The Family Legends cases readers rated highest and believed most — the jury's all-time picks.
Last spring a postcard came in the mail that was postmarked 1939. I want to be careful here, because I know how this reads, and I have spent…
179 Upvote · 67% of readers believe this story
We have a clock. It is a mantel clock, mahogany, with a moon-faced dial and a slow deep tick you can hear in the next room. It has been in t…
174 Upvote · 67% of readers believe this story
I am a firstborn, and I cannot swim. This was not an accident of a busy childhood or an aversion to cold pools. It was a rule, laid down by …
171 Upvote · 68% of readers believe this story
Every Sunday dinner of my childhood, my grandmother set an extra place. Full setting -- plate, fork, knife, folded napkin, a glass she fille…
168 Upvote · 68% of readers believe this story
When I was six, I watched my grandmother bury a box under the apple tree in her backyard at night, and then she made me swear -- holding bot…
166 Upvote · 67% of readers believe this story
The curse in my family was famous, at least among us. Bad things came in threes, and they came to the women, and there was nothing you could…
163 Upvote · 68% of readers believe this story
My grandmother had a coat. Gray wool, heavy as a wet dog, with buttons the color of old teeth. She wore it every winter of my whole life and…
156 Upvote · 69% of readers believe this story
Every bride in my family loses her wedding ring within the first year. This is not a saying. It is a record, and I have checked it, and it i…
152 Upvote · 67% of readers believe this story
The trunk lived in the attic of my grandparents house, and after they died it lived in the attic of my parents house, and now it lives in mi…
148 Upvote · 66% of readers believe this story
My grandmother believed the house was alive. Not haunted -- she was very particular about that distinction. Haunted meant ghosts, meant some…
141 Upvote · 68% of readers believe this story
