- Title
- Our state
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-
- Date
- October 1998
-
-
- Place
- ["North Carolina, United States"]
-
Our state
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tar heel profile
by Dave Han
Ghost Writer
Every ghost has a story, and Nancy Roberts has spent the better part of her adult life
traveling the South in search of them. Most of her 23 books recount tales
of ghosts, goblins, specters, and even the occasional werewolf.
Silling in her Charlotte living
room. Nano Roberts starts to
tell the story of what she saw
one night at the Kelioe House, a
century-old bed and breakfast in
Savannah. Georgia. As she speaks,
the skies outside grow ominous and
the trees toss theii heads before a
sudden gtisting wind. Rain hammers
ils lingers against the window panes.
Lightning bla/es. and at almost the
same instant, a sharp report of thun¬
der lips the air. In her chair.
Roberts jumps a little and then
smiles.
“How apropos." she says. "I love
this soundtrack. “
Roberts doesn't scare easily. She's
spent much of her adult life, in fact,
traveling the South in dogged pur¬
suit of fright. And when she finds it.
she shares it — she has written 23
books, the majority of which
recount tales ol ghosts, goblins,
specters, and even the occasional
werewolf. Roberts is one of the
South's loiemost chroniclers of the
Miperiialui.il, and in the nearly -10
years she's been doing this, she has
developed a remarkable knack for
sniffing out ghost stories. II there's a
spirit or spook in town — and. she
says, there always is — she'll unearth
it.
“If I ever find a town without at
least one ghost, that'll be a first."
Robeits says. “I've never yet encoun¬
tered a place that didn't have at
least one ghost Sometimes it lakes
some digging. Hut when I visit a
town. I come armed with the deter¬
mination to find a ghost before 1
leave. In ins experience, at least one-
out of every four or five people has
had some sort of encounter they
don't understand. The nick is to
find them and gel them to talk
about it.
"Once you stall looking, ghost sto¬
ries are like dandelions. II I see one
dandelion in the front yard, don't
tell me then- aren't more nearby."
Not a ghost in sight
Roberts' passion lot the oilier-
worldly lias lew outward indications.
Outgoing and gi'a« ions, she wel¬
comes a visitoi to liei home in south
Charlotte with a big smile and an
even bigger glass ol ice water. Her
living room is lovely, with a sunken
hearth, a built-in bookcase full of
volumes along one wall, and a big
picture window looking out on the
wooded front yard. Ilmin. No visible
Ouija boards. No shrines t«> the
undcad. No chandeliers made of
bones. Othci than a tret- trunk with
sawn-olf limbs — the biggest scratch¬
ing post vou’ve cvci seen, it’s a testa¬
ment to Roberts' love of cals, not
ghosts — ilu-re's nothing out of the
ordinary. W'hit h makes it all the
more unsettling when Roberts' hus¬
band. |iin Brown, tails out from a
back room. “Nancy. I've found
Lizzie Borden!" and Roberts settles
into her chaii and says. “We've just
returned from Charleston where I
interviewed this verv intelligent, lit¬
erate woman who happens to be
hagridden."
Entertainment for one
In Roberts' past lie the roots of
her writing career; as for her spe¬
cialty. she happened on it almost In
accident. She was born in Wisconsin
and spent her childhood winters
there. But her parents were from
North Carolina, where the family
returned during the summers. This
arrangement left her isolated in
both places, and she learned to
amuse herself by spending hours
immersed in books. “Down here, I
was considered a Yankee." she says.
“And up North, no one wanted to
play with me because I was the only-
kid with a Southern accent. Plus, of
course, it was always 10 degrees out¬
side and there were a couple of feet
of snow on the ground. My mother
had this huge stack of book*. and
that was my source of entertain¬
ment. I would read, and I would tell
myself stories to put mvsclf to sleep
at night."
Scaring up local lore
Reading led to writing, and aftei
she moved south to stay, she began
writing freelance travel articles for
The Charlolle Observe
».
One «lay her
innthci mentioned a Presbyterian
minister who claimed to have seen a
ghost in a pre-Civil Wai house in
Fayetteville. Intrigued. Roberts went
to visit him and wound up writing a
storv for The Obsrivrt about bis expe¬
rience. “This was the only ghost
storv I knew. But the features editor
said. ’Nancv. I'll bet vou’ve beard
lots of ghost stories, haven't you?'
Of course. I said. 'Ycs.'“ That started
54 Our State October 1998
