Wayne County, NC - Heritage Series Reprinted with permission of the Mount Olive Tribune and cannot be reproduced without permission. Transcribed by Barbara Kawamoto. Papa’s Brogans "Our Heritage" By Claude Moore Barbara Lancaster of Mount Olive, student in N.C. History, at Mount Olive College, wrote the following ghost story. An old farmhouse about 25 miles from Dothan, Alabama, was the home of Mr. John Dukes and his family, which included a wife and two daughters, Ada and Betty. The house had been passed down to Mr. Dukes from his father and had always been his home. It was just a plain, wooden farmhouse with two bedrooms on one side of the hall and the sitting room and another bedroom on the other side of the hall. Like all older homes, the kitchen and dining room had been built away from the main house, but through the years, it had been connected by a screened porch. Running water had been piped to the house and was accessible through a hand pump at a sink on the porch. Every night, Mr. Dukes would sit in the parlor or on the front porch until about nine o’clock and then, as was his custom, he would proceed to the back porch where he would remove his old brogan shoes and wash his feet at the sink. He would then start toward his bedroom, but just as he came through the door from off the porch, he would drop his old heavy brogans into the corner, Ka-plunk. It was only a matter of sickness or extraordinary circumstances that would make him alter his ritual over the years. As the years passed, Betty, the oldest daughter, married and moved away but Ada stayed at the farmhouse with her parents. In all the years that he lived, Mr. Dukes ended his day by washing his feet on the porch and dropping his brogans into the corner. In his 75th year, Mr. Dukes died. A few months after his death, Betty went back home to visit her sister and her mother. It was her first overnight visit since her father’s death but she felt comforted by her old bedroom and familiar surroundings. Since she had traveled most of the day to get to the farmhouse, she was exhausted and retired early. Just as she was drifting off to sleep, at about nine o’clock, she heard a noise, Ka-plunk. She thought nothing of it at the time since her mother and her sister were in the house, but the next morning at breakfast she mentioned the noise to Ada. Ada smiled slightly and replied, "Oh, that’s just Papa putting his shoes in the corner. You know he’s done that every night since I can remember." If you happen to be in the area, just stop by the old, seemingly abandoned farmhouse at night about nine o’clock. Neighbors say the "Ka-plunk" can still be heard as Papa goes through his nightly ritual. ============================================================== USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. The electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or for presentation by other persons or organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes other than stated above must obtain the written consent of the file contributor, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Barbara Kawamoto ==============================================================