Southern Souls
Southern Souls began with a question: who were the people behind the names carved in stone?
Each grave holds a story. Some forgotten, some misunderstood, and some stranger than fiction.
Through cemetery research, historical records, and storytelling, Southern Souls explores the lives, conflicts, and mysteries hidden in Louisiana's past.
Because history is not just dates and headlines.
It's people.
Southern Souls did not start as a podcast.
It started with a question.
Walking through old cemeteries across the South, I kept noticing the same thing: names worn smooth by times, stories reduced to dates, and lives that once filled communities now nearly forgotten.
The more I searched, the more the past began to speak.
Newspaper clippings. Court Records. Family stories. Small mysteries hiding in plain sight.
What began as curiosity slowly became something else: a desire to give these people their voices back.
Southern Souls is where history, storytelling, and place meet.
Because every stone marks a life.
And every life leaves a story behind.
How This Began
Why These Stories Matter
Somewhere along the way... I started noticing the dash.
The small line carved between two dates on a headstone.
A beginning.
An ending.
And everything in between reduced to a single mark.
Standing in cemeteries, reading names of people who were once alive, I realized how easily stories disappear.
The dash is where a life actually happened.
Southern Souls grew out of the desire to give some of those dashes their stories back.
Let's remember them together.
About the Host
Tarah Thomas
I'm a researcher, storyteller, and lifelong lover of history's quiet corners. Many of these stories begin with a simple visit to a grave; a name that sparks curiosity, a date that raises questions, or a quote that seems just slightly out of place.
Each episode is part investigation, part storytelling, and part personal journey into the past.
If you've ever walked through an old cemetery and wondered who these people were...you're already part of the story.