In 1934, on a cold winter night, a young girl was returning home from a dance she had attended at the O. Henry Ballroom on Archer Avenue in a suburb of Chicago.In a hit and run car accident, the girl thought to be known as Mary Bregavy was killed. Wearing the long white gown and shoes that she had worn to the dance, Mary’s parents laid her body to rest in Resurrection Cemetery.
For 5 years, Mary rested peacefully, until one day in 1939. On a cold January night of that year, a cab driver picked up a woman on Archer Avenue wearing a long white gown. She directed him North on Archer. She asked him then to stop and pointed to the place she wanted him to stop. He looked at where she pointed and then turned to look at her, only she was gone. The cab had stopped directly in front of Resurrection Cemetery.
That same year, a man named Jerry Palus reported dancing with a beautiful blonde girl in a long white dress. After a night of dancing, he offered her a ride home. She directed him North on Archer Avenue. When they began to drive by Resurrection Cemetery, she dashed out of his car never to be seen by him again.
A more concrete report of Mary’s ghost occurred on August 10, 1976. A man was driving past Resurrection Cemetery in the evening and saw that a girl appeared to be locked behind the steel gates. He reported this to the police and Police Sergeant Pat Homer responded to the call. He looked for this girl to no avail, but what he did find was that two of the steel bars had been pried apart and human handprints were embedded into the metal. On the bars themselves were scorch marks which looked like skin texture and handprints.
Experts were brought in to explain how the bars could have been bent and no one could offer any explanation. In 1977, the bars were blow-torched by the cemetery and though the scorch marks were burned off, the handprints that were embedded into the metal could not be removed!
Other reports in 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1997 and 1998 have all told similar stories. Many people have reported seeing a girl dash in front of their cars in front of the cemetery. She is so close that people end up slamming on their brakes scared that they are going to hit the girl. But when the cars stops, they never end up hitting anyone and a girl is never to be seen. Other stories tell of people calling the police to report a woman lying very injured or dead on the side of the road in front of the cemetery. By the time the police or ambulance arrive, the woman is gone but an imprint of her body remains on the ground.
Could these numerous accounts of Resurrection Mary be true or have people made them up just to make a good ghost story? Will this question ever be answered?
