The Ghost of Aunt Sally Barker

Captain Johnny Russell

Captain Johnny Russell is from Bonavista Bay. In his eighties he wrote a story of his life: Memories Of A Lifetime. One day, a man he knew well told him how he met the ghost of a woman who was lost berrypicking.

THERE WAS AN OLD WOMAN up in Open Hall, who left her house one evening in September. Aunt Sally Barker was her name. This is a true story. This happened in my day.

Her house was near the centre of the village. She said she was going into her garden to pick a few berries. The berries were just starting to get ripe, around late September. So she left her house with her jug or dipper to put her berries in, about three o'clock in the afternoon.

It was getting up in the fall of the year, so it got dark earlier. Anyway, she went on. Suppertime came with no sign of the old lady and she didn't come back that night.

She lived with her niece and nephew. They didn't know what to think of it. It was really too late to go look for her, but they went in where she was supposed to be. Of course, there was no sign of her. And from that day to this day it never was known what happened to Sally Barker.

Later in the fall, in November, we used to get our wood. We'd go in on Kings Cove Road and have a day cutting and sticking up. By the time we walked in it was almost time to boil the kettle.

This man went one fall morning. He had a spurt cutting and sticking up, as the saying used to be. He boiled his kettle and had a lunch. The days were getting short.