Today we’d like to introduce you to Shannon Scott.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Every storyteller or my invented word, “storyist,” has a story of their own and my begins with being the adopted son of 2 wonderful schoolteachers. I have a younger brother by them, too. They gave me love and a home. They were hard workers and instilled in me a classic kind of work ethic. I grew up with a mix of Midwestern and Southern values. We’re all molded by our heroes. One of mine was my mother’s mother, Agnes Rehm, whom we all called “Koko.” She taught me how to draw and encouraged me and was so very warm and loving. She died when I was 9. Being adopted makes you reflective, often inward, and an observer. These traits became a driving force, and they also made me a good listener. I loved being off to myself, in my own world, and watching the world and thinking long and hard on what made everything and everyone in it, go and connect. Later, I picked up drawing as a last-ditch way of not dropping out of school. I was always a bit too anxious and undisciplined for a traditional classroom. In small towns, you have various jobs. I was a paperboy, detasseled corn, walked beans, painted barns, and eventually got a job in a Victorian cemetery called Maplewood where I did landscaping, dug graves, and just generally hung out there as much and as often as possible as I’ve never truly gelled with the modern world overall and as a kid coveted historical sites and natural escapes. Historic Williamsburg was my Disneyworld, so to speak. College became a pressure, and The Savannah College of Art & Design teased me to Savannah, Georgia way of a Fine Arts program scholarship. I fell in love with Savannah, The Low Country if just because, past the obvious beauty, all of its history and significance was omitted from general history books in schools, and I felt cheated somehow and compelled to “fill in the blanks,” which ultimately became part of my departure from art school. I’d begun to turn all of it into my new school, classroom, and playground. To survive I became a cook and chef. Got a tour guide license when I was 19. Drove carriages and trolleys, and scripted some of Savannah’s very first walking tours. As Ben Franklin had been a hero, I’d always wanted to start a publishing company as my core life is “better information,” so at 21, I set out to do that, but it would take another 4 years; at age 25 I started Jones Street Productions as I lived on Savannah’s Jones Street. I printed high-end maps and visitor guides, and they still stand on their own as some of the best ever made in Savannah even after having closed the company in 2001. As my reputation in Savannah expanded, Hollywood came calling, and I began contributing stories to various TV shows. At first uncredited or simply noted as “researcher,” but eventually, more acknowledgment on TV shows pertaining to ghosts. In 2001, I received the “America’s Most Haunted City Award” on behalf of Savannah from The American Institute of Parapsychology, and a month later opened my own tour company. Which in many ways fast-tracked the rest of my life story I guess you could say. I’m now Savannah’s veteran tour guide, and my company provides more cemetery tours in one city than any other company in existence. In addition, there’s no other private tour guide in the area that offers as many high-end private tours dealing with about any subject or areas of interest one can name. From standard history to secret societies to ghosts, Hollywood, or Gullah-Geechee culture, I pretty much do it and am now doing 12-hour tours into South Carolina and Lower Coastal Georgia. Probably the biggest part of the career arc is my new YouTube & TikTok series, “Grave Talks with Shannon Scott,” where I travel to different cemeteries and interview family members in their family plots. Over the past year, we’ve turned out 6 episodes and have a 7th in development which should be out by the end of the year… The project has allowed me to really spread my wings and doesn’t pay me a dime, but I absolutely love it!
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I’m not sure if I ever saw myself as doing “the starving artist” thing, but that’s a real thing I used to be in Savannah, which also used to be a whole lot cheaper of a city to do that in, and there were many more of us back in the day. It’s now all very high-end and boutique. I remember vividly not having electricity for 6 months and no long-distance phone service for a year. Some of it I could romance in ways if just because Savannah is such a survival story, so it cradled and embraced me inside of its old quarters. It was also a negative to be 800 miles away from my family as a support system. They’d only get these alarming news moments in my life, and I think I hid deeper struggles of my own, some of which I wasn’t even aware of inside of my youthful vanities, was struggling with. I’d always struggled with the pendulum of anxiety, and then depression as creative people often do. It’s hard to do that in secrecy and then when needing help, not having money or knowing how to ask for help. I lost a lot but also gained blessings through friends, and it brought me back to my family or them to me. That’s more the personal side. On the business side, which is really my art and interests made into a business and I don’t separate them much personally, I used to joke that “if you can make it in Savannah – New York is a piece of cake!” This has never been a particularly business-friendly town, don’t be fooled. And I mean that from an upstart type vs a bankrolled by family or a spouse kind of thing. You have to have real money to lose in Savannah anymore. It used to be cheaper to roll the dice here, but the old guard didn’t take too well to it even then. Particularly then. I remember all of the bureaucratic resistance, at times, authoritarian-like, to anything new, which ironically wasn’t that radical or really all that new. But there used to be this absolute worship of the historical buildings, and everything else was 2nd fiddle to them. You couldn’t have signs or tables on the sidewalk and not much flair to your storefront without city marshalls slapping you with fines and rudely so. A lot of people forget that or wouldn’t know that today or that it wasn’t that long ago when the powers here made things that difficult. I’ve not forgotten that struggle and am one of the last standing from that era too because many couldn’t make it here, were forced out of business or some other kind of circumstance upended them, but the business culture here had left them with no padding or support either. They harassed me too, but I’m a survivor and extremely stubborn for Savannah and The Low Country. However, my type of story, that American Dream kid one, has all but evaporated from Savannah. It’s now very tailored to high rollers and high rent, and so despite how hard it was, I was also blessed by a much more affordable place it once was to stay broke inside of!
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Probably the most interesting thing I’ve staked out with or getting into is a non-profit called The Cemetery Angels, Inc. This has been a long-time dream of mine to be in a position in life to help cemeteries anywhere, with special projects, monument cleaning, repair, or say individuals that need some assistance with getting something done in their family plot that either they cannot afford to do, don’t know how to do, etc. I see healing headstones so to speak as healing civilization and making the world better. We no longer live in a world or have an economy that can relatively match the needs of most Victorian-age cemeteries in terms of the state they’re mostly in today. The Great Depression killed the money that they were built up with. Like my philosophy of better information, I’ve always been a can-do person who knows instinctively how to do things in a better way, or at least certain things. In my love of cemeteries, one of the great pains of that love is to see them being neglected either consciously or unconsciously and withering and waning. Especially some of the greater monuments where I know with the right rallying of the right people, they can be improved and made whole again. Some of that is borne out of pure frustration at the general laziness of others too. It’s like you want justice for certain things, and I want greater justice for these great garden landscapes known as American cemeteries. People who know me know I’ve fought to protect them and aid them. And as strange as it is to say, I take a lot of criticism for making my living in cemetery touring. People lump me in with carnies or some other kind of grifter simply profiting off of the dead. Nothing could be further from the truth even if I understand the perception based on the behavior or business operations of some others. So, you might say that this is my earnest way of trying to show the critics what my real aims are about, and there’s no way that I could’ve arrived to this point and time in my life with The Cemetery Angels, Inc. had I not been working devotedly in this trade for 21 years under my name. The organization will do well with offering classes, tours, events, and more and will reacquaint the public with why they’re such important places to understand, enjoy, and protect. I’d garner to say even some of the critics will jump on board, but we can only do what we can do to persuade through actions and achievements! But I’ll just say to all – watch and be amazed!
Who else deserves credit in your story?
Mostly, God knows The Who’s Who Total List in my life, and there have been so many wonderful, beautiful people along the road. Some I failed but they stuck with me. Many I’ve lost touch with and many are dead now. My parents, Rose Ellen and Jim Scott (RIP) My brother, Jay Scott. My grandmother, Koko. My high school art teacher, sadly gone at 53 years of age, Jodi Nathenson. Her student and my friend, Savi Raught. Our mutual friend Matt Petersen (RIP). Friend, Aimee Lalone. Surrogate family, Amy & Bonnie Gaster. Fellow artists, friends, Effie & Elaine Karatassos (RIP) Friends, fellow storyists, Matt Hogue, and filmmaker, Jeremiah Chapman who worked with me on my documentary “America’s Most Haunted City…” Former girlfriend and all-around psychic cheerleader Tami Sabo, Supportive friends and neighbors, Lisa & Paul Robinson. A fine, fine therapist, Maureen Wozniak. Historian, mentor, and friend Paul Blatner (RIP) SCAD Professor of Literature, Lloyd B. Lewis (RIP), who taught me, “to state – is not to illustrate.” My constant soundboard and creative co-conspirator, Edwin “Blue Ice” Brown, did the soundtrack for my documentary. Very special thanks to a woman who became really “my other mother” and mentor and turned everything she touched into gold and who never really quit me – Dee Sutlive (RIP). And no question, the very special creative partner women in my life, Alissa and Megan who I’d be lost without at so many levels and love creating with as people and hope to always have that connection with them.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.shannonscotttours.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/bonaventure.cemetery/
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/bonaventureofficial
- Youtube: www.youtube.com/@GraveTalkswithShannonScott
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@gravetalks
Image Credits
Cheryl Solis
Jennifer Anne Sparatore
