Sept. 8, 2025

Terrifying & True | Resurrection Mary: The True Story of Chicago’s Vanishing Hitchhiker Ghost | Uncovering Urban Legends

Terrifying & True | Resurrection Mary: The True Story of Chicago’s Vanishing Hitchhiker Ghost | Uncovering Urban Legends
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Terrifying & True

Resurrection Mary is Chicago’s most famous ghost—and one of America’s most chilling vanishing hitchhiker legends. For nearly a century, terrified drivers on Archer Avenue have reported picking up a mysterious young woman in white… only for her to vanish near Resurrection Cemetery.

In this deep dive, we unravel the true story behind the ghost: a chilling mix of paranormal sightings, tragic deaths, and urban legends that span decades. Who was Resurrection Mary? Was she a real woman—like Mary Bregovy or Anna Norkus—or just a powerful symbol of loss and folklore?

With firsthand witness accounts, historical records, eerie media coverage, and theories from leading paranormal researchers, we separate fact from fiction in one of the most enduring ghost stories in America.

If you’re fascinated by true ghost stories, haunted roads, and real paranormal encounters, this episode delivers.

We’re telling that story tonight.

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🎵 Music by Ray Mattis 👉 Check out Ray’s incredible work here !
👨‍💼 Executive Producers: Rob Fields, Bobbletopia.com
🎥 Produced by: Daniel Wilder
🌐 Explore more terrifying tales at: WeeklySpooky.com
WEBVTT

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For decades, drivers on a dark stretch of Chicago's Archer

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Avenue have encountered the same eerie vision, a young woman

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in white thumbing for a ride, only to vanish near

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Resurrection Cemetery. Who is she or who was she? And

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why won't her ghost let go?

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What you were about to be is bid to be

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based on witness accounts, testimonies, and public record. This is

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terrifying and treat.

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It begins with a lone figure on the roadside, pale

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sign island and dressed in white. Dozens of witnesses have

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seen her over the years, always on Archer Avenue, always

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near Resurrection Cemetery. Some say she's a spirit of the past.

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Others claim she's still looking for a way home. Tonight

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we follow the trail of Resurrection Mary, Chicago's vanishing hitchhiker,

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and the legends, the lives and the losses she may

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have left behind. Make sure you're subscribed as we dive

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deep into this campfire legend. After this, it's a moonless

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night on Archer Avenue, a lonely stretch of road southwest

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of Chicago. A driver rounds a curve by Resurrection Cemetery,

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headlights cutting through the darkness. Suddenly, a young woman steps

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out of the shadows. She's beautiful, eerily pale, dressed in

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a white party dress. She raises her thumb for a ride.

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The startled driver pulls over. The woman wordlessly slips into

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the back seat, shivering without a coat in the chill air.

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She directs him up Archer Avenue, and the driver obliges,

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glancing at his silent passenger in the rear view mirror.

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As they near the cemetery gates, the mysterious girl jolts

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upright and cries out here, stop here. Confused, the driver

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looks around at the roadside tombstones. In that split second,

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the girl vanishes from the back seat, no trace left behind.

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The car door had never opened. Such is the classic

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encounter with Resurrection Mary, the legendary ghostly hitchhiker of Chicago's

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South Side. For nearly a century, locals have whispered about

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this vanishing hitchhiker in a white gown who prowls Archer

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Avenue thumbing rides, only to disappear at Resurrection Cemetery's gates.

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She has been called Chicago's most famous ghost story, and

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she has become an inescapable part of local folklore. But

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where did this legend begin and what truth, if any,

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lies behind the ghost stories. We are going to delve

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into the creepy origins and evolution of the Resurrection Mary legend,

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examine documented sightings and encounters over the decades, and explore

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attempts to identify a real person behind the phantom. Will

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also take a look at local history surrounding Resurrection Cemetery,

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the role of folklore and the media in spreading Mary's tale,

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and her lasting impact on popular culture, as well as

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Chicago tourism. Along the way, will separate verified facts from

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spooky fiction, clearly noting where the story slides into urban legend.

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So prepare yourself for a dramatic, yet fackgrounded journey through

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one of America's greatest ghost stories, one that continues to

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beguile and unnerve to this very day. The legend of

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Resurrection Mary has its roots in the jazz age, with

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a backstory set in the roaring nineteen twenties or early

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nineteen thirties. According to popular lore, a young woman named

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Mary spent an evening dancing at a ballroom on Archer Avenue.

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Different tellings named the venue as the o Henry Ballroom

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in Willow Springs, later renamed the Willowbrook Ballroom. Mary was

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out for a night of swing dancing with her boyfriend.

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At some point, the couple quarreled in a fit of temper.

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Mary stormed out of the ballroom into the cold night,

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still clad in her way white dancing dress and shoes.

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Angry and likely heartbroken, Mary set off on foot along

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Archer Avenue, intending to walk home tragedy Struck on the roadside,

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a car came barreling down the dark highway and struck

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Mary as she walked. The driver, so the story goes,

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fled the scene, leaving the young woman to die from

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her injuries. Mary's grief stricken parents later found her body

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and laid her to rest in nearby Resurrection Cemetery, buried

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in her beloved white gown and dancing shoes. The hit

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and run culprit was never identified. It's a heartbreaking tale,

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and notably, no historical record has ever confirmed this exaus

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series of events. There is no definitive police report or

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news item from the era about a young woman named

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Mary killed by a hit and run on Archer Avenue

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after leaving a dance. Rather, this backstory appears to be

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an early piece of folklore, possibly intended to give context

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to later ghost sightings. In other words, the ballroom argument

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and fatal accident narrative is treated as legend, not verified fact.

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It provides a kind of origin myth for resurrection Mary

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explaining why her ghost might haunt that road, a young

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life cut short on the way home from a dance,

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a spirit still searching for a ride back home or

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back to her grave. What we do know is that

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by the life in eight nineteen thirties, stories of a

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vanishing hitchhiker on Archer Avenue were already circulating around Chicago's

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South Side. The trope of the ghostly hitchhiker was not

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unique to Chicago. Folklorists have documented similar tales worldwide, often

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referred to simply as vanishing hitchhiker legends, dating back decades

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or even centuries. A seminal nineteen forty two study in

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the California Folklore Quarterly found multiple hitchhiker ghost stories across

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the United States with common elements. A traveler late at

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night gives a ride to a strange woman, often young

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and dressed in white, who later vanishes without explanation. In

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some variations, the mysterious passenger gives in a that turns

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out to be a cemetery or claims to be returning

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from a dance or event. Clearly, the Resurrection Mary story

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is Chicago's distinctive spin on this broader urban legend motif. However,

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what makes Mary's case unusual is the sheer number of

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first hand accounts over the years. From the very beginning,

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Resurrection Mary's story straddled the line between folklore and actual belief.

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In the tightly knit ethnic neighborhoods of Chicago's southwest Side.

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Places like Archer Heights, Brighton Park, and Justice, Illinois, residents

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swapped stories about encounters with a pale, blonde girl in

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a white dress hitchhiking near Resurrection Cemetery. These early tales

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were shared person to person, part of the oral lore

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of the community. As one paranormal investigator, Dale Kasmarak later noted,

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even his parents, who dated in the late nineteen thirties,

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had heard the story. Back then, his father would teasingly

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drive past Resurrection Cemetery after their dates, hoping to catch

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a glimpse of the ghost, to the chagrin of Kasmarak's mother.

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That implies the legend was already alive shortly after the

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supposed time of Mary's death. It wasn't until decades later

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that researchers and journalists began writing down the Resurrection Mary story,

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trying to piece together its origin. When when they did,

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some dug into local archives for real life incidents that

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might match the legend's outline. This quest led to a

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few tantalizing historical candidates, but we'll get to those in

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just a little bit. But it bears repeating the classic

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origin tale of Resurrection Mary. The fight the roadside fatality

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remains unverified. It is an archetypal ghost story, one that

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makes poetic sense even if it lacks documentation. It sets

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the stage for many ghostly encounters to come, providing a

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tragic figure we can imagine wandering archer Avenue, caught between

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the dance and the grave. The earliest well known Resurrection

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Mary encounter dates to nineteen thirty nine, about ten years

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after the legend's supposed starting point. A twenty two year

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old South Side man named Jerry Pallace claimed he had

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a face to face dance with the ghost. His story

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often retold by ghost researchers and even featured on television

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unfolds like a scene from a kind of paranormal romance.

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According to Pallace, it was a cold autumn night in

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nineteen thirty nine, and he was out at a local

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dance hall called the Liberty Grove and Hall in Chicago's

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Brighton Park neighborhood. During the night, Jerry's eyes were drawn

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to a quiet young woman he hadn't seen there before.

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A lovely blonde girl around five foot seven wearing a

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white formal dress that was fashionably a bit old fashioned.

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She introduced herself only as Mary. The two danced together

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most of the night to the live band's music. Jerry

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noticed something odd though, Mary's hands felt as cold as ice,

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but he brushed it off, joking that quote she must

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have a warm heart to compensate. Some versions of the

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story even say Jerry sneaked to kiss from the mysterious

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girl during a slow dance. When the night grew late

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and the ballroom prepared to close, Jerry offered Mary a

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ride home. She accepted. Mary had told Jerry she lived

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on the South Side, specifically on South Damon Avenue in

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the back of the yard's neighborhood, but curiously Once in

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Jerry's car, she insisted he drive her down Archer Avenue instead.

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Jerry was puzzled. Archer Avenue wouldn't lead directly to her

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stated home, but Mary was adamant about that route, so

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they headed down Archer through the quiet, darkened outskirts. As

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they approached the gates of Resurrection Cemetery in the nearby

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suburb of Justice, Mary suddenly grew agitated and told Jerry

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to stop the car. Let me out here, she said,

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even though they were in front of the cemetery with

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no house in sight. Jerry offered to walk her to

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wherever she was going, concerned for a young woman wandering

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alone at night, but Mary replied, in a strange, somber tone,

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where I'm going, you can't follow. Then she exited the

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car and walked toward the cemetery gates. Before Jerry's astonished eyes,

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the girl faded into thin air, disappearing in front of

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the locked cemetery entrance. In that moment, Jerry later recounted,

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he realized something was very wrong. The beautiful blonde he

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had spent the evening with was no ordinary girl. She was,

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he believed, a ghost. Shaken but curious Jerry Paulus did

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some investigating of his own. The next day, he remembered

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Mary's address on Damon Avenue that she had given him

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during their chat. That morning, Jerry drove to the house.

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A middle aged woman answered the door Mary's mother, as

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it turned out. When Jerry asked if Mary was home,

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the woman sadly informed him that her daughter Mary had

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been dead for several years. Jerry glimpsed a photo over

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the woman's shoulder in the parlor, a framed portrait of

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the same girl he danced with the night before. The

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mother explained that the girl in the photo was indeed

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her daughter Mary, who died five years ago. At this revelation,

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Jerry felt chills. He later told a folklorist friend that

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it finally clicked why Mary's hands had been so icy.

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Jerry had once worked briefly in a funeral home. The

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cold touch of her skin reminded him of a corpse's

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cold flesh. In other words, Jerry became convinced that he

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had spent an entire evening dancing with a dead woman's ghost.

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This dramatic story has become Resurrection Mary's equivalent of an

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origin encounter. The first and perhaps most famous eye witness account.

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It has been retold in countless books and television programs,

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including a nineteen nineties episode of Unsolved Mysteries where an

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older Jerry Pallace recounted the tale on camera. However, it

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is important to note that Jerry Pallace's testimony is anecdotal.

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There is no newspaper from nineteen thirty nine that documented

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a man dancing with a ghost. Pallas only went public

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with his experience decades later. He gave a videotaped interview

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in nineteen eighty six, shortly before his death, which aired

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on Unsolved Mysteries in nineteen ninety four. So while his

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story is a corner stone of the legend, and Pallas

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himself apparently remained adamant about what had happened, it cannot

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be independently verified. It lives on as a piece of

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oral history, passed from the witness to the public via

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story tellers. Interestingly, local researchers have pointed out that Pallas's

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encounter was unusually intimate for a ghost sighting. He spent

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hours with Mary, dancing, conversing, even kissing, whereas most resurrection

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Mary reports are far more fleeting and less personal In

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the spectrum of ghost stories, Jerry Pallace's tale is exceptional.

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If true, it suggests Mary's spirit was capable of substantial interaction,

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appearing solid enough to dance and speak, not just a

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momentary boo apparition. Skeptics, of course, might counter argue that

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such an extraordinary claim demands better evidence than one man's memory,

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told years after the fact. We must label the Palace

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story as legend mixed with eyewitness testimony, a compelling anecdote

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with no proof beyond the storyteller's word. Yet, Jerry Pallace

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was hardly the last person to claim a brush with

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Resurrection Mary. In the decades that followed, more and more

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locals would step forward with eerily similar accounts. By the

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nineteen seventies, the legend entered a new, highly public phase,

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fueled by media attention and a flurry of reported sightings

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after World War II. Through the nineteen fifties and sixties,

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Resurrection Mary seemed to lurk in the shadows of folklore,

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well known around Chicago's South Side, but not much reported

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in the press. That changed in the nineteen seventies, when

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a series of encounters propelled Mary from local lore into

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city wide, even national awareness. It was during this era

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that journalists, ghost hunters, and ordinary citizens all converged on

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the mystery of the hitchhiking girl in White. Some of

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the best known resurrection Marry stories date from the nineteen

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seventies and early nineteen eighties, and unlike earlier tales, a

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few of these made it into newspapers or were corroborated

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by multiple witnesses. We'll examine the most notable cases, pointing

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out where documentation exists and where we're dealing purely with story.

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One pivotal account came from January nineteen seventy nine, when

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a Chicago cab driver known only as Ralph had a

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frightening experience on Archer Avenue. Ralph's story was compelling enough

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that it was written up by respected journalist Bill Geist,

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then a columnist for the Suburban Trib, a Chicago Tribune

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suburban edition. Geist's January thirty first, nineteen seventy nine column,

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titled Cryptic writer leaves taxi driver with the Willies, introduced

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a broad audience to the legend and gave it a

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veneer of credibility by appearing in newsprint. According to Geist's piece,

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which presented Ralph's account in the cabby's own words. Ralph

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was driving his taxi along Archer Avenue late one snowy

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night when he spotted a young blonde woman in a

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white dress with no coat looking for a ride. He

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picked her up and noticed she was quiet and fuzzy,

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perhaps dazed or tired, speaking little besides remarking the snow

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came early this year. While gazing out the window, she

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gave him an address, but then suddenly demanded he stopped

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the car right in front of Resurrection Cemetery, even though

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there were no houses around. Puzzled, Ralph looked away for

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a moment, and when he turned back, his passenger had

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vanished from the back seat, just like before. The taxi

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door hadn't opened. The girl was simply gone. Ralph was

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so unnerved that he actually went into a nearby tavern,

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Chet's Melody Lounge, across from the cemetery, to ask if

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anyone had seen the girl who skipped out on her fare.

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By the time he spoke with Bill Geist, Ralph refused

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to give his last name, fearing ridicule, but Geist described

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him as a thoroughly level headed, no nonsense, working class guy,

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a church going little league coach, not someone prone to

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fanciful tales. Geist gently informed the shaken cabby that he

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had likely given Resurrection Mary a lift. To the cab

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driver's great astonishment, the columnist made it clear he found

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Ralph to be credible, noting the story was far too

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outlandish for a man like him to invent just to

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get his name in the paper. This nineteen seventy nine

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taxi driver incident is significant for a few reasons. First,

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it appeared in a major newspaper, essentially bringing resid direction

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Mary into the mainstream. Second, Ralph's experience closely paralleled earlier

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stories a young woman in white hitch hiking disappearing at

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the cemetery, showing how consistent the legend's pattern was. And Third,

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Geist's reporting lent weight to the idea that many witnesses

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were remarkably level headed people not prone to hallucinations, as

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local folklorest Richard Crowe observed. Indeed, folklorist Richard T. Crowe

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himself had begun collecting Resurrection Mary reports by the nineteen seventies,

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and would claim he had gathered three dozen substantiated encounters

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from the nineteen thirties. Onward, Crow often noted that many

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witnesses were ordinary Chicagoans, cabbies, police officers, club goers who

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didn't even realize they'd seen a famous ghost until afterward. This,

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he argued, made the case more compelling than a typical

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urban legend that's always sourced from a friend of a friend.

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Mary's witnesses often came forward independently with similar stories, not

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knowing of each other's accounts, which paranormal researchers took as

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a sign that something was happening on Archer Avenue beyond

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simply folklore. Beyond the famous cab driver's story, the nineteen

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seventies yielded other sightings that became part of Resurrection Mary's lore.

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In nineteen seventy three, at a night club called Harlow's

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on Chicago's southwest Side, patrons reported an encounter with an

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oddly out of place young woman matching Mary's description. The

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00:27:14.640 --> 00:27:19.920
night manager, Bob Mayne, later told the Chicago Tribune that

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twice that year he saw a peculiar blonde woman in

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an old fashioned white dress inside Harlowe's. She would dance alone,

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twirling in a corner near the dance floor, and wouldn't

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speak to anyone. She had a very pale complexion, big

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spoolly curls in her hair, and most disturbingly of all,

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Main recalled that she looked as if she was bleeding

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from one eye. Other club goers whispered about how bizarre

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the girl was, and no one saw her enter or leave.

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She was just suddenly there and later gone. Maine's description,

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given in a nineteen ninety two Tribune interview, strongly evoked

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the image of Mary's ghost. If true, it suggests Mary

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was not confined to hitchhiking. She might wander into a

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nightclub occasionally, perhaps drawn to the music and dancing she

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had enjoyed in life. Of course, this too is anecdotal.

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There's no proof the bleeding eyed girl wasn't just an

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00:28:45.680 --> 00:28:51.880
oddly dressed patron in need of medical attention. But for believers,

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Bob Man's story showed Mary's continuing presence in the area's

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00:28:57.640 --> 00:29:03.240
night life. Arguably the most dramatic physical evidence tied to

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00:29:03.440 --> 00:29:09.440
Resurrection Mary also dates to the nineteen seventies. On August tenth,

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nineteen seventy six, something uncanny was found at Resurrection Cemetery's gate.

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A passer by that night called police after seeing what

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he thought was a young woman locked inside the cemetery,

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grasping the iron bars as if trying to get out.

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Authorities arrived and found no woman. The graveyard was empty,

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but they did find that two of the tall, wrought

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iron bars on the gate were bent apart at roughly

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00:29:49.960 --> 00:29:55.000
hand height, with what looked like the impressions of slender

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hand prints into the green painted metal. The bars had

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been wrenched apart, as though some terrific force had pushed

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them from inside. Moreover, the metal showed scorch marks and

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the texture of skin, as if a ghostly hand had

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burned itself into the iron. This spine chilling discovery immediately

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00:30:23.920 --> 00:30:29.680
fueled speculation that Resurrection Mary had physically interacted with the

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gate in an attempt to flag down help, literally leaving

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00:30:35.720 --> 00:30:44.400
her fingerprints behind. Not everyone accepted that supernatural explanation. Cemetery

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officials quickly offered a mundane account, claiming that a truck

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had accidentally backed into the gate and bent the bars,

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and that the hand prints were from a repair worker

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who tried to strain them out. They said perhaps a

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welder's hands or gloves left marks when the heat was

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applied to fix the iron However, many were unconvinced. Paranormal

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00:31:15.319 --> 00:31:20.400
investigator Dale Kasmarrek pointed out the scorch marks didn't resemble

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typical welding patterns and argued that a worker would have

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worn heavy gloves anyway, making defined handprints unlikely. For years,

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the burned on hand prints remained visible on the bent bars,

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despite the cemetery painting over them repeatedly. The outline of

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slender fingers still peeked through the site became a magnet

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for legend trippers. Curious locals drove by at night, hoping

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to spot the glowing ghost and her in famous handiwork

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00:32:01.680 --> 00:32:07.039
on the gate. Eventually, annoyed by the attention, the church

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caretakers removed the bent sections of the bars entirely, reportedly

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around twenty nineteen through twenty twenty two decades later. Today,

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there's a gap in the fence where the haunted bars

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00:32:23.960 --> 00:32:29.839
once stood. The late nineteen seventies and early nineteen eighties

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00:32:30.359 --> 00:32:42.839
saw a peak in Resurrection Mary encounters. Besides the nineteen

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00:32:43.000 --> 00:32:48.279
seventy six gate incident, there were numerous reported sightings in

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nineteen seventy eight, nineteen seventy nine, nineteen eighty and nineteen

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eighty nine, essentially one or two per year making the rounds.

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In law local lore, many followed familiar patterns, drivers almost

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hitting a running girl who then vanished, or passers by

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00:33:12.079 --> 00:33:17.759
seeing a lone figure matching Mary's description walking by the

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cemetery before disappearing. Two cases are especially well known. In

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nineteen eighty, a young couple named Claire and Mark Rudniki

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were driving along Archer Avenue past Resurrection Cemetery when Claire

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suddenly saw a figure on the roadside. It was a

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girl in a white dress, bathed in a strange, pale light,

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walking slowly along the shoulder. Claire immediately thought of Resurrection

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Mary and felt her stomach lurch with fear. Her husband, Mark,

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also caught a glimpse and decided to turn the car

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around for another look, despite Claire's protests. As they passed

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the spot again, the glowing girl had vanished completely. In

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recounting the incident on Unsolved Mysteries, Mark Rudniki added an

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extra chilling detail. As they drove past the first time,

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he peered at the girl's face and saw a black void,

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no discernible facial features at all. It was as if

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they had seen a figure that wasn't fully human. Both

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Rudnicki's were left deeply rattled, and their story reinforced the

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idea that Mary prowled that stretch of road looking for

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00:35:00.079 --> 00:35:06.519
would be rescuers. In October nineteen eighty nine, Janet Kalawl,

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in her late twenties, was out for a drive with

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a friend near Resurrection Cemetery when they experienced what many

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00:35:16.039 --> 00:35:22.639
regard as Mary's last major appearance to date. As Janet

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00:35:22.719 --> 00:35:26.760
drove down Archer, a young woman in a white gown

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sprinted on the road directly in front of the car.

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Janet had no time to break she hit the figure

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head on or so she thought. There was no impact,

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no thud, no damage. Panicked, Janet and her friend jumped out,

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expecting the worst, but found nothing at all on the roadway,

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00:35:57.840 --> 00:36:04.559
no injured woman, no just the silent cemetery looming nearby.

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Janet's friend, Pamela later recalled that her own father had

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00:36:11.000 --> 00:36:16.000
read about Resurrection Mary back in nineteen thirty nine, and

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00:36:16.159 --> 00:36:20.519
she never imagined she'd become part of the story herself.

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Decades later, the Callal incident widely publicized through television, newspapers,

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00:36:28.760 --> 00:36:34.519
and magazines. Further cemented Mary's legacy. It had the hallmarks

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00:36:34.519 --> 00:36:37.920
of a classic ghostly woman runs in front of a

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00:36:37.960 --> 00:36:45.159
car apparition, a scenario reported in other haunting cases worldwide.

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Fortunately for Janet, she emerged only shaken, not physically harmed,

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a reminder that Mary, whatever she is, does not seem

385
00:36:58.920 --> 00:37:05.199
to wish actual harm on people, only to give them

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00:37:05.480 --> 00:37:11.840
a fright, perhaps inadvertently. By the end of the nineteen

387
00:37:11.920 --> 00:37:18.199
eighties Resurrection Mary had been featured in newspaper articles, television newscasts,

388
00:37:18.559 --> 00:37:21.880
and even went national when appearing in nineteen ninety four

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00:37:21.960 --> 00:37:28.000
on Unsolved Mysteries. The ghost had effectively gone mainstream. Some

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00:37:28.280 --> 00:37:32.920
longtime Chicagoans noted with a wink that Mary was old

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00:37:33.039 --> 00:37:39.280
hat by then a well worn story, but each new

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00:37:39.320 --> 00:37:46.239
retelling brought fresh eyes to the legend. Notably, Richard Crowe,

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00:37:46.280 --> 00:37:51.440
the folklorist who pioneered Chicago ghost tours, often offered a

394
00:37:51.480 --> 00:37:55.559
free steak dinner to anyone who could bring him definitive

395
00:37:55.679 --> 00:38:00.440
proof of Mary's existence. He never had to pay up

396
00:38:00.440 --> 00:38:03.719
for proof, but he did get plenty of people coming

397
00:38:03.760 --> 00:38:09.400
forward with stories. By the nineteen eighties, Mary had evolved

398
00:38:09.440 --> 00:38:13.400
from a local curiosity into a full fledged piece of

399
00:38:13.800 --> 00:38:19.480
Chicago land mythology, with a sizeable file of sightings and

400
00:38:19.559 --> 00:38:25.000
a reputation that extended far beyond the city. It's important

401
00:38:25.039 --> 00:38:29.559
to emphasize that, despite the volume of accounts, none of

402
00:38:29.639 --> 00:38:35.360
these accounts can be verified scientifically. We have names, dates,

403
00:38:35.480 --> 00:38:40.519
and some newspaper documentation for a few cases, like Bill

404
00:38:40.639 --> 00:38:45.280
Geist's nineteen seventy nine column or The Tribune's nineteen ninety

405
00:38:45.280 --> 00:38:49.400
two interview with Bob Maine, etc. But we do not

406
00:38:49.639 --> 00:38:56.880
have physical proof of the supernatural, only testimonies and circumstantial oddities.

407
00:38:57.559 --> 00:39:01.920
The bent Gate was a physical artifact, yes, but even

408
00:39:02.039 --> 00:39:08.320
that had a plausible non ghost explanation. So while our

409
00:39:08.440 --> 00:39:13.840
narrative has treated these sightings seriously and in detail, they

410
00:39:13.880 --> 00:39:20.239
remain anecdotal evidence of a phenomena. The consistent pattern is

411
00:39:20.360 --> 00:39:25.880
intriguing and hard to ignore. Too many independent witnesses over

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00:39:25.960 --> 00:39:30.039
too many years. Proponents say for it to all be

413
00:39:30.800 --> 00:39:36.800
pure invention, but skeptics counter that human perception and memory

414
00:39:37.119 --> 00:39:42.360
are fallible and urban legends have a way of feeding themselves.

415
00:39:43.199 --> 00:39:48.719
Resurrection Mary lives at the intersection of belief and doubt,

416
00:39:49.400 --> 00:39:53.920
where multiple eyewitness stories give life to a character that

417
00:39:53.960 --> 00:40:01.280
official history struggles to confirm. As resurrection mayor He's fame grew,

418
00:40:02.199 --> 00:40:07.840
so grew an obvious question. If this ghost is real,

419
00:40:09.400 --> 00:40:21.280
who is she? Ghost stories often spawn origin theories, tying

420
00:40:21.320 --> 00:40:27.000
the phantom to a specific deceased person. In Mary's case,

421
00:40:27.159 --> 00:40:33.360
researchers have poured over cemetery records, newspaper archives, and death

422
00:40:33.400 --> 00:40:37.840
certificates hunting for a young woman who might be the

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00:40:37.960 --> 00:40:43.800
restless soul in question. This detective work has yielded a

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00:40:43.880 --> 00:40:49.800
few leading candidates, each with intriguing connections to the legend,

425
00:40:50.440 --> 00:40:56.639
and each with certain discrepancies. Let's examine the main contenders

426
00:40:56.960 --> 00:41:01.280
and the evidence or lack thereof for e we will

427
00:41:01.360 --> 00:41:07.039
clearly distinguish documented facts about these historical figures from the

428
00:41:07.079 --> 00:41:14.719
speculation that links them to Resurrection Mary. For decades, the

429
00:41:14.760 --> 00:41:19.599
prime suspect in Resurrection Mary's identity was a twenty one

430
00:41:19.679 --> 00:41:25.480
year old woman named Mary or Marie Brigov. Mary Burgovi

431
00:41:26.159 --> 00:41:31.000
was a real person, a beautiful, young Polish American who

432
00:41:31.079 --> 00:41:35.079
lived in Chicago's Back of the Yard's neighborhood in the

433
00:41:35.119 --> 00:41:40.000
early nineteen thirties. Her name began to surface in connection

434
00:41:40.159 --> 00:41:43.880
with the ghost story in the nineteen seventies, and by

435
00:41:43.960 --> 00:41:50.480
the nineteen eighties many assumed resurrection Mary must be Mary

436
00:41:50.559 --> 00:41:56.000
Brigovi's ghost. So what do we know about Mary Burgovi's

437
00:41:56.119 --> 00:42:01.760
life and death? Brigovi's tragic ends was recorded in the

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00:42:01.840 --> 00:42:07.519
Chicago Tribune on March twelfth, nineteen thirty four. The news

439
00:42:07.519 --> 00:42:12.320
item reported that Marie Brogovie, age twenty one, was killed

440
00:42:12.920 --> 00:42:18.000
in an automobile wreck the previous night. The accident did

441
00:42:18.039 --> 00:42:23.199
not occur on Archer Avenue, nor even in the Southwest suburbs.

442
00:42:23.960 --> 00:42:28.920
It happened in the downtown Chicago Loop. Brigovy was a

443
00:42:29.000 --> 00:42:33.039
passenger in a car that cracked up at the intersection

444
00:42:33.159 --> 00:42:38.039
of Lake Street and Whacker Drive after the driver missed

445
00:42:38.079 --> 00:42:43.519
seeing an elevated train trestle. The Tribune noted that corner

446
00:42:43.760 --> 00:42:48.679
was quote known to police as a dangerous spot due

447
00:42:48.840 --> 00:42:53.679
to such collisions. In the car with Mary Bregovi were

448
00:42:53.719 --> 00:42:59.400
two young men and another young woman, all of whom survived.

449
00:43:00.559 --> 00:43:04.559
The driver, John Thowell, later said he hadn't seen the

450
00:43:04.760 --> 00:43:10.559
l structure in time. Mary sadly bore the brunt of

451
00:43:10.599 --> 00:43:17.079
the crash and was killed instantly. The facts of Brigovie's

452
00:43:17.159 --> 00:43:22.559
death show some initial inconsistencies with the ghost story. She

453
00:43:22.760 --> 00:43:27.760
died in the city, nowhere near Resurrection Cemetery, she was

454
00:43:27.800 --> 00:43:32.119
in a car with friends, not walking alone from a dance,

455
00:43:33.000 --> 00:43:37.000
and her death was due to a collision with infrastructure,

456
00:43:37.760 --> 00:43:43.440
not a hit and run driver. So why do researchers

457
00:43:43.519 --> 00:43:48.719
think she could be Resurrection Mary. The answer lies in

458
00:43:48.800 --> 00:43:53.320
the web of personal details that link her to elements

459
00:43:53.360 --> 00:43:59.199
of the legend. Mary Burgovie lived at forty six eleven

460
00:43:59.719 --> 00:44:05.159
South Damon Avenue, according to the Tribune. If you recall

461
00:44:05.280 --> 00:44:10.320
from earlier in Jerry Pallace's story, Mary claimed to live

462
00:44:10.840 --> 00:44:15.199
on Damon Avenue. Jerry later went to an address on

463
00:44:15.360 --> 00:44:21.159
South Damon where the mother supposedly said Mary was dead.

464
00:44:22.239 --> 00:44:26.679
Bergovie's residence on the same street as the ghost's purported

465
00:44:26.760 --> 00:44:32.159
home is a striking coincidence. In fact, a friend of

466
00:44:32.199 --> 00:44:37.519
Burgovi's later confirmed that Bergovi's wake was held at a

467
00:44:37.519 --> 00:44:43.119
funeral home just blocks from that address, the Satala Funeral

468
00:44:43.159 --> 00:44:49.360
Home on Damon Avenue, and that Brigovy was indeed buried

469
00:44:49.840 --> 00:44:57.159
wearing a fancy dress described as an orchid colored gown.

470
00:44:58.159 --> 00:45:03.199
Speaking of dresses, one eerie tale reported by author Troy

471
00:45:03.320 --> 00:45:09.119
Taylor holds that shortly after Brigovi's funeral in nineteen thirty four,

472
00:45:09.679 --> 00:45:14.880
a cemetery caretaker spotted a young woman in an orchid

473
00:45:14.960 --> 00:45:23.400
colored dress wandering Resurrection Cemetery at night. The caretaker mentioned

474
00:45:23.400 --> 00:45:27.760
it to the funeral director, who supposedly remarked that the

475
00:45:27.840 --> 00:45:33.920
description matched Mary Brigov in her burial dress. Other reports

476
00:45:33.960 --> 00:45:37.599
around that same time the spring of nineteen thirty four

477
00:45:38.280 --> 00:45:41.920
claimed a ghostly woman in a light colored dress was

478
00:45:42.000 --> 00:45:46.639
seen jumping onto the running boards of passing cars near

479
00:45:46.760 --> 00:45:52.760
the cemetery. These ghostly sightings so soon after Brigovi's death

480
00:45:53.320 --> 00:45:57.599
certainly aligned with the notion that her spirit might be

481
00:45:58.599 --> 00:46:05.440
Resurrection Mary, at least in the immediate aftermath. Mary Brogovy

482
00:46:05.639 --> 00:46:11.239
loved dancing, according to her friends. One friend, Laverne Rutkowski,

483
00:46:12.000 --> 00:46:15.639
gave an interview in nineteen eighty four shedding light on

484
00:46:15.800 --> 00:46:21.599
Mary's final day. Rutkowski recounted that on March tenth, nineteen

485
00:46:21.679 --> 00:46:26.400
thirty four, she and Mary Brogov spent the day shopping

486
00:46:26.679 --> 00:46:30.719
on forty seventh Street. They met two young men who

487
00:46:30.840 --> 00:46:36.199
drove recklessly around the neighborhood. Rutkowski got a bad feeling

488
00:46:36.639 --> 00:46:41.880
and insisted on leaving the car, but Mary Bragov was

489
00:46:41.960 --> 00:46:45.800
smitten enough to go out with those wild boys that

490
00:46:46.079 --> 00:46:52.960
night despite her parents objections. Family lore filtered through later

491
00:46:53.079 --> 00:46:58.920
story tellers suggested that Brigov and these new friends might

492
00:46:58.960 --> 00:47:02.719
have gone dancing at the o Henry Ballroom in Willow

493
00:47:02.800 --> 00:47:08.039
Springs earlier that evening before ending up downtown where the

494
00:47:08.159 --> 00:47:13.920
crash occurred. There's no direct evidence they truly went to

495
00:47:14.000 --> 00:47:18.559
the Willowbrook O Henry that night. However, the notion that

496
00:47:18.719 --> 00:47:22.800
Mary Bergovy might have been ballroom hopping with two young

497
00:47:22.880 --> 00:47:27.559
men helps reconcile why she died so far from home.

498
00:47:28.639 --> 00:47:33.480
One theory says the group left the early closing suburban

499
00:47:33.599 --> 00:47:37.800
ballroom to seek another dance hall in the city that

500
00:47:37.920 --> 00:47:43.199
stayed open later. If that is true, then Mary Brogovy

501
00:47:43.320 --> 00:47:48.239
did spend her last hours dancing, just like the legends

502
00:47:48.320 --> 00:47:53.440
Phantom Mary. In a poignant twist of fate, The Tribune

503
00:47:53.559 --> 00:47:58.679
obituary shows that Mary Brigov died just a month shy

504
00:47:59.199 --> 00:48:02.679
of her twenty five first birthday. She was on the

505
00:48:02.719 --> 00:48:07.239
cusp of adulthood in the prime of youth when her

506
00:48:07.320 --> 00:48:12.360
life was cut short. This fits the profile of a

507
00:48:12.840 --> 00:48:18.800
restless spirit often attributed to ghosts, a young person who

508
00:48:18.920 --> 00:48:26.119
died unexpectedly, and perhaps Harbor's unfinished business or longing leading

509
00:48:26.840 --> 00:48:37.679
to a haunting. The final piece worth noting is Mary

510
00:48:37.760 --> 00:48:44.079
Brigovi's physical appearance. Photographs, like one family photo that has

511
00:48:44.159 --> 00:48:50.000
managed to circulate, show Mary Brigov with dark hair a brunette,

512
00:48:50.599 --> 00:48:56.320
yet Resurrection Mary is usually described as a blonde or

513
00:48:56.880 --> 00:49:03.360
light haired spirit. This discrepancy has given some researchers pause.

514
00:49:04.440 --> 00:49:09.239
Could a ghost change hair color or did witness recollections

515
00:49:09.519 --> 00:49:14.599
simply get the shade wrong in the dim light. Also,

516
00:49:15.239 --> 00:49:20.960
Brigovie's first name was technically Marie, though she often went

517
00:49:21.079 --> 00:49:26.840
by Mary. It's a minor difference, but to folklorists, such

518
00:49:26.920 --> 00:49:32.679
inconsistencies stand out as hints that Brigov might not perfectly

519
00:49:32.800 --> 00:49:38.360
fit the legend's details. For a long time, Mary Brigovie

520
00:49:38.639 --> 00:49:42.639
was the leading theory, so much so that many articles

521
00:49:42.679 --> 00:49:50.000
and books casually stated that Resurrection Mary was Mary Brigovi's ghost. However,

522
00:49:50.400 --> 00:49:54.960
over the years, doubts have risen. Critics point out that

523
00:49:55.039 --> 00:49:59.559
a loop car crash doesn't match the Archer Avenue roadside

524
00:49:59.599 --> 00:50:04.760
death scenario at all, making it a stretch to connect

525
00:50:04.800 --> 00:50:12.760
Bergov to the hitchhiker tail without considerable embellishment. Some suspect

526
00:50:12.800 --> 00:50:18.920
that Brigovi's story was shoehorned into the legend retroactively after

527
00:50:19.000 --> 00:50:24.320
the fact, because her death roughly coincided with the right era,

528
00:50:24.599 --> 00:50:30.239
and she was indeed buried in Resurrection Cemetery, though even

529
00:50:30.360 --> 00:50:35.800
that has a caveat. Bregovi's family may have initially and

530
00:50:35.960 --> 00:50:39.880
teared her in a temporary grave at Resurrection that was

531
00:50:39.960 --> 00:50:46.800
later moved. In summary, Mary Bergovi's life and death share

532
00:50:46.960 --> 00:50:50.960
enough touch points with the myth the love of dancing

533
00:50:51.480 --> 00:50:57.480
the South Side address the sudden tragic end. It's easy

534
00:50:57.599 --> 00:51:03.880
to imagine her spirit Roman Archer Avenue, yet significant differences

535
00:51:04.480 --> 00:51:08.840
location of death, hair color prevent us from calling it

536
00:51:09.199 --> 00:51:14.880
a perfect match. The jury remains out. Mary Brigovi is

537
00:51:14.920 --> 00:51:21.920
a strong candidate, but not a confirmed identity for the ghost.

538
00:51:22.199 --> 00:51:28.239
Another compelling contender emerged in the nineteen nineties, thanks largely

539
00:51:28.360 --> 00:51:34.599
to the research of Chicago ghost historian Ursula Bielsky. Bielsky

540
00:51:34.719 --> 00:51:40.480
documented the story of Anna Maria Norkus, a girl whose

541
00:51:40.559 --> 00:51:45.480
fate in nineteen twenty seven uncannily parallels parts of the

542
00:51:45.559 --> 00:51:52.159
Resurrection Mary legend. Anna Norcas, often called Maria in Lithuanian

543
00:51:52.199 --> 00:51:58.480
Polish style, was even younger than Mary Bregovi, just twelve

544
00:51:58.599 --> 00:52:03.599
years old, but the circumstances of her death make her

545
00:52:04.079 --> 00:52:11.000
a fascinating possibility. On July twentieth, nineteen twenty seven, Anna

546
00:52:11.119 --> 00:52:16.599
Norcus's father, August Norkus, took her out for a special night.

547
00:52:17.400 --> 00:52:22.440
Anna was approaching her thirteenth birthday, and by some accounts,

548
00:52:22.480 --> 00:52:27.760
she loved to dance. Despite her being under age, August

549
00:52:27.800 --> 00:52:30.920
agreed to take Anna to the O Henry ball Room

550
00:52:31.400 --> 00:52:36.039
in Willow Springs for an evening of music, possibly as

551
00:52:36.079 --> 00:52:40.920
a birthday treat. They were accompanied by a friend, William,

552
00:52:41.639 --> 00:52:44.599
and also had a couple of other youngsters in the car.

553
00:52:45.480 --> 00:52:49.039
In the early hours of July twenty first, as the

554
00:52:49.079 --> 00:52:54.119
group was driving home, tragedy struck on a road not

555
00:52:54.440 --> 00:52:59.719
far from the ball room. Their car swerved off Harlem

556
00:52:59.719 --> 00:53:05.079
APay near sixty sixth Street, just a few miles from

557
00:53:05.159 --> 00:53:11.920
Resurrection Cemetery, and plunged into a deep ditch or railroad cut.

558
00:53:12.440 --> 00:53:17.559
The vehicle flipped over and young Anna Norcus was crushed

559
00:53:17.639 --> 00:53:23.760
beneath it, dying almost instantly. One older man in the

560
00:53:23.800 --> 00:53:29.719
car also died of injuries, while Several others, including Anna's

561
00:53:29.800 --> 00:53:36.599
father and sister, survived with injuries. This accident was reported

562
00:53:36.639 --> 00:53:40.760
in the newspapers at the time, a real event that

563
00:53:40.960 --> 00:53:47.400
left a real family grieving. Now, consider how Anna Norkis's

564
00:53:47.480 --> 00:53:53.199
story lines up with resurrection Mary. Anna was coming home

565
00:53:53.280 --> 00:53:57.840
from the o Henry Ballroom, the very dance hall immortalized

566
00:53:57.920 --> 00:54:03.840
in Mary's origin legend. Unlike Brigovi's case, here we have

567
00:54:04.039 --> 00:54:08.960
documented proof of a young girl actually returning from that

568
00:54:09.119 --> 00:54:14.039
ballroom on the night she died. This directly ties a

569
00:54:14.079 --> 00:54:20.519
ballroom outing to a fatal accident near Archer Avenue. Anna

570
00:54:20.639 --> 00:54:26.559
Noorkis was blonde. Photographs and descriptions confirm she had light hair.

571
00:54:27.320 --> 00:54:31.960
This matches the classic description of the ghostly Mary as

572
00:54:32.000 --> 00:54:36.880
a fair haired girl in a white dress. Brigovie, by contrast,

573
00:54:37.440 --> 00:54:41.599
was brunette, which some saw as a strike against her

574
00:54:41.880 --> 00:54:48.639
being the ghost. Anna's physical appearance, young, blonde, fond of dancing,

575
00:54:49.159 --> 00:54:53.920
is more consistent with the ghost story details. The Norkis

576
00:54:54.000 --> 00:54:58.760
accident occurred in nineteen twenty seven, a bit earlier than

577
00:54:58.840 --> 00:55:05.920
Mary's supposed day in the early nineteen thirties, as legend suggests. However,

578
00:55:06.159 --> 00:55:10.960
it falls within a plausible range, especially if one considers

579
00:55:11.519 --> 00:55:15.679
that an Urban Legends timeline can be fuzzy. By the

580
00:55:15.719 --> 00:55:20.639
time Jerry Pallace met Mary in nineteen thirty nine, Anna

581
00:55:20.760 --> 00:55:24.639
would have been dead for twelve years, which is roughly

582
00:55:24.719 --> 00:55:29.920
the five years dead figure Paulis heard, perhaps misremembered or

583
00:55:30.440 --> 00:55:37.719
stylized in retellings. If Jerry misheard, or if storytellers embellished

584
00:55:37.760 --> 00:55:42.599
the timeline, it's conceivable that Anna Norkis could have been

585
00:55:42.920 --> 00:55:47.400
dead for years by the late nineteen thirties, and thus

586
00:55:47.440 --> 00:55:53.599
a candidate for the ghost Jerry encountered. Though there is

587
00:55:53.760 --> 00:55:58.320
one sticking point. Anna Norcis was only twelve years old.

588
00:55:59.599 --> 00:56:04.840
Every the resurrection Mary witness consistently describes a young woman

589
00:56:05.039 --> 00:56:10.719
or late teen girl, not a child. Mary appears as

590
00:56:10.760 --> 00:56:14.639
someone in her late teens or early twenties, an age

591
00:56:14.679 --> 00:56:19.760
appropriate for dancing and attending nightclubs. Anna at twelve years

592
00:56:19.840 --> 00:56:25.119
old seems too young to fit that image. Bielski and

593
00:56:25.280 --> 00:56:29.760
others have speculated that perhaps the ghost appears older than

594
00:56:29.800 --> 00:56:35.079
Anna's actual age, or that maybe Anna had a slightly

595
00:56:35.159 --> 00:56:41.639
older look. Another possibility floated is that Anna's spirit aged

596
00:56:41.719 --> 00:56:44.920
in some way to the young woman. She would have become,

597
00:56:45.679 --> 00:56:50.880
which enters very speculative territory, though when it comes to ghosts,

598
00:56:51.280 --> 00:56:57.039
speculation is king. In any case, the age mismatch is

599
00:56:57.119 --> 00:57:02.880
a notable issue with the Anna theory. However, there's also

600
00:57:03.000 --> 00:57:15.760
the questions raised by her burial. Anna Norkis was slated

601
00:57:15.800 --> 00:57:21.119
to be buried at Saint Casimir Cemetery, a Lithuanian Catholic

602
00:57:21.199 --> 00:57:28.840
cemetery in Chicago's Mount Greenwood area, not Resurrection Cemetery. However,

603
00:57:29.000 --> 00:57:35.480
Bielsky uncovered a tantalizing anecdote. Due to a gravedigger's strike

604
00:57:35.599 --> 00:57:39.760
at the time of Anna's death, the family allegedly couldn't

605
00:57:39.760 --> 00:57:45.039
bury her immediately at Saint Casimir. There is a claim,

606
00:57:45.199 --> 00:57:50.679
though not confirmed by official records, that Anna's body was

607
00:57:50.800 --> 00:57:57.559
temporarily interred at Resurrection Cemetery until the strike ended. Then

608
00:57:57.719 --> 00:58:03.519
her remains were moved to Saint Casimir, but possibly some

609
00:58:03.760 --> 00:58:09.320
mix up occurred. The theory is that if Anna's coffin

610
00:58:09.440 --> 00:58:13.320
spent time at Resurrection, or if any part of her

611
00:58:13.480 --> 00:58:19.920
remained there, her spirit might linger at Resurrection's grounds. This

612
00:58:20.320 --> 00:58:25.320
is admittedly a stretch, but local ghost lore often seizes

613
00:58:25.400 --> 00:58:31.159
on such quirks to explain hauntings. In nineteen ninety nine,

614
00:58:31.760 --> 00:58:37.280
Ursula Bielsky published her research proposing Anna Norkis as a

615
00:58:37.320 --> 00:58:42.559
strong candidate for Resurrection Mary. Her work convinced many in

616
00:58:42.599 --> 00:58:47.079
the paranormal community. Even the owners of the Willowbrook Ballroom

617
00:58:47.599 --> 00:58:52.199
came to believe in Anna's connection. The late owner, by Root,

618
00:58:52.880 --> 00:58:56.599
kept a copy of Anna Norkis's death certificate on the

619
00:58:56.679 --> 00:59:02.079
ballroom's office wall as a nod to Mary's likely identity.

620
00:59:03.239 --> 00:59:08.400
This was reported in a Daily Southtown feature in twenty sixteen.

621
00:59:09.320 --> 00:59:14.440
The same year, the historic Willowbrook Ballroom tragically burned down,

622
00:59:15.360 --> 00:59:21.000
ending an era. In the aftermath of the fire, there

623
00:59:21.079 --> 00:59:26.039
was an emotional outpouring from locals. Notably, someone hung a

624
00:59:26.079 --> 00:59:30.360
pair of white dancing shoes on the charred ruins with

625
00:59:30.480 --> 00:59:39.559
a sign, please rebuild the ballroom, signed Resurrection Mary. The

626
00:59:39.719 --> 00:59:44.400
very people who ran and loved that ballroom tacitly acknowledged

627
00:59:44.440 --> 00:59:50.760
Anna and Mary as part of its legacy. Despite the

628
00:59:50.800 --> 00:59:55.679
compelling alignment of Anna Norkis's story, skeptics point out the

629
00:59:55.719 --> 00:59:59.639
age issue and the lack of clear documentation of her

630
00:59:59.639 --> 01:00:04.599
suppose burial at Resurrection. No official record confirms that her

631
01:00:04.639 --> 01:00:08.719
body was ever there. It's more an oral history claim,

632
01:00:09.840 --> 01:00:14.840
and believer's counter skeptics by saying perhaps resurrection Mary is

633
01:00:14.880 --> 01:00:21.079
not tied to a single person at all. Beyond Burgovi

634
01:00:21.280 --> 01:00:26.000
and Norkis, various other names have been floated over the years,

635
01:00:26.639 --> 01:00:31.360
forming a sort of who's who of potential Mary's. Each

636
01:00:31.519 --> 01:00:35.559
theory attempts to fill gaps in the others, but many

637
01:00:35.599 --> 01:00:39.960
of these fall apart under scrutiny. Here are a few

638
01:00:40.119 --> 01:00:44.679
notable ones. A story circulated that a young woman named

639
01:00:44.760 --> 01:00:49.599
Mary Miskowski, who lived near forty seventh Street and Damon

640
01:00:50.280 --> 01:00:54.760
again that back of the Yard's area, was killed by

641
01:00:54.760 --> 01:00:59.599
a hit and run driver around Halloween nineteen thirty while

642
01:00:59.599 --> 01:01:03.760
on her way to a costume ball. In this version,

643
01:01:04.079 --> 01:01:08.920
Mary Miskowski was supposedly wearing her mother's old wedding dress

644
01:01:09.239 --> 01:01:13.440
as a costume. Hence, a young woman in a white

645
01:01:13.559 --> 01:01:19.840
dress killed by a car very much resurrection Mary's profile.

646
01:01:21.519 --> 01:01:27.199
The tantalizing details included blonde hair, a love for dancing,

647
01:01:27.800 --> 01:01:32.559
a death on Halloween, and living on the same street

648
01:01:33.119 --> 01:01:39.440
as Mary Bregovi. It sounds almost too perfect, and indeed,

649
01:01:40.039 --> 01:01:45.400
researcher Adam Selzer dug into public records and found no

650
01:01:45.519 --> 01:01:51.679
evidence of any Mary Miskowski dying in nineteen thirty in Chicago.

651
01:01:52.480 --> 01:01:56.880
He did, however, find a Mary Miskowski at the address

652
01:01:56.920 --> 01:02:02.159
in question, but she lived a full life, married, had children,

653
01:02:02.760 --> 01:02:07.840
and died in nineteen fifty six. In short, the Marry

654
01:02:07.880 --> 01:02:12.280
Miskowski tale appears to be just an oral legend or

655
01:02:12.360 --> 01:02:18.960
a misremembered identity, not a real person who died as described.

656
01:02:20.599 --> 01:02:25.320
Another south Side woman named Mary Kovak has been proposed.

657
01:02:26.039 --> 01:02:32.519
Mary Kovak, like Burgovi and Miskowski, lived on Damon Avenue.

658
01:02:32.559 --> 01:02:36.159
She was known to be a fashionable dresser, a regular

659
01:02:36.239 --> 01:02:40.719
at local dance halls, and she had blonde hair, checking

660
01:02:40.800 --> 01:02:46.880
many boxes of our ghost. However, Mary Kovak died in

661
01:02:46.960 --> 01:02:54.280
nineteen thirty two of tuberculosis, not an accident. The idea here,

662
01:02:54.480 --> 01:02:58.519
raised in a podcast called The Epitaph, is that perhaps

663
01:02:58.599 --> 01:03:02.119
her ghost loved dancing so much that it hitched a

664
01:03:02.239 --> 01:03:13.639
ride back to the ballroom even after death. Of course,

665
01:03:13.719 --> 01:03:18.079
that's highly speculative and deviates from the corps hit by

666
01:03:18.199 --> 01:03:23.360
car legend, but it shows how virtually any young blonde

667
01:03:23.480 --> 01:03:27.239
Mary from the area who died in the nineteen twenties

668
01:03:27.400 --> 01:03:32.800
or thirties becomes a candidate. It's possible that all of

669
01:03:32.840 --> 01:03:37.840
the above holds some truth. Ghost tour guides like Richard

670
01:03:37.960 --> 01:03:42.880
Crowe and authors like Troy Taylor have mused that maybe

671
01:03:42.920 --> 01:03:46.760
the reason the sightings don't all perfectly match one person

672
01:03:47.679 --> 01:03:53.320
is because more than one spirit is active on Archer Avenue,

673
01:03:53.480 --> 01:04:00.119
and over times their stories merged. For example, perhaps Mary

674
01:04:00.119 --> 01:04:04.800
Bergovi's ghost did appear early on with her orchid dress

675
01:04:05.320 --> 01:04:12.239
around Resurrection Cemetery, and later Annanorchis's spirit also roamed Archer

676
01:04:12.920 --> 01:04:17.760
after her accident, and the two narratives blended into one

677
01:04:18.320 --> 01:04:23.719
Resurrection Mary legend. Or maybe none of the specific names

678
01:04:24.039 --> 01:04:28.280
are exactly right, and Mary is a composite of many

679
01:04:28.480 --> 01:04:33.880
restless souls. The cemetery, after all, holds over one hundred

680
01:04:33.880 --> 01:04:39.000
and fifty thousand graves. Countless young women are buried there,

681
01:04:39.679 --> 01:04:45.559
some of whom surely died tragically. A folklorist might say

682
01:04:45.719 --> 01:04:51.480
Resurrection Mary is an archetype, the collective manifestation of several

683
01:04:51.559 --> 01:04:58.119
stories about lives cut short, distilled into one iconic ghost.

684
01:04:59.559 --> 01:05:04.599
Despite decades of amateur sleuthing, no consensus has been reached

685
01:05:05.000 --> 01:05:10.480
on Mary's true identity. The cemetery itself, according to a

686
01:05:10.559 --> 01:05:15.480
comment recounted on the Unsolved Mystery's website. Once narrowed it

687
01:05:15.599 --> 01:05:20.360
down to five possible young ladies who fit the legend's

688
01:05:20.440 --> 01:05:26.039
time frame and profile. That might be folklore in itself,

689
01:05:26.880 --> 01:05:32.840
but it underscores the lingering curiosity. Officially, there is no

690
01:05:33.039 --> 01:05:41.199
grave marker labeled Resurrection Mary. She remains an enigma. Each candidate,

691
01:05:41.639 --> 01:05:48.480
Bregovinorkis or others carries both alluring connections as well as

692
01:05:48.559 --> 01:05:55.000
problematic details. The exercise of matching Mary to a real

693
01:05:55.079 --> 01:05:59.880
life person is part fact finding and part folklore. Un

694
01:06:00.079 --> 01:06:05.320
to itself. We have verified facts about certain deaths, like

695
01:06:05.400 --> 01:06:10.519
Burgovi's in nineteen thirty four or Norkises in nineteen twenty seven.

696
01:06:11.400 --> 01:06:15.360
Those are real. The notion that any one of those

697
01:06:15.559 --> 01:06:19.920
is the ghost is speculative. It's a human need to

698
01:06:19.960 --> 01:06:25.039
put a name and face to the unknown. In Mary's case,

699
01:06:25.599 --> 01:06:30.519
that need has kept historians and ghost hunters busy for ages,

700
01:06:31.679 --> 01:06:36.440
but the mystery endures. Perhaps that is a key to

701
01:06:36.519 --> 01:06:43.119
her legend's longevity. She could be anyone, and thus she

702
01:06:43.199 --> 01:06:49.239
belongs to everyone. Whether or not you believe in ghosts,

703
01:06:49.760 --> 01:06:56.239
it's undeniable that Resurrection Mary has been kept alive. By storytelling.

704
01:06:57.239 --> 01:07:02.400
This is a legend shaped by oral tradition, embellished by media,

705
01:07:02.920 --> 01:07:10.719
and reinforced by each new generations retelling. So now let's

706
01:07:10.760 --> 01:07:16.400
explore how folklore and media intersect in Mary's tale, and

707
01:07:16.519 --> 01:07:22.320
how Chicago's own cultural landscape provided fertile ground for a

708
01:07:22.360 --> 01:07:29.400
ghost story to thrive. Scholars of folklore would classify Resurrection

709
01:07:29.599 --> 01:07:35.119
Mary under the wide umbrella of the vanishing hitchhiker urban legend,

710
01:07:35.760 --> 01:07:42.000
as noted earlier. Researchers Beardsley and Hanky famously cataloged dozens

711
01:07:42.039 --> 01:07:47.079
of such hitchhiker tales in the nineteen forties, finding striking

712
01:07:47.199 --> 01:07:53.400
commonalities from California to New York. The core elements a

713
01:07:53.400 --> 01:07:57.159
mysterious writer, a request to be let out by a cemetery,

714
01:07:57.559 --> 01:08:04.159
a subsequent disappearance repair across many localities, Mary's story hits

715
01:08:04.280 --> 01:08:10.800
every beat of the classic motif, except many argue it

716
01:08:10.880 --> 01:08:18.359
has more specificity and corroboration than most. Typically vanishing hitchhiker

717
01:08:18.520 --> 01:08:23.600
stories are true urban legends in the folkloric sense. They

718
01:08:23.680 --> 01:08:28.640
happen to a friend of a friend and lack identifying details.

719
01:08:29.479 --> 01:08:35.039
They're often dismissed as just spooky fiction. But Resurrection Mary

720
01:08:35.159 --> 01:08:40.279
stands out because so many accounts are first person or

721
01:08:40.359 --> 01:08:46.720
close to it, complete with names, dates, and locations. Instead

722
01:08:46.760 --> 01:08:50.640
of my cousin's friend once picked up a ghost, we

723
01:08:50.800 --> 01:08:56.479
have named individuals Paulus, collll Ralph, the Cabby, et cetera,

724
01:08:57.199 --> 01:09:01.880
telling their very own stories. This gives Mary's legend a

725
01:09:02.079 --> 01:09:09.159
patina of authenticity that pure folklore generally lacks. Folklorist and

726
01:09:09.239 --> 01:09:14.600
tour guide Richard T. Crowe often championed Mary's credibility on

727
01:09:14.680 --> 01:09:19.680
this basis. He said, of all the ghost stories worth

728
01:09:19.720 --> 01:09:24.760
believing in resurrection, Mary is the one with the best documentation.

729
01:09:26.279 --> 01:09:31.039
Crowe collected affidavits and interviews, amassing what he claimed were

730
01:09:31.159 --> 01:09:36.720
dozens of reliable witness reports over the years. He emphasized

731
01:09:36.800 --> 01:09:42.439
that these witnesses were usually normal, sober people with no

732
01:09:42.640 --> 01:09:49.600
prior paranormal claims, in other words, not attention seekers or kouchs.

733
01:09:50.640 --> 01:09:55.920
Crowe's efforts in the nineteen seventies, including organizing Chicago's first

734
01:09:55.960 --> 01:10:00.640
ghost tours, did a great deal to spread resurrection mayor fame.

735
01:10:01.520 --> 01:10:05.239
He would regale bus loads of tour takers with the tale,

736
01:10:05.800 --> 01:10:10.000
even driving them down Archer Avenue in the dead of night.

737
01:10:11.000 --> 01:10:15.279
This helped transition Mary from a niche local spook story

738
01:10:15.800 --> 01:10:20.720
into a must hear Chicago attraction. One could say Crow

739
01:10:20.840 --> 01:10:25.800
turned Mary into a pillar of Chicago's ghost lore, inspiring

740
01:10:25.920 --> 01:10:32.199
subsequent authors and researchers to dig deeper. The media also

741
01:10:32.359 --> 01:10:37.439
played a pivotal role. We've mentioned Bill Geist's nineteen seventy

742
01:10:37.520 --> 01:10:43.199
nine column and The Tribune's nineteen eighties coverage. Additionally, around

743
01:10:43.279 --> 01:10:49.199
Halloween nineteen seventy five and nineteen eighty five, Chicago newspapers

744
01:10:49.319 --> 01:10:54.960
ran features on local hauntings that included Mary. For example,

745
01:10:55.359 --> 01:10:59.680
the story Hunting a Ghost Named Mary in the Tribune

746
01:11:00.039 --> 01:11:05.039
on October thirty first, nineteen eighty five. TV news got

747
01:11:05.079 --> 01:11:08.600
in on the act two. On Halloween nineteen eighty four,

748
01:11:09.039 --> 01:11:13.920
CBS Chicago ran a segment where reporter Bob Wallace went

749
01:11:14.000 --> 01:11:20.319
ghost hunting at Resurrection Cemetery with Dale Kasmarak. They filmed

750
01:11:20.319 --> 01:11:24.560
the bent Gate Bars and recounted Mary's legend for the

751
01:11:24.640 --> 01:11:30.960
Evening News, bringing her story into countless living rooms. Then

752
01:11:31.119 --> 01:11:36.039
came national television in nineteen ninety four, and BC's Unsolved

753
01:11:36.079 --> 01:11:40.800
Mysteries devoted a segment to Resurrection Mary. The show re

754
01:11:41.000 --> 01:11:46.039
enacted Jerry Paullis's nineteen thirty nine encounter, even using actual

755
01:11:46.079 --> 01:11:50.960
interview footage of Paulus himself from nineteen eighty six. They

756
01:11:51.000 --> 01:11:55.479
spoke with Richard Crowe and others. This episode left a

757
01:11:55.560 --> 01:12:01.479
searing impression on viewers across the country, myself included, who

758
01:12:01.560 --> 01:12:06.359
first learned of Mary from the legendarily eerie voice of

759
01:12:06.439 --> 01:12:12.520
Robert Stack narrating her tale. The segment presented Mary's story

760
01:12:12.600 --> 01:12:19.000
in a sympathetic but spooky way, complete with foggy cemetery dramatizations.

761
01:12:19.720 --> 01:12:24.960
It undeniably sparked renewed interest and probably a few copycat

762
01:12:25.000 --> 01:12:29.560
reports as well. Several witnesses interviewed in the eighties and

763
01:12:29.680 --> 01:12:34.199
nineties admitted they'd grown up hearing the story on television

764
01:12:34.560 --> 01:12:39.720
or from a family member, yet never thought they'd see

765
01:12:39.760 --> 01:12:54.560
Mary themselves until they did. This illustrates an interesting feedback loop.

766
01:12:55.159 --> 01:13:01.039
Media exposure perpetuates the legend, which in turn generates new

767
01:13:01.079 --> 01:13:07.199
reports which keep the media interested. Folklore often works this way,

768
01:13:08.039 --> 01:13:13.000
especially in the modern era. Every ghost special or article

769
01:13:13.199 --> 01:13:18.920
breathes fresh life, so to speak, into Mary, ensuring new

770
01:13:19.000 --> 01:13:26.000
generations learn the legend. Chicago's own cultural context also helped

771
01:13:26.039 --> 01:13:32.960
to sustain resurrection. Mary. The areas linked to her Willow Springs, Justice,

772
01:13:33.479 --> 01:13:38.479
Archer Avenue, the old dance halls are rich with immigrant

773
01:13:38.520 --> 01:13:46.880
history and spiritual traditions. Many residents historically were Catholic, Polish, Lithuanian, Irish,

774
01:13:46.960 --> 01:13:51.079
et cetera, for whom the idea of spirits and prayers

775
01:13:51.119 --> 01:13:56.560
for the dead are taken seriously. In such communities, a

776
01:13:56.600 --> 01:14:01.079
ghost story might be met with more open minds or

777
01:14:01.159 --> 01:14:05.279
at least curiosity. The fact that Mary is tied to

778
01:14:05.359 --> 01:14:10.239
a Catholic cemetery is no accident. Tales of ghosts and

779
01:14:10.359 --> 01:14:17.039
graveyards resonate with cultural views on restless souls and the afterlife. Additionally,

780
01:14:17.560 --> 01:14:21.880
Archer Avenue has long had a reputation among locals as

781
01:14:21.920 --> 01:14:26.680
a haunted highway. Besides Mary, there are other ghost stories

782
01:14:26.760 --> 01:14:32.399
along that route, including a famous tale of phantom monks

783
01:14:32.439 --> 01:14:37.039
near Saint James Church and the haunted Chet's Melody Lounge

784
01:14:37.359 --> 01:14:42.920
claiming its own resident spirits. This concentration of lore gives

785
01:14:42.960 --> 01:14:47.479
the whole area a mystique. People driving there at night

786
01:14:47.680 --> 01:14:54.000
already have goosebumps primed to possibly see something. One cannot

787
01:14:54.000 --> 01:14:58.159
ignore the role of business and tourism in keeping Mary's

788
01:14:58.239 --> 01:15:03.680
story in circulation. Ghost tourism took off in Chicago by

789
01:15:03.720 --> 01:15:08.319
the nineteen eighties, with companies offering ghost tours by bus

790
01:15:08.479 --> 01:15:14.159
or foot. Mary was invariably the star attraction on these tours,

791
01:15:14.960 --> 01:15:19.359
especially the ones that ventured to the South Side. Tour

792
01:15:19.399 --> 01:15:24.319
guides like Crow and later companies such as Chicago Hauntings

793
01:15:24.359 --> 01:15:29.840
Tours and American Ghost Walks proudly feature Resurrection Mary on

794
01:15:29.960 --> 01:15:34.680
their itineraries. They know it's the crowd pleaser, the legend

795
01:15:34.760 --> 01:15:39.920
everyone wants to hear on a dark October night. Even

796
01:15:40.119 --> 01:15:45.479
Chet's Melody Lounge, the tavern across the street from Resurrection Cemetery,

797
01:15:46.000 --> 01:15:49.640
has leaned into the legend. As local lore has it,

798
01:15:50.239 --> 01:15:54.199
every Sunday, the staff at Chet's mixes a Bloody Mary

799
01:15:54.279 --> 01:15:57.439
cocktail and leaves it at the end of the bar

800
01:15:58.159 --> 01:16:04.880
with an empty stool reserved just in case Mary stops in.

801
01:16:06.199 --> 01:16:10.920
It's a tongue in cheek tribute that doubles as great publicity.

802
01:16:11.680 --> 01:16:17.920
Customers and ghost hunters pop in, especially around Halloween, hoping

803
01:16:18.039 --> 01:16:21.720
to catch a glimpse or at least share a drink

804
01:16:22.199 --> 01:16:27.600
with the idea of Mary. This is folklore as a

805
01:16:27.680 --> 01:16:34.439
living economic phenomenon, the ghost story actually brings patrons and

806
01:16:35.000 --> 01:16:40.920
tourism dollars. Crucially, most who participate in these traditions know

807
01:16:41.439 --> 01:16:47.159
Mary's existence is unproven. The owners of chets or the

808
01:16:47.239 --> 01:16:51.640
tour guides don't claim to have hard evidence their trading

809
01:16:51.720 --> 01:16:55.840
in atmosphere and narrative, which, by the way, is the

810
01:16:55.880 --> 01:17:01.279
stock in trade of terrifying and true. Folklorist and author

811
01:17:01.359 --> 01:17:06.720
Adam Selzer, who has researched Chicago's ghosts, emphasizes that one

812
01:17:06.840 --> 01:17:11.600
must separate the fun of the legend from the fact.

813
01:17:12.479 --> 01:17:16.640
In Mary's case, he found that some supposed facts, like

814
01:17:17.119 --> 01:17:23.439
Mary Muskowski's death, turned out to be pure fiction. Selzer

815
01:17:23.520 --> 01:17:28.760
and others caution that many details get mythologized over time.

816
01:17:29.560 --> 01:17:33.960
For example, one recent author recounted a cabby in the

817
01:17:34.000 --> 01:17:38.239
early two thousands hearing a girl say the snow came

818
01:17:38.319 --> 01:17:43.279
early this year, clearly the same line from Bill Geist's

819
01:17:43.439 --> 01:17:50.880
nineteen seventy nine story, just transplanted decades later. This suggests

820
01:17:50.960 --> 01:17:57.399
that later storytellers might simply be rehashing older anecdotes, unknowingly

821
01:17:58.119 --> 01:18:07.079
or not. Folklore is fluid. Stories migrate and transform. Resurrection.

822
01:18:07.279 --> 01:18:12.119
Mary is as much a cultural phenomenon as a paranormal one.

823
01:18:12.640 --> 01:18:17.239
The legend has been nurtured by community storytelling, amplified by

824
01:18:17.279 --> 01:18:23.039
the media, and even commemorated in popular culture. In this way,

825
01:18:23.520 --> 01:18:28.600
Mary will likely never die so long as people enjoy

826
01:18:29.319 --> 01:18:35.439
a good spooky story. She has transcended being a mere

827
01:18:35.560 --> 01:18:40.439
ghost sighting to become a piece of Chicago's cultural heritage,

828
01:18:40.960 --> 01:18:47.960
a shared narrative that connects generations. We'd be remiss if

829
01:18:48.000 --> 01:18:52.000
we didn't talk a little bit about how Resurrection Mary

830
01:18:52.880 --> 01:18:56.680
has put a dark and spooky grip on the broader

831
01:18:56.800 --> 01:19:02.199
popular culture and created a lasting life legacy of mystery

832
01:19:03.159 --> 01:19:14.760
and fear. As one of America's most famous ghost legends,

833
01:19:15.199 --> 01:19:23.680
Resurrection Mary has unsurprisingly inspired books, films, music, and other media.

834
01:19:23.800 --> 01:19:28.600
Here are a few ways Mary's spectral presence has permeated

835
01:19:28.720 --> 01:19:33.800
popular culture, along with how the legend continues to impact

836
01:19:34.279 --> 01:19:39.960
the living. In literature, Mary's story anchors numerous ghost story

837
01:19:40.000 --> 01:19:46.600
anthologies and books, particularly about Chicago lore. Notable examples include

838
01:19:46.720 --> 01:19:52.000
Chicago Haunts by Ursula Bielski nineteen ninety seven, which devotes

839
01:19:52.039 --> 01:19:56.960
a chapter to Mary, and Resurrection Mary, a ghost Story

840
01:19:57.439 --> 01:20:04.800
by Keenan Heisten, which examines the legend. In depth paranormal

841
01:20:04.840 --> 01:20:08.520
authors like Troy Taylor have written extensively on Mary in

842
01:20:08.640 --> 01:20:14.399
books and online articles, exploring both sightings and identity theories.

843
01:20:15.479 --> 01:20:21.159
Each retelling in print helps cement Mary's place among legendary

844
01:20:21.359 --> 01:20:26.479
American ghosts. Even kids books of urban Legends mention her

845
01:20:26.920 --> 01:20:32.680
as the vanishing Hitchhiker of Illinois, ensuring the tale reaches

846
01:20:33.279 --> 01:20:38.680
new audiences as far as television documentaries and dramatizations go.

847
01:20:39.359 --> 01:20:43.720
Aside from unsolved mysteries, Mary appeared in a nineteen eighty

848
01:20:43.720 --> 01:20:48.960
five episode of Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers,

849
01:20:49.000 --> 01:20:54.279
a British TV series on the paranormal. That episode featured

850
01:20:54.359 --> 01:21:00.000
interviews with witnesses and investigators in a serious documentary see

851
01:21:01.520 --> 01:21:05.479
In two thousand seven, a public TV programme called The

852
01:21:05.560 --> 01:21:11.079
Hauntings of Chicago devoted time to Mary's tale, including interviews

853
01:21:11.079 --> 01:21:16.199
with Ursula Bielski and on site footage at Resurrection Cemetery.

854
01:21:17.319 --> 01:21:22.159
Countless cable TV countdowns of top hauntings on Travel Channel

855
01:21:22.199 --> 01:21:28.239
and the like include Resurrection Mary among their highlights. Each Halloween,

856
01:21:28.720 --> 01:21:35.640
local Chicago news reliably recalls the story for viewers, sometimes

857
01:21:35.720 --> 01:21:42.600
rerunning classic segments or updating with any new sightings. In

858
01:21:42.640 --> 01:21:46.880
the world of feature film, Mary's legend inspired at least

859
01:21:47.079 --> 01:21:51.760
two independent horror films in the early two thousands. One

860
01:21:51.880 --> 01:21:57.279
film titled Simply Resurrection Mary from two thousand five, directed

861
01:21:57.319 --> 01:22:01.840
by Shawn Michael Bayer, presented a fiction horror plot about

862
01:22:01.840 --> 01:22:05.760
a group of friends encountering Mary's ghost on a road trip.

863
01:22:06.520 --> 01:22:11.319
The filmmakers took creative liberties, for example portraying Mary as

864
01:22:11.359 --> 01:22:16.000
a vengeful spirit harming the living, which is not part

865
01:22:16.079 --> 01:22:21.119
of the traditional legend. Another independent project in two thousand

866
01:22:21.159 --> 01:22:25.600
and five with the same title by Michael Lansu, also

867
01:22:25.760 --> 01:22:30.279
attempted to adapt the story, even filming scenes at Chet's

868
01:22:30.319 --> 01:22:35.840
Melody Lounge for authenticity. While these films didn't make a

869
01:22:35.960 --> 01:22:41.239
large splash, they show the narrative's appeal. Even if they

870
01:22:41.279 --> 01:22:45.960
weren't critical successes. They contribute to the cult following of

871
01:22:46.039 --> 01:22:52.439
the Mary mythos among horror officionados. Additionally, Mary's story has

872
01:22:52.479 --> 01:22:57.239
been referenced in TV fiction. For instance, an episode of

873
01:22:57.279 --> 01:23:01.880
the series Supernatural in two thousand five featured a vanishing

874
01:23:01.960 --> 01:23:06.760
hitchhiker ghost. Though not called Mary, it was clearly riffing

875
01:23:06.960 --> 01:23:11.920
on the archetype so in a sense, Mary's DNA is

876
01:23:12.079 --> 01:23:18.079
present in many vanishing hitchhiker tropes on screen. Even folk

877
01:23:18.159 --> 01:23:23.560
songs and poems sometimes arise around local legends. There have

878
01:23:23.720 --> 01:23:28.760
been a few lesser known songs titled Resurrection Mary and

879
01:23:28.880 --> 01:23:34.560
references to her in Chicago inspired music one tongue in cheek. Example,

880
01:23:35.159 --> 01:23:39.439
musician Ian Hunter wrote a rock song called Resurrection Mary

881
01:23:39.720 --> 01:23:43.399
in nineteen ninety five, spinning the tale of the ghost

882
01:23:43.520 --> 01:23:48.560
Girl into lyrics, a testament to how widely the story

883
01:23:49.039 --> 01:23:54.840
had spread. The phrase itself, Resurrection Mary has a kind

884
01:23:54.880 --> 01:23:58.600
of poetic ring that has been used in everything from

885
01:23:58.960 --> 01:24:03.159
bar names to a brand of beer on the South Side.

886
01:24:03.319 --> 01:24:08.279
The legend's imagery a lonely road, a flowing white dress,

887
01:24:09.079 --> 01:24:15.319
a graveyard at night is richly evocative, and thus has

888
01:24:15.439 --> 01:24:22.279
permeated creative and imaginative works. In recent years, Resurrection Mary

889
01:24:22.359 --> 01:24:27.680
has found new life online. TikTok videos claiming to capture

890
01:24:28.000 --> 01:24:33.119
shadowy figures on Archer Avenue or recounting late night drives

891
01:24:33.159 --> 01:24:38.800
near Resurrection Cemetery have racked up millions of views on Reddit,

892
01:24:39.199 --> 01:24:44.600
particularly an r slash Paranormal and r slash Unresolved Mysteries.

893
01:24:45.239 --> 01:24:50.600
Users continue to share personal experiences or second hand tales

894
01:24:51.239 --> 01:24:56.319
about the ghostly hitchhiker. While some are clear retellings of

895
01:24:56.399 --> 01:25:01.359
older accounts, others appear to be genuine in modern sightings

896
01:25:02.079 --> 01:25:07.880
or at least modern interpretations of classic ones. YouTube channels

897
01:25:07.920 --> 01:25:12.560
focused on urban legends have produced video essays exploring Mary's

898
01:25:12.640 --> 01:25:18.520
possible identities, while ghost hunting ticktokers stage late night stakouts

899
01:25:18.800 --> 01:25:24.039
at the cemetery gates. This shift shows that Mary's legend,

900
01:25:24.560 --> 01:25:30.079
like all good folklore, adapts to each generation's storytelling tools.

901
01:25:30.920 --> 01:25:35.119
In the age of digital campfires, she remains a compelling

902
01:25:35.760 --> 01:25:42.159
and shareable specter. Perhaps Mary's greatest impact is how strongly

903
01:25:42.279 --> 01:25:47.079
She's been identified with Chicago folklore. She is to Chicago

904
01:25:47.560 --> 01:25:51.560
what the Headless Horseman is to Sleepy Hollow, or what

905
01:25:51.680 --> 01:25:57.319
Bigfoot is to the Pacific Northwest. A flagship legend. The

906
01:25:57.399 --> 01:26:02.920
village of Justice, Illinois, where Resurrection Cemetery is located, often

907
01:26:03.000 --> 01:26:09.239
finds itself included in top Haunted Places lists Because of Mary.

908
01:26:10.079 --> 01:26:14.800
Ghost tour buses still crawl Archer Avenue on weekends in October,

909
01:26:15.560 --> 01:26:20.800
their guides telling Mary's story to wide eyed passengers as

910
01:26:20.840 --> 01:26:31.840
they travel past the cemetery. The now destroyed willow Brook

911
01:26:31.920 --> 01:26:37.000
Ballroom site has also become a stop on tours, especially

912
01:26:37.119 --> 01:26:40.840
after twenty sixteen, both to mourn the loss of the

913
01:26:40.920 --> 01:26:46.640
venue and to honor its ghostly patroness. The anecdote of

914
01:26:46.680 --> 01:26:50.640
the dancing shoes left after the fire shows how deeply

915
01:26:50.880 --> 01:26:56.520
ingrained Mary is in local memory. The community's sadness at

916
01:26:56.520 --> 01:27:01.560
the ballroom's loss was intertwined with Mary's airsnarrative, as if

917
01:27:01.600 --> 01:27:06.039
not only had a historic dance hall burned down, but

918
01:27:06.159 --> 01:27:12.359
the spiritual home of resurrection Mary had. Two groups like

919
01:27:12.439 --> 01:27:16.439
the Ghost Research Society led by Dale Kasmarak, still keep

920
01:27:16.520 --> 01:27:22.239
Mary on their radar. Kasmarak himself has collected thousands of

921
01:27:22.279 --> 01:27:27.359
accounts of Mary, by his estimate, and he encourages anyone

922
01:27:27.720 --> 01:27:32.920
who believes they've seen her to report it. While sightings

923
01:27:32.960 --> 01:27:37.359
have indeed dropped off since the nineteen eighties, some credit

924
01:27:37.439 --> 01:27:41.279
the installation of brighter street lights on Archer Avenue in

925
01:27:41.399 --> 01:27:46.359
nineteen eighty five, which made ghostly apparitions much less common,

926
01:27:47.199 --> 01:27:52.439
the legend persists. Every so often, a story pops up

927
01:27:52.520 --> 01:27:56.479
on an online forum or in a local paper about

928
01:27:56.520 --> 01:28:02.840
a new resurrection Mary sighting. For example, a two thousand

929
01:28:02.840 --> 01:28:08.159
and five report in a Lithuanian language newspaper claimed Mary's

930
01:28:08.239 --> 01:28:12.640
ghost showed up back at the Willowbrook Ballroom, dancing with

931
01:28:12.680 --> 01:28:18.439
a wedding guest, then vanishing on the ride home. The

932
01:28:18.520 --> 01:28:23.319
ballroom staff treated it with a mix of seriousness and humor,

933
01:28:24.159 --> 01:28:27.520
even joking that Mary might haunt the ball room itself

934
01:28:28.079 --> 01:28:33.840
given the occasional unexplained slam of doors or flicker of lights.

935
01:28:34.880 --> 01:28:40.439
So Mary has by no means been retired from ghostly duty.

936
01:28:41.479 --> 01:28:46.560
She still apparently makes her rounds now and then, or

937
01:28:46.600 --> 01:28:53.119
at least people still attribute strange occurrences to her. What

938
01:28:53.239 --> 01:28:57.880
is perhaps most enduring about Resurrection Mary is how she

939
01:28:58.039 --> 01:29:05.600
balances spookiness and sadness. Her story is undeniably eerie, a

940
01:29:05.680 --> 01:29:10.640
lone figure appearing in the dead of night, yet it's

941
01:29:10.680 --> 01:29:17.960
also tragic and sympathetic. She isn't portrayed as a malevolent spirit. Rather,

942
01:29:18.640 --> 01:29:22.960
she's seen as a lost soul, perpetually trying to get

943
01:29:23.000 --> 01:29:28.800
home or back to where she belongs. As Cosmarrek noted,

944
01:29:29.439 --> 01:29:33.199
she seems to realize at the cemetery gate that that

945
01:29:34.039 --> 01:29:40.760
is where she belongs, and then she disappears. This image

946
01:29:40.800 --> 01:29:45.279
of Mary has a kind of melancholy romance to it,

947
01:29:45.800 --> 01:29:50.279
one that keeps people fascinated. There's even a touch of

948
01:29:50.720 --> 01:29:54.720
chivalry in the story, drivers trying to help a young

949
01:29:54.760 --> 01:29:59.199
woman in need, only to discover she was beyond help.

950
01:30:00.159 --> 01:30:04.880
It plays into themes of compassion, regret, and the thin

951
01:30:05.079 --> 01:30:11.880
veil between life and death. In the end, Resurrection Mary

952
01:30:12.119 --> 01:30:17.199
endures because her legend is adaptable and deeply human. It

953
01:30:17.319 --> 01:30:20.600
taps into the fear of the unknown on dark roads,

954
01:30:21.239 --> 01:30:25.039
the grief for young lives cut short, and the wonder

955
01:30:25.560 --> 01:30:30.359
about what lies beyond. It's a ghost story that has

956
01:30:30.439 --> 01:30:36.159
transcended generations, maintained by those who love to be scared

957
01:30:37.079 --> 01:30:43.800
and those who simply love a good mystery. Chicago, renowned

958
01:30:43.840 --> 01:30:48.760
for its diverse cultural heritage, gave birth to Resurrection Mary,

959
01:30:49.520 --> 01:30:53.439
a figure now celebrated as one of the world's most

960
01:30:53.560 --> 01:30:59.920
captivating and haunting tales. On a chilly night, if you've

961
01:31:00.119 --> 01:31:06.640
find yourself driving northeast along Archer Avenue past Resurrection Cemetery,

962
01:31:07.800 --> 01:31:11.279
you might feel a prickling on the back of your neck.

963
01:31:12.560 --> 01:31:16.560
Perhaps you'll glance at the empty passenger seat in your

964
01:31:16.600 --> 01:31:22.239
car and imagine, just for a moment, a quiet young

965
01:31:22.279 --> 01:31:29.800
woman sitting there. The rational mind knows it's just a legend.

966
01:31:29.840 --> 01:31:33.720
But the power of Resurrection Mary is that she makes

967
01:31:33.760 --> 01:31:40.159
you wonder what if? Tonight We've peeled back the layers

968
01:31:40.239 --> 01:31:44.159
of this famous ghost story. We saw how an oral

969
01:31:44.279 --> 01:31:48.159
legend from the nineteen thirties evolved into a city wide

970
01:31:48.199 --> 01:31:54.039
phenomenon by the nineteen seventies, buoyed by real people's testimonies

971
01:31:54.479 --> 01:31:58.520
and a healthy dose of media intrigue. We track the

972
01:31:58.720 --> 01:32:05.279
historical candidates Mary, Brogovi and Anorchis and others, each contributing

973
01:32:05.359 --> 01:32:11.479
their own threads to the intricate mystery of Mary's identity. However,

974
01:32:12.119 --> 01:32:17.439
none of these threads emerged as the sought after golden thread.

975
01:32:18.680 --> 01:32:23.399
We put the sightings under a microscope, finding plenty of consistency,

976
01:32:23.600 --> 01:32:28.520
but no concrete proof, reminding us that anecdote is not

977
01:32:28.720 --> 01:32:33.840
the same as evidence. We also acknowledge the vibrant folklore machine,

978
01:32:34.640 --> 01:32:41.560
the storytellers, the newspapers, the tours, the podcasts that keeps

979
01:32:41.640 --> 01:32:46.880
Mary's story fresh and captivating. We've tried to be clear

980
01:32:47.479 --> 01:32:54.399
about where established facts end an urban legend begins. Resurrection

981
01:32:54.600 --> 01:32:59.359
Mary is likely an amalgam of truth and tale. There

982
01:32:59.560 --> 01:33:04.239
was a Bregovi who died tragically in nineteen thirty four,

983
01:33:05.039 --> 01:33:08.439
and an Anna Norkis, who perished returning from a dance

984
01:33:08.960 --> 01:33:15.479
in nineteen twenty seven. Their stories undeniably fed the legend's creation.

985
01:33:16.600 --> 01:33:21.000
There were dozens of sober, respectable folks who swore on

986
01:33:21.079 --> 01:33:27.880
their honor they encountered something uncanny on Archer Avenue. We

987
01:33:28.000 --> 01:33:32.439
have their words, even if we can't verify their experiences

988
01:33:33.000 --> 01:33:39.000
from a scientific perspective. With all that being said, without doubt,

989
01:33:39.600 --> 01:33:44.800
Resurrection Mary has made a cultural impact, evident in everything

990
01:33:44.880 --> 01:33:49.800
from haunted barstools to film scripts to faded green paint

991
01:33:50.079 --> 01:33:54.600
on a pair of bent cemetery gates. All of these

992
01:33:55.239 --> 01:34:00.239
are real in their own way. Yet the goat ghost

993
01:34:00.319 --> 01:34:06.760
herself that remains a matter of personal belief. Skeptics will

994
01:34:06.760 --> 01:34:11.439
say Mary is just a classic urban legend, a story

995
01:34:11.520 --> 01:34:17.159
that grew in the telling, reinforced by coincidence and imagination.

996
01:34:18.239 --> 01:34:22.119
Believers will counter that there are simply too many matching

997
01:34:22.199 --> 01:34:27.319
reports over too long a time to dismiss that perhaps

998
01:34:27.359 --> 01:34:33.079
some restless spirit truly walks Archer Avenue. Even if we

999
01:34:33.199 --> 01:34:38.600
can't name her with certainty, we can verify the historical

1000
01:34:38.680 --> 01:34:43.479
context and relay the eyewitness accounts, but we cannot solve

1001
01:34:43.640 --> 01:34:49.520
the supernatural riddle. Resurrection Mary dwells in that liminal space

1002
01:34:50.039 --> 01:34:56.960
where history and folklore intertwine. One thing is certain, however,

1003
01:34:57.800 --> 01:35:01.479
the legend of Resurrection Mary has become a part of

1004
01:35:01.560 --> 01:35:07.600
Chicago's identity, its story told around camp fires, in tour

1005
01:35:07.680 --> 01:35:13.359
buses and on front porches each Halloween. It's a wink

1006
01:35:13.600 --> 01:35:17.319
in the local bar and a shiver on the lonely

1007
01:35:17.479 --> 01:35:24.079
road at night. In that sense, Mary is very much alive,

1008
01:35:25.479 --> 01:35:30.960
kept alive by community memory and the enduring thrill of

1009
01:35:31.000 --> 01:35:36.319
a spooky tale well told. So the next time you're

1010
01:35:36.439 --> 01:35:40.960
driving past an old cemetery late at night and you

1011
01:35:41.079 --> 01:35:47.439
spot a lone figure by the roadside, think of Resurrection Mary.

1012
01:35:48.279 --> 01:35:53.239
You might be witnessing a piece of living folklore, or

1013
01:35:54.119 --> 01:35:59.279
you might just be seeing things. Either way, you've become

1014
01:35:59.399 --> 01:36:06.840
part of the story. Another driver on Archer Avenue with

1015
01:36:07.000 --> 01:36:14.000
goosebumps check in the rear view mirror for a vanishing

1016
01:36:14.119 --> 01:36:19.399
girl in a white dress. And as long as those

1017
01:36:19.439 --> 01:36:26.840
goosebumps prickle and that story is shared, Resurrection Mary will

1018
01:36:26.960 --> 01:36:34.399
never truly die. Terrifying and true is narrated by Enrique Kuto.

1019
01:36:34.720 --> 01:36:38.239
It's executive produced by Rob Fields and bobble Toopia dot

1020
01:36:38.239 --> 01:36:41.880
com and produced by Dan Wilder with original theme music

1021
01:36:41.960 --> 01:36:44.600
by Ray Mattis. If you have a story you think

1022
01:36:44.640 --> 01:36:47.399
we should cover on Terrifying and True, send us an

1023
01:36:47.439 --> 01:36:51.079
email at Weekly Spooky at gmail dot com, and if

1024
01:36:51.079 --> 01:36:52.640
you want to support us for as little as one

1025
01:36:52.640 --> 01:36:55.760
dollar a month, go to Weeklyspooky dot com slash join.

1026
01:36:56.000 --> 01:36:58.239
Your support for as little as one dollar a month

1027
01:36:58.319 --> 01:37:00.640
keeps the show going and speak think of. I want

1028
01:37:00.640 --> 01:37:02.800
to say an extra special thank you to our Patreon

1029
01:37:02.920 --> 01:37:05.640
podcast boosters, folks who pay a little bit more to

1030
01:37:05.680 --> 01:37:07.159
hear their name at the end of the show, and

1031
01:37:07.319 --> 01:37:11.760
they are Johnny Nix, Kate and Lulu, Jessica Fuller, Mike Escuey,

1032
01:37:12.119 --> 01:37:15.680
Jenny Green, Amber Hansburg, Karen we Met, Jack Ker, and

1033
01:37:15.840 --> 01:37:18.239
Craig Cohen. Thank you all so much, and thank you

1034
01:37:18.319 --> 01:37:21.159
for listening. We'll see you all right here next time

1035
01:37:21.520 --> 01:37:24.039
on Terrifying and True