My Grandmother grew up on a mountain in Wilkes County, North Carolina. This either happened to a family there, or in neighboring Iredell County, where my GreatGrandmother grew up.

There was a family there who had 9 boys, and their 10th child was a little girl. The little girl was beautiful, and very much doted on by her mother and father and all her brothers. When the little girl was about 9 years old, she caught pneumonia and died, and her family buried her on their land underneath a grape arbor, where she had always loved to play. The child had been dead for about six weeks, and her mother was inconsolable. She couldn't eat or sleep because of her grief. She told her husband if she could just see the little girl one more time she thought she could get better. After much serious thought, and with many misgivings, her husband decided that his wife should see her little girl one last time, to see if that would help her get over her grief. So he took a couple of his sons, and they went to the grape arbor and disinterred the little girl's body. When they opened the burial box, they found the little girl had turned over inside it, and was now lying on her stomach. Several of her fingers had molded together. It was said that the little girl's mother never spoke another word to anyone from that day onward.