Collected from Larry Williams, an 18-year-old native of Central Indiana. The interview was collected outside at night with one other person besides the collector present. The tale was originally learned on a hayride around Stepp Cemetery along with a collection of other tales.[Text Wrapping Break][Text Wrapping Break]Text: The third text is about Stepps Cemetery also, but it was collected from a different informant. Larry says “Aw, there is a cemetery called Stepps Cemetery in Morgan Monroe State Forest which is famous for a for a lady who goes around looking for her child and the story is when they decided to turn that area of Monroe, Morgan County National Park they had to move a lady out of the area which she didn’t want to go so they put…threaten to burn her out and when they set her house on fire she had to go back inside for the child… and when she went back for the child she was burned to death inside, so now people say that you can hear the child crying in the woods and that the old lady is looking for her, her child and all of a sudden you will hear a rocking chair rocking back and forth and the baby will be quiet. People say as you walk[Text Wrapping Break]around the cemetery you can hear such things as this.”
This piece was taken from the same collection as the artifact above. As such, there are many similarities in texture between this artifact and the previous one. An important difference between the two is the style of the interview. While it was still a verbal interview, it was conducted outside at night, which could have potentially provoked the informant to share more details. The interview also occurs in the presence of an audience, which could have potentially changed the amount of information shared by the informant.
This particular tale is one of a set told on a hayride specifically in the Stepp Cemetery area. The hayride is conducted on or around the Halloween holiday, and as such, it is intended to be spooky and to scare listeners. It is likely told with more dramatic fanfare than the transcription of the interview would lead one to believe. Given how prominent the Lady in Black of Stepp Cemetery is, this is probably a tale that does not see rotation out of the repertoire of the hayride storyteller.
Like the previous artifact, the idea of community identity runs strong within this tale. Again, we see the emergence of a self-sufficient family against the Indiana government, though it is much more understated this time. Note the use of the phrase “a lady out of the area.” It denotes a sense of community between the Lady and the teller.
We can see that more elements of the ghost and her origin become vague, moving towards the almost lack of information provided by the radio program in 2007. The child is lost and the woman wanders the area looking for it. Additionally, no longer is the woman rooted in one spot like the previous artifact. Now, she seems to move about the area. We also see her becoming less concerned with interacting with the outside world. She moves further into the area of many IU legends, where she is entirely unconcerned with student activities and is either incapable or refuses to interact with them.