Collected from Sandy Greesby, a 22-year-old female who lives near Stepp Cemetery. The interview transcribed below was conducted in the informant’s house by Lorne Aubin and published in 1983. Accessed from https://f351jmcd.sitehost.iu.edu/legends.html#l2.[Text Wrapping Break][Text Wrapping Break]Text: The second text is about Stepps cemetery. Sandy says “Ok, ah the house we live in is five miles north of Lake Lemon. Its right under the well we’re connected to the State Forest line and our house is under where Stepps Cemetery is. Maybe not right underneath but close and we have always heard legends how Stepps Cemetery came to be one of them was there was a lady and her husband and daughter lived in this house where Stepps Cemetery is now and when the state came in to build the cemetery where her house was they wanted to tear her house down and she wouldn’t let them. Her and her husband fought it all the way. Somebody came in and set her house on fire. She got out alive and she tried to get her baby and husband out. Well it burnt her arm off and left her, you know, a hook for an arm. Ok…every since then her house burnt down she quit fighting it because she lost her husband and daughter and they built a cemetery there well one of the grave sites, one is for her husband and one is for her daughter. Well her husband was supposedly reincarnated and aw into a collie dog and there was a tree that was carved out as a chair over her daughters grave and she would set at night and listen to her baby cry and her husband the dog would set there and howl… supposedly if you there at after midnight you can hear her setting there, you know in her black cape. That’s why they call her the lady in black and she sets there and runs everybody off that steps foot on her property.”
This interview was conducted in a very kitchen-table style. The transcription does not remove any pauses that were not deemed too disruptive and left grammatical errors the informant made. Additionally, there appears to have been an attempt to preserve the dialect of the informant in transcription. It appears to have been published in physical form sometime near 1983. This particular excerpt was taken from an archive created by previous folklore students, but the section it is taken from does not provide a contributor.
This artifact appears to be from a collection of legends. There is no definite identifying information about the collection provided, but it is possible that the collection was about cemeteries or haunted areas in Central Indiana. It is pointed out specifically that the informant grew up in Central Indiana, not Monroe County, which makes it seem a likely choice in narrowing down the geographic focus of the collection.
This older legend has much more detail than the previous artifact. The Lady in Black is given a much deeper backstory focusing on the struggle between a home-owning, independent family and the state government. This points to the story as important to developing the identity of the community that created it. The self-sufficient, no need for the government attitude is one that has defined Indiana and its inhabitants.
Additionally, this story contains many of the defining characteristics of “Lady in Black” tales. It has a woman who is the victim of tragedy and death, in this case her daughter and husband. She comes back to haunt the area in which they are buried, appearing in her funeral garb. Like many other stories, she doesn’t appear to desire interaction with the outside world besides chasing away people who attempt to interact with her. Like many of the versions that appear on IU’s campus, she appears to mostly want to be left alone.