And then there is Gladys.

Gladys Spruill grew up on this place. She was “touched”. She used to pull all her clothes off, throw them in the fireplace, and run out in the woods screaming bloody murder. They put her in Terrell State Hospital when she was about 18 back in the 1930s.

She spent her entire adult life in Terrell. About the only treatment that they had for mental illness in those days was “Shock” treatment. I remember some of my cousins telling that Gladys had been given more “Juice” than Frankenstein and would never die.

When she was in her late 80s, her brother, Harmon, went to Terrell, picked her up, and brought her out here to see her home place. Now I’m not saying it’s fact or fiction, but some say she ran off in the woods and was never seen again.

When the weather is cool, my Bride and I like to sit out on the back porch and listen to the sounds of the woods. We generally hear wolves, hoot owls, whooperwills, hogs, and panthers. But every now and then, there is this blood curdling scream that we can only attribute to Gladys. That’s when we go in and lock the doors.