Sumter County was founded on December 18, 1832, on land ceded to the United States by the Choctaw Indians in the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. Almost immediately, settlers began pouring in from Georgia, Virginia, Tennessee, and the Carolinas. In the 19th and early-20th centuries, most of the residents were farmers; however, following the infestation of the boll weevil, many turned to raising cattle and growing timber. Every November, hundreds of hunters descend upon Sumter County in hopes of harvesting one of the thousands of deer that live on the rolling prairies and in the oak forests lining the Tombigbee River. With the help of Ruby Pickens Tartt, scores of ethnomusicologists, including John and Alan Lomax, traveled hundreds of miles to the red clay country of Sumter County in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s to record African American folk songs from people like Vera Hall and Dock Reed.

Sumter County was founded on December 18, 1832, on land ceded to the United States by the Choctaw Indians in the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. Almost immediately, settlers began pouring in from Georgia, Virginia, Tennessee, and the Carolinas. In the 19th and early-20th centuries, most of the residents were farmers; however, following the infestation of the boll weevil, many turned to raising cattle and growing timber. Every November, hundreds of hunters descend upon Sumter County in hopes of harvesting one of the thousands of deer that live on the rolling prairies and in the oak forests lining the Tombigbee River. With the help of Ruby Pickens Tartt, scores of ethnomusicologists, including John and Alan Lomax, traveled hundreds of miles to the red clay country of Sumter County in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s to record African American folk songs from people like Vera Hall and Dock Reed.

Sumter County's serene beauty is cloaked by mystery--a Seminole sage's timeless spell, a lurking swamp monster, a family's spirited legacy and the ghostly cries of brokenhearted souls. Floridian bad boys, mobsters and bank robbers line the pages of Sumter County's criminal past. Murder, mayhem and mystery are embedded in our cultural timeline, from the indigenous eradication to the present-day retirement utopia. Step into the paranormal possibilities swirling inside the historic Baker House in Wildwood. Sense the residual energy that sways from Sumter County's courthouse front steps. Feel the county's macabre history come alive as Deborah Carr Hollingsworth churns up chilling tales from our mysterious past.

I wrote this book to share my life story. I was prompted into writing this book because of so many people that heard me as a guest speaker, me telling different people real-life stories about myself, my stories about my twenty-two months in the army, and my coworkers and many of my former students telling me that I should be putting my stories and experiences in a book. So I decided to write it. For those of you that know me well and those that don’t know as well, you will find this book to be very interesting, downright hilarious, very entertaining, and thought-provoking. I believe you will have so much fun reading it while you laugh.