Today is Halloween- a day for trick or treats, costumes and spooky tales. Chicago has no shortage of scary stories ranging from urban legends to brutal history. When it comes to ghosts and cemeteries there is one tale that come up over and over- Resurrection Mary.
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| Artist unknown |
The legend Resurrection Mary is known by most Chicagoans. The quick story is that she's a hitchhiking ghost who disappears from the moving vehicle after being picked up. But why is she so famous and is the story real?
The first reported sighting of Resurrection Mary was in 1939. A young man named Jerry Palus met a blonde woman in a white gown at a local dance hall. As they danced, Palus noticed that she was "cold to the touch". When the dance ended he asked if she wanted a ride home. She accepted. As they drove down Archer Avenue in the far south side suburb known as Justice, Il. he repeatedly asked her where her house was. The only answer he got back, over and over, was " I want to go home, I want to go home." When they passed by Resurrection Cemetery, the woman mysteriously disappeared from Palus' car.
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| Resurrection Cemetery |
There are 2 different tales about what happened next. In one version, Palus had gotten the name of his dance partner. He tracked her down and went to her house. The people who lived there said that the girl he danced with sounded like their daughter Mary, but Mary had died in a car crash several years before. The other version of the story had Palus giving his sweater to his chilly companion during the ride home. The day after she disappeared he went into Resurrection Cemetery and found his sweater folded up neatly on top of as gravestone of a woman named Mary.
Who was "Mary"? There are 2 possibilities. The first was Mary Bregovy who died in a car crash in 1934. The second was a girl named Anna Norkus who died in a car accident in 1927. Both were coming back from the Oh Henry Ballroom which later became the Willowbrook Ballroom.
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| The Willowbrook Ballroom in October 2016- 2 weeks before it burned down |
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| Mary Bregovy |
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| Anna Norkus |
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| The gate bars of Resurrection Cemetery |
But is any of this real? As a lifelong Chicagoan I had been quite skeptical until I started taking Visitations to comic conventions. I always tell people coming by my table ghost legends. However, in the case of Resurrection Mary, people started describing their experiences to me.
"My mom saw Resurrection Mary. She grew up by Archer Avenue and Mary was outside the cemetery."
"I saw Resurrection Mary when I was a little kid. My family stopped at a gas station one night when we were out driving. I looked out the back window and saw a semi-truck pick up a woman who was hitchhiking. When they passed the cemetery, the truck slammed on the breaks. The woman had disappeared!"
"As teenagers we used to hang out on Archer Avenue. She used to be out there all the time"
"Did you go over and say hi?" I asked.
"Absolutely not! We weren't going to go anywhere near her!"
"Pfft! All those stories are nothing - My grandfather actually picked her up! She disappeared when they went past the cemetery. He thought it was weird, but she was gone. Later when he headed the stories about Resurrection Mary he knew it was her."
Oddly enough, if you drive down Archer Avenue looking for Resurrection Mary she is nowhere to be found. Famous Chicago ghost hunter, the late Richard Crowe, drove up and down Archer Avenue several time to no avail. Apparently Mary only wants to be found by people who aren't looking for her.
Is Resurrection Mary real? You decide.
Happy Halloween!
Check out some more chilling ghost legends with Visitations Creator Scott Larson on these Halloween podcasts:
Interested in Halloween audio dramas? Our friends at Locked Into Vacancy Entertainment have adapted Visitations: The Victrola Of Doom and Orson Well's classic War Of The World broadcast. Listen to them here:
Order a free PDF of Visitations 1 by emailing us here: visitationscomicbook@gmail.com
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