Tradition meets tragedy in the chilling local lore of the Rio Grande Valley. Hidden in the dense brush and around oxbow lakes wait sinister secrets, unnerving vestiges of the past and wraiths of those claimed by the winding river. The spirit of a murdered student in Brownsville paces the locker room where she met her end. Tortured souls of patients lost in the Harlingen Insane Asylum refuse to be forgotten. Guests at the LaBorde Hotel in Rio Grande City report visions of the Red Lady, who was spurned by the soldier she loved and driven to suicide. Author David Bowles explores these and more of the most harrowing ghost stories from Fort Brown to Fort Ringgold and all the haunted hotels, chapels and ruins in between.
Tradition meets tragedy in the chilling local lore of the Rio Grande Valley. Hidden in the dense brush and around oxbow lakes wait sinister secrets, unnerving vestiges of the past and wraiths of those claimed by the winding river. The spirit of a murdered student in Brownsville paces the locker room where she met her end. Tortured souls of patients lost in the Harlingen Insane Asylum refuse to be forgotten. Guests at the LaBorde Hotel in Rio Grande City report visions of the Red Lady, who was spurned by the soldier she loved and driven to suicide. Author David Bowles explores these and more of the most harrowing ghost stories from Fort Brown to Fort Ringgold and all the haunted hotels, chapels and ruins in between.
Ghost stories from Deep South Texas have never been so creepy, fun, and full of mystery! Welcome to the spooky Texas Tropics! Stay Alert! Ghosts lurk around every corner. Even the most unexpected places might be haunted by wandering phantoms. Pulled right from history, these ghostly tales will change the way you see the Rio Grande Valley forever, and have you sleeping with the lights on!
Tales Told at Midnight Along the Rio Grande: A great river with two names forms the southern boundary of Texas. Here, two cultures clash and old world ghosts collide with new. Two peoples create their myths and legends, each with their own heroes and villains, lovers and friends, natural and supernatural. Collected and created by the Valley Byliners are 34 such tales suitable for those darkest hours. The members of the Valley Byliners, whose history as an organization stretches back to the 1940s, have come together to produce a fourth book. The writers sincerely hope you'll be amazed and thrilled. Perhaps you'll feel the chill of something other-worldly at your back as you read their latest offering.
“A haunted, haunting examination of mental illness and murder in a more or less ordinary American city…Mature and thoughtful…A Helter Skelter for our time, though without a hint of sensationalism—unsettling in the extreme but written with confidence and deep empathy” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). On March 11, 2003, in Brownsville, Texas—one of America’s poorest cities—John Allen Rubio and Angela Camacho murdered their three young children. The apartment building in which the brutal crimes took place was already run down, and in their aftermath a consensus developed in the community that it should be destroyed. In 2008, journalist Laura Tillman covered the story for The Brownsville Herald. The questions it raised haunted her and set her on a six-year inquiry into the larger significance of such acts, ones so difficult to imagine or explain that their perpetrators are often dismissed as monsters alien to humanity. Tillman spoke with the lawyers who tried the case, the family’s neighbors and relatives and teachers, even one of the murderers: John Allen Rubio himself, whom she corresponded with for years and ultimately met in person. Her investigation is “a dogged attempt to understand what happened, a review of the psychological, sociological and spiritual explanations for the crime…a meditation on the death penalty and on the city of Brownsville” Star Tribune (Minneapolis). The result is a brilliant exploration of some of our age’s most important social issues and a beautiful, profound meditation on the truly human forces that drive them. “This thought-provoking…book exemplifies provocative long-form journalism that does not settle for easy answers” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
Ghost stories from Deep South Texas have never been so creepy, fun, and full of mystery! Welcome to the spooky Texas Tropics! Stay Alert! Ghosts lurk around every corner. Even the most unexpected places might be haunted by wandering phantoms. Pulled right from history, these ghostly tales will change the way you see the Rio Grande Valley forever, and have you sleeping with the lights on!
"La Llorona scans the waters of the Rio Grande looking for her children; little Duendes create a ruckus to gain attention; the Grim Reaper skulks about the corridors of the big house biding its time; ghosts guarding treasure inhabit back yards and the brushlands along the Rio Grande; Sasquatch sloshes along on the shores of South Padre in freezing weather on an Easter weekend, and snakes love mothers' milk and menstrual blood."--Page 4 of cover.
Stories depict a way-of-life of the Hispanic culture of South Texas where superstition still rules the lives of many. La Llorona scans the waters of the Rio Grande looking for her children; little Duendes create a ruckus to gain attention; the Grim Reaper skulks about the corridors of the big house biding its time; ghosts guarding treasure inhabit back yards and the brushlands along the Rio Grande; Sasquatch sloshes along on the shores of South Padre in freezing weather on an Easter weekend, and snakes love mothers’ milk and menstrual blood. Experience with ghosts or other supernatural phenomena is as prevalent today in South Texas as it has been for hundreds of years.
Ghosts and other supernatural phenomena are widely represented throughout modern culture. They can be found in any number of entertainment, commercial, and other contexts, but popular media or commodified representations of ghosts can be quite different from the beliefs people hold about them, based on tradition or direct experience. Personal belief and cultural tradition on the one hand, and popular and commercial representation on the other, nevertheless continually feed each other. They frequently share space in how people think about the supernatural. In Haunting Experiences, three well-known folklorists seek to broaden the discussion of ghost lore by examining it from a variety of angles in various modern contexts. Diane E. Goldstein, Sylvia Ann Grider, and Jeannie Banks Thomas take ghosts seriously, as they draw on contemporary scholarship that emphasizes both the basis of belief in experience (rather than mere fantasy) and the usefulness of ghost stories. They look closely at the narrative role of such lore in matters such as socialization and gender. And they unravel the complex mix of mass media, commodification, and popular culture that today puts old spirits into new contexts.
