The Old Woman at the Courthouse
As a child growing up to be a teen, I have always been obsessed with our local courthouse. The original building was from the 1800s. It contained courtrooms, offices, and a jail in the basement. Over the years, the courthouse expanded and was upgraded.
I have spoken to friends and people who worked there, and they would tell me stories. However, from the stories they told me, I would have never thought there was that much going on. Also, as I live near this courthouse, I have sat on the property or across the street and have to blink as I have seen some weird stuff around it at night. When I was in high school, I had a 3-week internship there, and I got to sit with the security guards for a few days, and they had some odd stories about the things that went bump in the night. I was unsure if they were pulling my leg and trying to scare me.
Fast forward a few years, and my ex-husband had to go to the courthouse for a work-related thing. So I wandered around the property and into the older section of the courthouse. The older part of the courthouse was only offices and conference rooms, and almost anyone could go through most of the halls and look around. The area had a lot of older pictures on the walls which showed how the courthouse and local area looked in the past. While walking around, I had to sit down and rest as I was pregnant with my son. After I sat down, an older woman asked if she could sit with me, and I said sure. We talked about the weather, and she explained her husband was a judge and she was bringing her husband's lunch to him. I should have put two and two together, as all the judges were younger, and she had to be in her 70s. I thanked her for the talk and said I had to use the restroom, and she looked at me, nodded, and said things would be okay.
After returning from the bathroom, I intended to ask the older woman what she meant by things will be okay. But when I returned to the bench, I figured she must have left as she was nowhere to be seen. Although she was not there, a security guard was out in the hallway instead. He asked if everything was okay, and I said yes, but he looked at me to continue. I explained I was waiting for my husband, but while I was waiting, I had been speaking with the sweetest older woman, and the security guard started the chuckle and had me follow him to a case with pictures in it and asked if that was the woman I was talking to. I remember asking him if he was joking because the picture frame had a date of 1917. I looked at the guard and explained it may have been Mrs. May. Her husband had been a judge around the 1920s, and during his time as a judge, Mrs. May would bring her husband lunch on days he had court. Then she would sit in the jail area and offer to read the Bible to anyone who felt they needed some preaching before they went up to her husband. Most courthouses workers would know who his wife had visited because they were always remorseful, and after the sentence, they would always thank the judge and Mrs. May. One day Mrs. May had been bringing her husband his afternoon meal, and she suffered a heart attack on the courthouse steps.
Few people have met and talked to Mrs. May, and she shows herself to people at a crossroads in their life or heading for life changes. The old guard figured Mrs. May was still attending to her husband's meals and her duties all this time.
***Update I searched all the judges around 1880-1920, and the only May that came up, whose husband was a judge here in Brooksville, was May Jennings. In 1888 we had a Judge named William Sherman Jennings. His wife May was his secretary, But May Jennings moved from Brooksville when her husband became Governor of Florida in 1900. So I will leave this all up to you and see what you think. May Jennings also did not pass from this world until 1963.****
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