Remembering Kathryn Tucker Windham
One of Alabama’s most beloved storytellers has died. Kathryn Tucker Windham passed away over the weekend at the age of 93. Windham developed a love of reading and writing at an early age. She wrote more than 20 books along with scores of newspaper columns and radio commentaries.
Spend time around Kathryn Tucker Windham, and she’d invariably tell you about her father. He was born just after the Civil War and he raised Windham and her siblings in the south Alabama town of Thomasville.
‘He went to school three months in his whole life, but he learned to read. And he said if you can read you can learn anything you want to know.’
Windham learned a lot from her father, especially the art of storytelling. She started her career as a journalist, including covering the police beat for a Montgomery newspaper in the 1940s, but Windham endeared herself to Alabamians with books full of folklore. Her work may have straddled the line between truth and fiction, but her persona was…
‘Brutally honest.’
According to Jake Reiss. He’s the owner of Alabama Booksmith in Homewood. Over the years, he hosted several book signings and events with Windham and the two became close friends.
‘She would not read. She did not want an introduction. She wanted to speak with her people and she told the truth.’
‘She had the ability to take people back to their own observations and their own past.’
NewSouth Books Editor-in-Chief Randall Williams worked with Windham on many of her books. He says she’d come to him with fully formed manuscripts that didn’t need much editing. Williams says Windham was a clear communicator and that’s why her work resonated with so many readers.
‘She could say it better than you could, but for people who had grown up in Alabama, especially people of a certain age, she understood how to capture those experiences that were common experiences to people in the South and to the culture.’
Kathryn Tucker Windham wrote more than 20 books of ghost stories, Alabama folklore, and recipes. She would also tell her stories in commentaries for NPR, and at events like the Tale-Tellin’ festival in Selma. Windham was best known for her ghost stories, weaving real people and places into her tales. In a 2009 interview with Greg Bass, she said her ghost stories weren’t meant just to scare people.
‘I’m only interested in the true ghost stories. True in that you can visit the places where they happened and the names of the people involved are accurate and the events surrounding the supernatural occurrence did take place. You decide whether you want to believe it or not. You do not have to believe in ghosts to enjoy a good ghost story.’
But Windham did believe in ghosts. She would often talk about Jeffrey, the ghost who haunted her home in Selma. In Jake Reiss’ office at Alabama Booksmith, a photo of Jeffrey and Kathryn Tucker Windham hangs on the wall.
‘Kathryn inscribed it. “For Jake, who I think is jealous of Jeffrey. With love, Kathryn Tucker Windham.” Quite frankly, I am. Because Jeffrey seems to get Kathyrn’s attention all the time.’
Asked how he would like his friend to be remembered, Jake Reiss summed up Windham this way.
‘She was the most giving, wonderful, caring, considerate, loving human being I ever met in my life. We never ever ever ended a conversation without telling each other we loved them.’
Kathryn Tucker Windham died in Selma on Sunday, just two weeks after her 93rd birthday.
Walgreens to pay up to $350 million in U.S. opioid settlement
The nationwide drugstore chain must pay the government at least $300 million and will owe another $50 million if the company is sold, merged, or transferred before 2032, according to the settlement.
Harvard sues Trump administration to stop a freeze of more than $2 billion in grants
Harvard University announced Monday that it has filed suit to halt a federal freeze on more than $2.2 billion in grants after the institution said it would defy the Trump administration's demands to limit activism on campus.
Mahmoud Khalil misses son’s birth after ICE official denies his request to be there
Khalil has been held in Louisiana since ICE agents arrested him in New York over his pro-Palestinian activism. He instead experienced the birth by phone.
Trump Administration to resume collections on student loan borrowers in default
The Education Department says millions of borrowers in default will have a chance to make a payment or sign up for a repayment plan. But on May 5, those who don't will be referred for collection.
The Justice Department and Google battle over how to fix a search engine monopoly
After a federal judge ruled that Google had a monopoly on the search market, the tech giant and the government are in court to debate penalties. One possible result: forcing Google to spin off Chrome.
Trumps welcome thousands to the White House for the annual Easter egg roll
President Trump welcomed an estimated 40,000 people to the South Lawn of the White House on Monday for its annual Easter egg roll event. The annual tradition dates back to the presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes, and save for war and food shortages, has been a mainstay of Pennsylvania Avenue since 1878.
