a kick out of leaving treats like hay or carrots for the horse and mule, and getting full shoes in return.

And St. Nicholas wasn’t the only one with a sack full of goodies. European folklore is full of grandmotherly figures who simply love to spoil children (just like human grandmothers). The Austrian Frau Holda, German Berchta, Russian Babushka, and Italian La Befana are all cuddly figures who adore children. Another gift-giving figure found all over central Europe in Christkind, or “Christ Child.” He is sometimes depicted as an infant, but more usually as an angelic child or teenager. And in northern Europe, it is Allfather Odin himself who fills children’s shoes and boots.

But let’s return to stockings for a moment. Back in the day, they were long socks worn by men, women, and children alike. Sheer stockings didn’t come into fashion until the 1920s, and nylon wasn’t invented until 1940, so stockings were primarily made of wool or cotton. These were thicker, and absorbed more water. Of course in cold weather, you can’t hang stockings outside to dry after use or washing — they’d freeze stiff — so people hung them next to the fire every night so they’d be ready for use the next day.

The custom of St. Nicholas was brought to the United States by Dutch immigrants to New York City. A publication featuring “The Festival of Saint Nicholas”, published in early December 1810, shows the saint standing next to a fireplace — which is hung with stockings. The custom started out in honor of St. Nicholas’ feast day, December 6. In 1822, with the publication of Clement Clarke Moore’s poem “A Visit From Saint Nicholas”, the practice moved over to Christmas Eve.

Stockings as gift receptacles briefly dipped in popularity in the middle of the nineteenth century, when German immigrants to the United States convinced the nation that Christmas trees were the way to go. (Of course there’s more room for presents under a tree than there is in a stocking.) But by 1883, stockings by the fireplace had undergone a resurgence. The New York Times ran an article that argued passionately for the return of stockings over the “rootless and lifeless corpse” of Christmas trees. “Even the empty stocking may be a thing of beauty.” And this was true. By the 1800s, children were hanging decorated Christmas stockings (hence their mention in Moore’s poem).

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you may recall reading the recipe for oliebollen I posted a couple of years ago for this annual segment. Uncle Jan not only taught my aunt and her twin sister, my mom, how to make that delectable Dutch treat, he also brought the tradition of putting shoes out on December 5 for St. Nicholas to fill overnight. I only barely remember hanging stockings — it really wasn’t a thing in my family — but boy oh boy, I remember visits from St. Nicholas every year. It’s a lovely way to start off the holiday season.

Stay tuned for more nightmares of Christmas in the coming days. And pop on over to www.weirddarkness.com to see what’s going on over there, too.

The Twelve Nightmares of Christmas

Merry Saturkwanzukah, everyone! It’s the most wonderful time of the year — time for this year’s installment of The Twelve Nightmares of Christmas, brought to you by this blog and by Darren Marlar of Weird Darkness. Ahead lie twelve days of holiday fun — ghost stories, fun Christmas monsters, links to shows, and all sorts of great stuff. Let’s dive in, shall we?

To start us off with a cup of cheer, here is a recipe for Advocaat, or eggnog cordial. (I KNOW, I know, eggnog can be very … polarizing. But this is really yummy, and super easy to make. Give it a go.)

Advocaat

1 cup sugar

3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon lemon extract or 2 drops lemon oil

1 cup vodka or brandy

5 eggs

2/3 cup evaporated milk

Blend all ingredients for 30 seconds. Age in refrigerator one to two weeks to mellow. That’s it — that’s the whole recipe. See? Simple.

Today I Learned…

In an effort to create a new holiday tradition, Dutch artist Leon de Bruljne and designer Willem van Doorn built a cannon that shoots Christmas trees. The Kerstboomkanon, or Christmas Tree Cannon, uses air pressure to fire the festive firs through the air in a flurry of green needles, much to the delight of onlookers. The farthest distance a tree has flown is 210 feet. Since the cannon has been used every holiday season since 2016, it’s well on its way to becoming a yearly tradition. (from Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: Out of the Box)

Today I Learned…

After a peacock named Snowbank escaped from Franklin Park Zoo in Boston, Massachusetts, he was recaptured with the help of an electronic mating call. A quick-thinking police officer searched for a peacock mating call on his cell phone, and when he played it, the bird was lured into a secure area until zookeepers arrived. (from Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: Escape the Ordinary)

Today I Learned…

One of the longest words in the English dictionary is hippopotomonstrosequippedaliophobia, and in an exquisite irony, means “the fear of long words.” Specifically, it refers to the embarassment that comes with having to pronounce long, unfamiliar words aloud. (from Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: Escape the Ordinary)

Today I Learned …

Roosters tilt their heads back when they crow in order to stop themselves going deaf from their own voices. The action covers their ear canal and acts like an ear plug. A rooster’s crow typically reaches 100 decibels, making it as loud as a chainsaw. (from Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: Escape the Ordinary)