rytelling at Mahan’s now brings children of the children who first gathered there. “And I had my first grandchild this year,” he adds. Noting Windham’s fondness for a cane pole, stopper and crickets, Mahan got into the habit of picking Windham up Wednesdays, and taking her fishing. It was a round-trip completed in time to return to his home, where adults would gather for more stories, at 6:30 p.m. Many years later, Mahan and friend Mike Cutler picked up Windham, placed her in the bed of a pickup truck wheelchair and all, and carried her to the lake. “She caught some fish,” smiles Mahan. She died a week later. Years earlier Mahan and Windham made a pact to choose their own caskets, his of juniper and hers of pine. “So, for 30 years we argued over who had the prettiest casket,” he says. The day of her funeral, pallbearers “got her box out of the barn, wrapped her in a quilt,” and remained loyal to her
Mother’s life instructions
wishes. Quite a feat in these days, he says. “Jeffrey made her famous,” Mahan says about the ghost she says lived with her. “But she never wanted to be famous.” She wanted simplicity. Windham and her hus-
“Mother’s instructions about life were more exemplary than they were voiced,” recalls her daughter Dilcy Windham Hilley, an executive with the Greater Birmingham Convention & Visitors Bureau. “It taught me the importance of being kind to people, of putting others before myself, and especially of making people feel what they do is of worth, that it matters,” Hilley says. “One of Mother’s favorite stories about her daddy was a lesson in humility. It ends with my grandfather saying to my mother, ‘Kathryn, you are no better than the family we just shared supper with. You are only accustomed to better things.’” Hilley’s brother Ben Windham, former editorial page editor for The Tuscaloosa News, gives a related memory. “Every Christmas morning, after we opened our presents at home in Selma, we would drive to my grandmother’s house in Thomasville for
‘Alabama has many ghosts. Stop in almost any town in the state and if you inquire around, the chances are that you will find a ghost story.’ – Kathryn Tucker Windham 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey band, Amasa, years ago bought a post-World War II three-bedroom, one-bath home in Selma. “She never moved. She lived in that house ‘till she died,” Mahan says. Amasa died in 1956.
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Picture of Kathryn with Jeffrey at Alabama Booksmith in Birmingham
Alabama Living | OCTOBER 2011 |
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