Buried 19th Century Account of the Afterlife Reborn in the 21st Century

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — U of A reference librarian Stephen Chism knows a good story when he sees one. Buried in the archives of the University Libraries’ Special Collections department is one that Chism felt was too good not to share.

In his recently published book, "The Afterlife of Leslie Stringfellow: A Nineteenth-Century Southern Family's Experiences with Spiritualism," Chism provides a reprinting of "Leslie’s Letters to His Mother" (Fayetteville, Arkansas: Democrat Publishing Company, 1926). "Leslie’s Letters" is an interesting artifact of the spiritual and religious climate of the late nineteenth century in its recounting of the experiences of Leslie's mother and father with "automatic writing," a form of communication with the dead.

In the opening chapters of the book, Chism describes the interesting lives of the Stringfellows. Alice Johnston and Confederate Lieutenant Henry Martyn Stringfellow were married in Houston, Texas in 1863. Both were Southerners displaced by the Civil War; Alice from North Carolina, Henry from Virginia, where he had obtained graduate degrees in both divinity and law after completing his undergraduate studies at the College of William and Mary. Following the war, Henry cultivated orchards of fruit and vegetables for a living, and in 1884 planted the first citrus orchard on the gulf coast of Texas with orange saplings imported from Japan.

Following the unexpected death of their only son Leslie in 1886, the Stringfellows turned to spiritualism for comfort. Dissatisfied with the advice of mediums they consulted in New England, they returned home and purchased a planchette, an instrument that holds a pencil or pen above the surface of a piece of paper on which the letters of the alphabet are printed. A person guides the planchette through the "magnetic influence of those on the other side" and a message is received.

Through experimentation, the Stringfellows eventually discovered that they could receive "messages" from their dead son Leslie when both of them placed their hand on the planchette. Every evening at 7 p.m. for over 15 years, they "communicated" with their son, who told them through these “letters” about people he'd met, places he had visited, activities he had undertaken-all in the afterlife.

In 1897, taking the advice of Leslie, the Stringfellows adopted a two-year old orphaned girl and named her Lessie after their deceased son. In 1911, the family moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas, where they built the house on 329 Washington Avenue as an exact copy of their previous home. There Henry Stringfellow died in 1912. Lessie worked as a reporter for the Fayetteville newspaper that later became the Northwest Arkansas Times. She became its editor during World War I, a position she held for 27 years. Alice died in 1942 at age 97; Lessie continued to live in the house on Washington Avenue until her death in 1971.

In 1919 Alice sent a manuscript filled with selections of her letters from Leslie to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries and a well-known advocate of spiritualism. In one of his responses to the Stringfellows included in Chism’s book, Doyle wrote, “I hope you will publish Leslie. It is one of the best documents I have ever seen.”

In his republication of “Leslie’s Letters,” Chism provides an introduction to the phenomenon of spiritualism. In addition, the book contains reproductions of images and artifacts related to the Stringfellows. The letters themselves (as written by Leslie through the planchette) are a fascinating introduction to the vision of the afterlife held by nineteenth century spiritualists.

Copies of the book are available for purchase through the University of Arkansas Press at (479) 575-3634.