Resurrection Mary

Resurrection Mary is Chicago’s most famous ghost, a beautiful young woman who has been hitchhiking along Archer Avenue since the 1930s. Dozens of people claim to have encountered her, all telling remarkably similar stories.

The Legend

According to the most common version, Mary was a young Polish woman who died in a car accident in the 1930s after spending an evening dancing at the Oh Henry Ballroom. She was buried in Resurrection Cemetery in her white dancing dress and dancing shoes.

The Encounters

Witnesses describe picking up a beautiful young woman with light hair, dressed in a white dress, along Archer Avenue. She asks for a ride and provides directions. As they pass Resurrection Cemetery, she vanishes from the vehicle without opening the door.

Other witnesses report dancing with her at local ballrooms. She is described as beautiful but cold to the touch. She leaves the ballroom and vanishes when they reach the cemetery gates.

The Cemetery Gates

In 1976, a passing driver reported seeing a woman in white gripping the cemetery gates from inside. When police arrived, they found no one, but the iron bars of the gate were bent apart, and what appeared to be handprints were seared into the metal.

Investigations

Researchers have attempted to identify the real Mary but have found several possible candidates who died under circumstances matching the legend. None has been definitively proven to be the ghost.

Assessment

Resurrection Mary represents the classic vanishing hitchhiker legend, but the consistency of reports over nine decades and the physical evidence at the cemetery gates set this case apart from mere folklore.