The foreword of the book describes how Windham came to be interested in ghost stories. It began with ghostly incidents in the Windham family home in Selma that Windham attributed to a spirit she dubbed "Jeffrey". At first, the family heard footsteps in rooms that would later be found empty. A supposed photograph of Jeffrey, included in the book, was taken inside the home. On the night the picture was made, some young people visiting the house decided to play with a Ouija board, trying to contact Jeffrey. When they developed the photos taken that night, a shadowy vaguely human-like shape was seen beside a girl in the photograph. Soon after it was taken Windham contacted Figh, who was a noted collector of ghost stories, to ask about Jeffrey. Out of that meeting, the idea of 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey was born. In the preface to the book, Windham says that although there are many ghost stories in Alabama, she wanted to choose stories for her book that had "entertained many generations" and were "a treasured part of Southern folklore". Windham sought stories from which she could describe not only the ghost, but also the community and lifestyles of the people who first reported the haunting. Windham spends as much time describing the people and places around the ghost stories as she does the ghost itself