A good friend of mine was sitting in the med room at St. Jude where her daughter was a patient, doing what she’d done a lot of lately—waiting. While she was there, she began visiting with another mother who was engaged in that same pastime . . . and who just happened to have some rather unusual pictures with her. As the two of them examined the photos, looking for clues as to where they might have been taken, my friend’s eyes lit up. That’s when my phone buzzed.
I pulled it out to find the picture you see here and a text that read “We are still in the med room getting treatment and I’m looking at old pictures! Is that your dad behind the casket???” I squinted at the picture on my phone and, lo and behold, it was! As I told her, I’d recognize that egg-shaped head anywhere. Her mission that day? To confirm that our funeral home really did hold the service and to glean any additional information she could for her new-found friend at St. Jude.
And so began our search for “the rest of the story”, although she already had a fair amount of the tale in hand.
The picture had been taken on September 1, 1955 by Herman Muse as he documented the funeral services for Anna Marie Covington Yost at Murphy’s Chapel Church in Lauderdale County, Alabama. As our conversation progressed, I received five other pictures which included one of Mrs. Yost in her casket and one of her holding a sizable rattlesnake, neither of which you’ll ever see from me. At least not here. I also received a copy of a news article entitled “The Day the Covington Boys Brought a Rattlesnake Into the Bumpass Creek Freewill Baptist Church”. If you’re interested, you can actually google that title and it’ll pop right up.
You see, Anna Marie and her brothers came from a family of snake handlers—those who, as a sign of the strength of their faith, willingly handled venomous snakes. Three of her brothers had already been arrested after they brought a snake into the Bumpass Creek worship service, thereby creating all manner and kind of havoc. The three made bail and were free in time to attend a two-week snake-handling revival in the Walnut Grove community of Hardin County. They came bearing their own reptiles though most of the boys chose not to handle the snakes on that fateful Wednesday night. But Anna Marie did. Unfortunately, she was bitten by a good-sized rattler. Rather than seeking medical treatment, she was eventually taken home where she died the next day. Her brother Mansel had been bitten twice during a service over the weekend, but the court intervened, and he was taken to Savannah for treatment. Because of that ruling, Mansel survived.
Anna Marie’s body was taken to Shackelford Funeral Home in Savannah where her family made her funeral arrangements. Hence, the reason my dad’s noggin’ can be seen as he exited the church after the service. Her visitation took place at the family home in Lutts before her body was taken to Murphy’s Chapel for the funeral with burial following in Murphy’s Chapel Cemetery.
In those days, the story was so sensational it even made the “Stars and Stripes” September 3, 1955 edition. We have a copy of Anna Marie’s death certificate which listed the sole cause of death as “snake bite” and her funeral record that provides the basic facts of her life and the services that followed her death. Stapled to the back of her death certificate is a page with copies of the six pictures I received from the med room at St. Jude. Her brother Mansel as well as Thurston Frayser and his wife were arrested and charged with violating Tennessee’s snake-handling law—and both men were bound over to the grand jury for felonious homicide. We just don’t know if anyone was ever actually prosecuted. What we do know is that Anna Marie’s five or six children (the number depends upon your source) grew up without their mother, and her brothers had to live with the knowledge that they were, in part, responsible for her death, even though ultimately the decision that cost Anna Marie her life was hers to make.
So ends the very sad story of Anna Marie Covington Yost and her brothers, a story that we might never have known, even though it had been living in our files for decades, if not for a set of very old pictures and an eagle-eyed friend.
About the author: Lisa Shackelford Thomas is a fourth generation member of a family that’s been in funeral service since 1926. She has been employed at Shackelford Funeral Directors in Savannah, Tennessee for over 40 years and currently serves as the manager there. Any opinions expressed here are hers and hers alone, and may or may not reflect the opinions of other Shackelford family members or staff.
