Bryant releases 'A Collection of Folklore from Soddy, Tennessee'

Long-time Soddy resident Bonnie Bryant began writing "A Collection of Folklore from Soddy, Tennessee" in a folklore class in 1966 at Peabody Library School in Nashville. She typed it on a Smith Corona portable typewriter after hand writing it as a paper for class.

photo Long-time Soddy resident Bonnie Bryant shows her recently published book, "A Collection of Folklore from Soddy, Tennessee."

More than four decades later the book is in print at Soddy Bible and Church Supplies. Bryant officially released the newly published book in late summer and has already sold more than 100 copies.

Former teacher Miss Winnie Walker was Bryant's inspiration for the book.

"Miss Winnie Walker was a Tennessee history teacher at Soddy Junior High School," said Bryant. "She told us stories in class. Soddy was a mining town. There were ghost stories about the Soddy Mines."

While the first part of the book details the history of Soddy and Miss Walker's life, the middle part of the book spins into Soddy's mysterious ghost tales. Included are the mysteries of the lime kiln, the coke ovens, the grave in a field, the black track ghost, the mysterious eyes, the ghost woman and children, the Ducktown Road ghost and the mine ghost.

"The most famous Soddy ghost tale is about the black track ghost," Bryant said of the woman in white who supposedly haunted a "one-lane narrow-gage railroad track that ran where Durham Street is now." It was called the black track because coal fell off the railroad cars running down the track.

Bryant said she has heard that when someone sees the woman, it means someone within the spectator's family will die in two weeks. It is believed the woman was married to a coal miner who was killed by her clerk lover, and later her body was found too.

Bryant's folklore collection ends with old-time songs sung in Soddy about railroads, coal mines, birds, shoes and snails.

Despite rumors of ghosts, Bryant said growing up in Soddy was a wonderful childhood. She remembers taking private dance and piano lessons at Soddy Elementary School in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

She also attended Soddy Junior High School and graduated from Soddy-Daisy High School.

"Soddy was a boom town with stores and restaurants downtown," said Bryant of her childhood years. "When I grew up it was Soddy and Daisy, but the high schools merged into one. The towns merged three years after I wrote the book in 1969."

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