Like Lydia Deetz, I, myself, am strange and unusual. I’m drawn to the peculiar like the proverbial moth. Ghost stories? I’m all ears. A house on the brink of collapse? Count me in for a tour.

I blame this quirk on the Southern Gothic atmosphere of rural North Carolina, combined with my Appalachian heritage.

It’s woven into the fabric of my being—I embrace it. Unapologetically. Yet, this penchant for the unusual doesn’t always sit well with other folks. Even Brandon scratches his head at the things that pique my interest.

Case in point: I snapped a photo of the recipe for Marie Lawson’s raisin cake displayed at Madison Dry Goods and baked it.

Brandon thought it was the strangest thing. He wouldn’t even taste it.

Was he right?

If you are not familiar with the tragic fate of the Lawson family in 1929, there’s nothing unusual about it. 

However, for those in the know, the mention of Germanton, North Carolina, on that fateful Christmas Day conjures a narrative that’s anything but ordinary.

So what happened? What makes this cake so macabre that Brandon wouldn’t even taste it?

Well…

On Christmas morning, 17-year-old Marie woke up early to help around the kitchen. She prepared a two-layer raisin cake, using separate pans for each tier, and carefully iced it, readying it for what should have been a day of celebration on the family farm.

The cake was simple. A small act of love amidst what would turn into one of the grisliest murders in North Carolina history.

It sat on the dinner table – a lone witness to Charlie Lawson’s brutal murder of his wife and six of his seven children before turning the gun on himself.

Why did he do it? 

No one knows. Some say Charlie experienced a traumatic brain injury that impacted his mental health. Others whisper of the incestual abuse Charlie inflicted on his daughter, Marie.

Following the Lawson family murders, the Brook Cove Road home transformed into a morbid attraction. Visitors, drawn by the dark allure of the story, toured the house, and among the few items displayed was the untouched raisin cake. 

The cake was a point of curiosity; people picked at it, taking the raisins from the frosting as keepsakes. It had to be placed under glass to keep people from taking little pieces, transforming it into a grim artifact.

Marie Lawson’s raisin cake became a haunting relic, frozen in time like the tragedy that surrounded it. For decades, it embodied not just the horror of that day but the peculiar Southern tendency to find fascination in the macabre details of life.

So, when I came across that recipe in Madison Dry Goods—a place now part museum, part tribute to the Lawson saga—I knew I had to bake it.

There’s something about tasting a piece of history, however dark, that connects me to the past in a tangible way. Food, after all, is a conduit of culture, carrying stories through generations, and in this case, the narrative was steeped in sorrow.

But, for Brandon, the thought of eating a cake tied to such a tragic event was unsettling. He couldn’t separate the food from its past, couldn’t get past the idea that something baked for celebration became a witness to horror.

For me, though, it’s precisely that connection that makes the raisin cake intriguing. It’s not just a cake. It’s a piece of Southern Gothic history—a blend of the eerie and the every day, much like the crumbling houses, ghost stories, and legends I’ve always loved.

In the end, I baked Marie’s cake not just out of curiosity, but as a way to honor the complexity of the South—the beauty and the tragedy, the joy and the sorrow. 

It’s all mixed together here, like ingredients in a well-worn recipe.

Marie Lawson’s Raisin Cake

Ingredients

Cake

• 1 cup of butter
• 3 cups of self-rising flour
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla
• 1 box of raisins
• 2 cups of sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup of milk

Icing

• 3 egg whites
• 8 tablespoons of sugar

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. Cream the butter and eggs together with the sugar. Add milk.
3. Slowly beat flour into the mixture. Add vanilla extract. Mix.
4. In a small bowl, flour a handful of raisins. Carefully pick up the floured raisins, drop them on the batter, and gently fold them in.
5. Pour the batter into greased and floured 9-inch circular pans.
6. Bake at 350 for 35 minutes or until done.
7. Cool on cooling racks until room temperature.
8. Beat egg whites sugar together until frothy. Spread evenly over the cake and dot with unfloured raisins.