Bama Planter

In my life I have attended dozens of estate sales, as many of you have. Some estates really do have spectacular things. Other sales reveal the unusual interests of the people who lived there, and often I discover once-admired collections now priced at a fraction of what they originally cost. Estate sales can be an exciting experience, and a profitable one. I remember the Kroell estate sale.  I was too young to buy anything then, but I recall as a child how the adults were astonished by the heavy Victorian furniture in the house.  Many people in town only wanted a look inside, because stories circulated that one room actually had leather wallpaper that required oiling to keep it from cracking.   My aunt bought some books with the sisters' names inside the front cover.  Did you know someone photographed the entire interior of the house before it was destroyed?  Many reading this have much greater knowledge than I do about the Kroells. I also remember D...

  My love of history began when I was a child.  Maybe it was the arrowheads I would find in our back field along Shoal creek.   Maybe it was the broken pieces of mule chains that would wash up in the red gullies on our farm ( now Orr Park)  after a summer storm.  Or perhaps it was the square nails I would dig out of tin buckets sitting in dark corners of the hay barn.   I became a hunter and gatherer of old things.  My grandmother gave me the blue fruit jars discarded in her basement.   To me , anything old was valuable.  Knowing this about me will help you to understand what led me to experience the most frightening event of my life.  Miss  Dearborn lived in one of Montevallo's  old Victorian homes.    That was not her real name. I'm not telling you her real name.    Some of you may have heard of her.   Some of you might have been friends with her.   I don't want anyone to...