Family Skeletons: A Spunky Missouri Genealogist Traces A Family's Roots...And Digs Up A Deadly Secret by Rett MacPherson Page A

in a chair crocheting, and other than being obviously well into her years, was the picture of health. I noticed the popcorn stitch immediately, as Mom uses it often. She glanced up and didn’t seem the least bit concerned that a stranger had come to see her. She was small, with rosy cheeks and the clearest blue eyes I believed I had ever seen.
    â€œMrs. Ortlander, my name is Victory O’Shea,” I said.
    â€œNice to meet you. Have a seat,” she said.
    I sat in the seat on the opposite side of the round table that she was sitting at. Before I could say anything else to her, she picked up the conversation.
    â€œWhere did you get a name like Victory?” she asked.
    I hate answering that question. “Two reasons. One, I was a victory. My mother was told she’d never have children. She was victorious. Two, I was also named after a ghost.” Most people are named after grandmothers or maiden aunts; I was named after a ghost.
    â€œVictory LeBreau.”
    â€œYes,” I said, amazed. “The woman who burned to death in the old mill.”
    â€œI grew up in Avon. Moved to Pine Branch in the early thirties. Everybody knows the story of the ghost that haunts the mill very well. I saw her once, you know. I was about sixteen years old,” she said. “I was coming home from a dance at the church. It was dark already, and me and my sister were going to get the tanning of our lives for being so late.”
    I was totally engrossed in what Mrs. Ortlander said. It didn’t seem the least bit odd for her to talk to me as if she’d known me her entire life. That’s how natural this story flowed out of her.
    â€œWell, we came up on the bridge and Trula stopped in her tracks. She didn’t have to tell me what was wrong, I could feel the gooseflesh on her arm. Then I heard it. The sobbing of a woman in the distance. It was a woeful cry. Then I heard her screaming, ‘No! No!’ Then we saw her. She flung herself at the window of the mill. Second floor, third window from the left. I’ll never forget it.”
    â€œWhat happened then?” I asked.
    â€œWell you know the mill is burned out now, one whole wall is missing. But for a split second I thought I saw the mill the way it used to be. Whole, with all four of its walls. Well, Victory LeBreau stopped with her arms raised up over her head. She stopped and she looked right at me. She looked right into my soul.”
    She paused in her story then. I had goosebumps the size of dimes all down my arms.
    â€œAnd? What happened?” I asked.
    â€œShe began pounding on the window, shouting for help. They say she relives her inferno every night.”
    â€œYes, I have heard that,” I said.
    â€œYou must be from the same area.”
    The woman was ninety-plus years and looked it. She had severe wrinkles and very white hair. But she was also alert, her voice strong, and her hands nimble. Between her and the Pershing sisters, I had the feeling that I was falling apart and wouldn’t make it to forty.
    â€œI’m from Progress, originally,” I said. “My great-grandfather helped to build the Pine Branch church, and my grandparents lived there for many years. Have you heard of the Frioux family?”
    â€œYes. Claude had a daughter about eight years older than me. She was the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen. Always wanted to look like her.”
    â€œFelicity Frioux?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œThat was my grandmother,” I said, suddenly somber and forgetting the real reason I’d come here.
    â€œHow nice,” she said. “Do you crochet?”
    â€œSorry,” I said. “I am all thumbs at that sort of thing.”
    She gestured at her hospital bed as she said, “Do you quilt?”
    A gorgeous Lone Star quilt graced her bed. The Lone Star is made up of small diamonds pieced together in larger diamond sections that eventually make up the star. This one was done in