George Crafts first began telling stories as a means of amusing his stepdaughter Jennifer on long car rides. Faced with weekly treks from Charlottesville to Virginia Tech, where Jennifer’s mother was attending veterinary school, Crafts would entertain Jennifer with a series of invented tales.
Jennifer’s teachers at Greer Elementary School soon heard about Crafts’ talent and asked him to share stories with the first-grade class. “It changed my life,” Crafts said. He has returned to Greer every year since 1985.
Crafts, a longtime librarian at Alderman Library, and his wife Dee Kysor, a veterinarian, make up the group “Woven Yarns,” whose joint performances incorporate both singing and storytelling.
In anticipation of Halloween, the duo held a seasonal performance during Family Weekend at which 75 to 80 students, students’ family members and Charlottesville residents gathered in the Periodicals Reading Room of Alderman Library to attend “Ghost Stories and Spooky Songs.”
First-year Architecture student Kelsey Vitullo brought her family to the event, which was featured in the Family Weekend brochure.
“My mom told me about it,” Vitullo said. “I figured it’d be cool to hear some stories about Charlottesville.”
Colleen Ott traveled to Charlottesville from New Jersey for Family Weekend.
“My daughter is a grad student and would never let me come to these things when she was an undergrad,” she said. “So this year I got my sister to come with me.”
“Ghost Stories and Spooky Songs” opened with a song written by Kysor, who also plays guitar.
“I like scary stories on a scary night / The kind that cause a fright,” she sang. “Do you like scary stories too? / I think you do ... BOO!”
Crafts then launched into a ghost story that takes place in Albemarle County and is, Crafts said, “the kind that ‘really happened.’”
As legend has it, Crafts said, more than 100 years ago a man gathering wood saw the ghost of a murdered woman coming down a narrow overgrown trail in the mountains near Browns Cove. The woman, Crafts continued, told him she had been murdered and that her bones lay under a pile of rocks on the mountain. If he would dig up her bones and give them a proper burial, she would lead him to a treasure. The man, completely spooked, ran down from the mountain, and the ghost-woman has not been seen since.
The next story Crafts told was interspersed with Kysor playing lines from the song “Silver Dagger.” Based in Goldsboro, N.C. in the 19th century, this folklore-rooted tale is also supposedly a true story. As Craft told it, a jilted lover who died of grief came back to haunt and ultimately cause the death of her former lover.
When the man died, the legend tells, his parents erected a large marble tombstone over his grave. As time passed, the marble began to crack and split, and the clear outline of a face began to appear. After 20 years, Crafts said, “all the old-timers in town came and looked, and they all agreed — it was her face.”
Crafts then told a story about a family in West Virginia during the Civil War. The story alternated between Crafts’ narration and Kysor singing an eerily mournful song about the Hills of Shiloh.
The duo’s next piece began with a story that led into a song. Crafts’ tale about North Texas during the 1880s, “the golden age of the long cattle-drive,” was followed immediately by Kysor’s rendition of “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” with which Crafts invited the audience to sing along.
In the final performance of the afternoon, Kysor sang a famous Judy Collins song, which led into a story about two young lovers in West Virginia committing a tragic double-suicide because their families wouldn’t allow them to be together.
“Ever since, on moonlit nights, you may near an echoing scream and see the figure of a woman running along a crest towards a tall, tall tree,” Crafts narrated.
Carla Shaw, who traveled from Maine for Family Weekend, said she found the last story especially sad and the whole show entertaining. She said she particularly liked Kysor’s voice, though, she added, “I think I thought it would be creepier.”
Her daughter, first-year College student Alice Shaw, said the show got her into the Halloween spirit.
Lee Shumate, a Fredericksburg, Va. resident, said he also found the show very interesting.
“It was really neat how they took stories and explained them through song,” he said. “I’ve never seen a performance do that.”
Although their full-time jobs prevent Kysor and Crafts from being able to practice together frequently, Crafts said Kysor is his best critic. He added that he enjoys everything about performing in Woven Yarns, especially “being able to work together in such a unique and special way.” Crafts noted that Woven Yarns is one of very few groups that interlaces songs and stories.
Kysor said she especially loves watching the audience’s reactions when Crafts tells a story.
Crafts and Kysor occasionally work independently and are also members of the Tell Tale Hearts, a storytelling troop from Richmond. Most importantly, Kysor said, “We perform together when we can and we love it.”
Read More
It’s okay not to be okay
By Mai Hukuoka | 6 days agoWhether talking to a friend, a loved one or a professional, it is so necessary, and human, to need more than you can provide for yourself.
Taking a break at Tangerines Kitchen
By Charley Thomas | January 6, 2025What the restaurant somewhat lacks in ambiance, it compensates for in tasty dishes and prompt service.
Virginia Policy Lab — a hub for student-led policy action
By Katherine Haden | December 9, 2024Students propose their own projects and collaborate with other members to research their issues of interest, brainstorm solutions and write policy proposals.
