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  • The Road That Shouldn't Exist: Lavender Bundles and a Secret Trace

    The Road That Shouldn't Exist: Lavender Bundles and a Secret Trace
    2026/07/29
    The Road That Shouldn't Exist: Lavender Bundles and a Secret Trace

    A dry scent of lavender marked a road that doesn't appear on any deed or survey - nineteen bone-dry bundles tied with brown cord, arranged along a hand-laid stone margin on a gravel cut absent from maps going back to 1819. How can a lane be physically present, used for centuries of funerals, and yet exist nowhere in the legal record?

    In this episode, we trace how a utility worker's tablet image and a folklorist's archival find reopen a vanished route's history, following funeral entries, a minister's 1872 letter, and a misbound gravedigger's logbook to the question of who deliberately erased a road from the record and why.

    Person: Rhonda Taylor
    Person: Cheryl Barrett
    Date: September 2019
    Location: Harlow Township, western Virginia
    Event: 163 funeral processions recorded 1841-1936

    - 19 bundles of dried lavender tied with brown cord were found along the stone margins.
    - Rhonda Taylor had 11 years with the utility cooperative when she discovered the unmarked gravel road.
    - The first complete survey of Harlow Township in 1819 shows no trace of the road.
    - The Harlow South Cemetery gravedigger's logbook records 163 funeral processions between 1841 and 1936, all taking the Passing Lane.
    - A letter dated September 1872 by Methodist minister Elias Vought references "the old south trace below the Chambers acreage" and a burial procession dispute.

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    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    31 分
  • They Nailed a Photograph to the Tree - Who Smiled Back?

    They Nailed a Photograph to the Tree - Who Smiled Back?
    2026/07/28
    They Nailed a Photograph to the Tree - Who Smiled Back?

    Fear and curiosity meet at the trunk of an elm: a freshly nailed, black-painted frame with convex glass held a smiling mid-century portrait against a tree locals linked to an 1891 hanging. Who walked out to the Osborne Elm at dawn in 2014 and why choose that specific image to pin to a tree with a century of whispered misfortune beneath it?

    In this episode, we follow the people and documents that connect a 2014 morning to an 1891 death and a ledger discovered in 2011, tracing how a private pastoral record and a local collector’s four-year silence reshape a community story. What does the ledger reveal about Jason Osborne, the Osborne Elm, and the person who left the photograph?

    Person: Lisa Dixon
    Date: August 9, 2014
    Location: Callum's Field, Harker County, Tennessee
    Person: Jason Osborne
    Date: August 14, 1891

    - At 6:52 AM on August 9, 2014, Lisa Dixon found a framed photograph nailed to the Osborne Elm.
    - The Osborne Elm stood at the northeast edge of Callum's Field and had existed for approximately 140 to 160 years.
    - County record lists Jason Osborne’s death on the morning of August 14, 1891, as misadventure by hanging with no inquest.
    - Wayne Petersen, age 61 in summer 2014, had collected local records for 30 years and discovered a seam in the legend in spring 2011.
    - Samuel Crane’s pastoral ledger, found among Edith Crane’s estate papers, contains congregation records spanning 1884 to 1916 and includes the August 1891 entry.

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    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    29 分
  • The Jar That Kept a Name Quiet for Eighty Years

    The Jar That Kept a Name Quiet for Eighty Years
    2026/07/27
    The Jar That Kept a Name Quiet for Eighty Years

    Fear and curiosity collide at a faded mason jar: a wax-sealed jar of strawberry preserves scratched with the date July 14, 1941, found untouched in a utility cabinet in 2019 - and tied to a man whose quiet, nightly actions altered a county's memory. How did one jar become the hinge of a story about contaminated land, stolen preserves, and a name people learned to speak only carefully?

    In this episode, we trace the events that connect a 2019 found jar to a sequence of actions in 1940-1941, the letters sent to county officials, and the slow reconstruction of the Perry name in local folklore. What did Donald Perry believe he was protecting his neighbors from, and what did his response cost him and his family?

    Person: Donald Perry
    Date: July 14, 1941
    Location: Mill Trace Road bottomland, Calder County
    Person: Agnes Perry
    Event: Jar substitution across approximately eight months

    - A public works employee found a wax-sealed blue-green jar of strawberry preserves on a utility cabinet shelf at 10:15 AM on a Tuesday in July 2019.
    - The wax seal was scratched with the date July 14, 1941, while the cabinet itself had been installed in 1972 and the building constructed in 1967.
    - Donald Perry filed a four-page statement at the sheriff's office on July 14, 1941, describing his actions over about eight months.
    - Perry entered the Ault, Briggs, and Farwell households at night and replaced Agnes Perry’s strawberry jars with same-size wax-sealed jars filled with plain water.
    - Chester Ault discovered a substitution when a jar tasted of no fruit but only water with a faint mineral note, then confronted Perry four days after Perry filed his statement.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    28 分
  • The River Returned Their Names: A Box from Reeve Bend

    The River Returned Their Names: A Box from Reeve Bend
    2026/07/27
    The River Returned Their Names: A Box from Reeve Bend

    The river gave back a wooden box upright on a clay shelf with its brass hasp open and twenty-two handwritten names inside - most followed by numbers three through eleven that match rooms in a long-razed sanatorium. Who left a durable, legible ledger in water six to nine feet deep at a spot reachable only by boat, and why would those numbers rewrite the town's memory?

    In this episode, we follow the discovery on June 14, 2011 at Reeve Bend, the archival work that tied names to Brightfield Rest, and the hydrology that says objects should have been swept away rather than deposited. What does the box reveal about the fourteen confirmed names and the eight that remain unaccounted for?

    Person: Susan Dixon
    Date: June 14, 2011
    Location: Reeve Bend, Elden River, Kellum
    Event: Wooden document box with twenty-two handwritten names and numbers
    Author: Frances Bishop (archival researcher)

    - The Elden River at Reeve Bend was six to nine feet deep when the box was found.
    - The clay shelf where the box rested is accessible only by boat and the nearest road crossing is 0.9 miles upstream.
    - The box contained twenty-two names, mostly women, each followed by a number between 3 and 11.
    - Brightfield Rest operated from 1936 to 1964 and was demolished in 1968; its main floor had eleven patient rooms and the basement had four rooms numbered 8-11 for involuntary long-term placement.
    - Eleven of the twenty-two names appeared in county assessor records as Kellum-area residents between 1948 and 1963, three more appeared in Deller County records, leaving eight unaccounted for.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    26 分
  • They Tied Red Yarn to Stop the Children From Walking Back

    They Tied Red Yarn to Stop the Children From Walking Back
    2026/07/27
    They Tied Red Yarn to Stop the Children From Walking Back

    A chill of controlled dread: for roughly forty years a faceless porcelain doll and a child's chair with flat stones under each leg appeared along George Berry Trail, and every May families still bring bundles of dried corn bound with red yarn to a lightning-struck oak. Why would six entrenched families keep a silent knot-tying ritual for generations without naming what it was meant to hold in place?

    In this episode, we follow a retired librarian who spent eleven years tracing a local ceremony called the Knot and the erased ledger entries that point to an event the town refuses to name. What was the ritual protecting against, and why do the records stop listing causes after the fifth child?

    Person: Bruce Erickson
    Period: 11 years of research
    Date: 1892-1893 (ledger entries)
    Location: George Berry Trail / Settled Hollow / Meridian County
    Event: Annual Knot ceremony on last Saturday of May

    - A child's wooden chair was placed on George Berry Trail with flat stones packed under each leg for roughly forty years.
    - Bruce Erickson retired in 2010 and completed a 200-copy monograph titled "The Knot Girls" in 2012.
    - The Knot ceremony lasts about fifteen minutes and involves dried corn bundles bound with red yarn stacked at the base of a lightning-struck white oak.
    - Miles Ferris's Methodist register lists eleven children dying in November 1892-1893, the first four with scarlet fever, the remaining seven with no cause recorded.
    - Vernon Selle was 81 when interviewed by Erickson and his daughter Beverly had been placing the chair since her late twenties.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    29 分
  • The Bell in the Creek: What Alice Berry Knew Before She Died

    The Bell in the Creek: What Alice Berry Knew Before She Died
    2026/07/27
    The Bell in the Creek: What Alice Berry Knew Before She Died

    A dry bronze bell cast in 1887 turned up bone-dry in four feet of Sutter Creek a quarter mile east of the Route Seven bridge, the rope still white-yet a carpenter’s $62 invoice was paid two days after Alice Berry’s burial and $152 from the January building fund was never recorded. Who moved the missing money, and what did Alice find in the church records before she died?

    In this episode, we trace the facts preserved in letters, vestry minutes, and a coroner’s certificate to lay out what happened in Pell’s Crossing in April 1911, and follow the clue from the bell in the creek back to the vanished accounting entry that Alice Berry was preparing to raise with the vestry.

    Person: Alice Berry
    Date: April 19-20, 1911 (death)
    Location: Pell's Crossing, North Carolina
    Event: Payment of $62 to Henry Pruett on April 22, 1911
    Document: Letter from Nettie Aldred asserting Alice found something in church records

    - The bell Melvin Boyd found measured eleven inches across the mouth and was cast in 1887.
    - The bell was located in four feet of water a quarter mile east of the Route Seven bridge in Sutter Creek.
    - Alice Berry died on the night of April 19 or the morning of April 20, 1911; the coroner listed cause as blunt trauma and manner as accidental.
    - The Aldercroft building fund recorded $214 in January 1911 and a $62 repair payment was recorded on April 22, 1911.
    - $152 from the January balance is unaccounted for in the surviving vestry minutes and financial fragments.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    27 分
  • They Buried the Counting Rhyme - Why the Sixth Name Was Silent

    They Buried the Counting Rhyme - Why the Sixth Name Was Silent
    2026/07/27
    They Buried the Counting Rhyme - Why the Sixth Name Was Silent

    The copper tube pulled from Crestline Road held a March 14, 1891 firewood receipt and, on its reverse, a counting rhyme that lists six named deaths in Aldermere Parish-with the sixth verse the only one people had always refused to say aloud. Why was a church receipt signed by Deacon H. Ames used as the backing for a children's rhyme that records specific ages, garments, and a man who “saw the door,” then sealed and buried below the frost line for decades?

    In this episode, we trace how a retired postal worker, his grandmother’s truncated song, and a county surveyor’s probe converge on a single unexplained burial: the copper pipe that reunited oral variants of One for the Cold Ground with parish records. What does the missing reason behind William Fenn’s “accident” and the omitted sixth verse reveal about what the community chose to forget?

    Person: Rebecca Price
    Person: Ralph Baker
    Date: March 14, 1891
    Date: March 28, 1871
    Location: Crestline Road

    - The copper pipe was 14 inches long and buried 18 inches below grade.
    - The receipt inside was dated March 14, 1891 and signed by Deacon H. Ames.
    - Baker transcribed St. Clement's registers covering nearly 80 years of parish life.
    - The rhyme named six individuals and recorded their ages: Caleb Morse (37), Nora Morse (34), Paul Morse (6), Agnes Stout (61), Daniel Pryce (28), William Fenn (44).
    - Parish burial records attribute five deaths to fever and record William Fenn’s death on March 28, 1871 as “accident.”

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    30 分
  • The Fourth House Nobody Could Own: The Stake Dated 1961

    The Fourth House Nobody Could Own: The Stake Dated 1961
    2026/07/27
    The Fourth House Nobody Could Own: The Stake Dated 1961

    Fear that something ordinary is quietly wrong: a bright aluminum survey stake stamped 1961, a porch light that never goes out, and a woman who vanished without an address-what ties them together and who has been paying the lights for fourteen years?

    In this episode, we follow the discovery that starts with a septic contractor and spreads through utility records and a small-town food pantry; the episode covers the discovery of an unplatted house, the missing volunteer Teresa Green, and the fourteen years of electric billing that refuse to match the county map-what does the 1961 stake actually mark?

    Person: Dale Roberts
    Person: Teresa Green
    Location: eastern edge of Gellert Township
    Date: February 2017
    Event: fourteen years of active electrical consumption on an unrecorded parcel

    - The stake in front of the unplatted house was stamped with the survey date "1961."
    - Dale Roberts found the fourth house on a Tuesday morning in February 2017 while inspecting a drainage easement.
    - Gellert Township had fewer than 800 full-time residents as of the 2010 census.
    - Teresa Green ran the pantry for sixteen consecutive years and had missed only one shift, calling from a hospital bed to apologize.
    - The electrical account for the Sycamore parcel showed fourteen years of uninterrupted monthly payments, opened in 2003 under the name T. Green.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    26 分