Cultura Garden Club Sponsors Aunt Jenny Historic Legend
The Cultura Garden Club’s October program included more than thirty guests meeting in the Green Rom of the First Baptist Church in Russellville. Attendees listened to special guest speaker Carla Waldrep who is well known for telling the story of “Aunt Jenny Brooks Johnston-a legend of the Bankhead National Forest.”
Waldrep is the librarian at Haleyville Public Library and began to portray Aunt Jenny when she was asked by a friend to perform a history on Aunt Jenny at a Halloween party for the Haleyville Historical Society. Since then, she has been performing this historic program for more than ten years.
Following many accolades of Waldrep’s performances as Aunt Jenny, Cultura president Cheri McCain arranged for her to come to Russellville and present her historic program. Garden Club members thought the presentation of this legend would give an opportunity for prospective members to see that we enjoyed having fun–not just working in our gardens or beautifying projects.
Waldrep dresses up in Civil War-era clothing, wears a grey wig fixed in a bun and carries a cane to portray the life of Aunt Jenny Johnston–a petite 90-year-old Cherokee mountain woman. As the story goes, Aunt Jenny lived in the Bankhead National Forrest where she and her family settled to farm and live.
At the beginning of the Civil War, the Confederate home guards came after her husband for feeding war deserters hiding in the forest. The home guard killed Aunt Jenny’s husband and her oldest son. This began many years of discord and trouble. Aunt Jenny swore on her husband and son’s lives that she would avenge their deaths by going after and killing the men who murdered them. She trained her five other sons to shoot pistols and then sent the young gunslingers on a murderous rampage. She saw each of her 10 children die but one.
“Aunt Jenny was a woman you did not want to mess with, but she was also a loving mother and wife,” Waldrep said. “She also served as a midwife for an herb doctor, helping her community 24 hours a day, often during late nights and early mornings. If she liked you, she would do anything for you, but if she disliked you, you better be very careful.”
Waldrep told many stories of Aunt Jenny, showed a replica of the cane that she uses during her presentation and shared pictures as well as other artifacts she has collected over the years.
“I have been very fortunate to be able to meet and talk to many of her descendants who have helped me to piece together many aspects of Aunt Jenny’s life,” Waldrep explained.
Aunt Jenny died at the age of 98, on March 29, 1924. She is buried at Poplar Springs Cemetery down a dirt road in the Bankhead Forrest near the Winston County and Franklin County line, just off Forrest Road B93.
“Aunt Jenny was a woman of wonderful character and strength, and I do Aunt Jenny’s living history to keep her legacy alive for our future generations,” Waldrep added. She has told the story of Aunt Jenny at various schools, senior citizen groups, civic organizations, Indian festivals, Alabama History Day at the Houston Jail and public events. On hayrides, she will jump on the trailer and tell ghost stories of Aunt Jenny’s ghost roaming Byler Road and heari blood-curling screams in the darkness of the Bankhead Forrest.
