Resurrection Mary Part 1

Astonishing Legends

Scott Philbrook

History, Society & Culture

4.6 • 9.8K Ratings

🗓️ 26 March 2018

⏱️ 103 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Legend has it, that sometime in the late 1920s or early '30s, a young couple was enjoying an evening of dancing at the Oh Henry Ballroom, later renamed the Willowbrook Ballroom & Banquets, located southwest of Chicago, IL. After an argument, the woman stormed out, deciding she'd rather walk home than spend another minute with her boyfriend. As she walked along Archer Avenue on a wintery night, she was struck and killed by a hit and run driver. Her bereaved parents buried her at nearby Resurrection Cemetery in the white ballgown and shoes in which she died. Ever since, people have reported either dancing with or giving a ride to a hauntingly beautiful young woman, with long blonde hair and blue eyes, dressed in a white gown, who at some point vanishes from their midst. Accounts of these spectral encounters have been so numerous over the years that the legend of "Resurrection Mary" is perhaps Chicago's most famous and beloved ghost story.

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0:00.0	This episode of Estonishing Legends is brought to you by the Great Courses Plus,
0:03.3	Cypricrooter, Casper, Squarespace, and our contributors at patreon.com.
0:08.7	1939 was a year of unrest and change around the world. Hitler announced a five-year naval
0:15.3	expansion known as Plan Z, designed to best the royal navy by 1944. An earthquake in Chile
0:23.8	killed 30,000 civilians, and Amelia Earhart, missing two years, was officially declared dead.
0:32.0	The US City of Chicago was dealing with organized crime, and the union workers' organization
0:37.6	that later became the AFL-CIO was taking shape. The Great Depression was thankfully drawing
0:44.4	to a close, and Big Band Music was taking off as ballroom spraying up across the country to host
0:50.8	and the tens of thousands of kids and young adults who readily paid to listen and dance to their music.
0:57.1	Chicago had no shortage of these ballrooms in 1939, including the Liberty Grove and Hall at 47th
1:04.0	and Mozart, and that was the one that a young 25-year-old man named Jerry Pailess went to one
1:10.1	night that year, as he had so many times before. By his own declaration, he was not a man who lacked
1:17.3	self-confidence, and upon seeing a tall, beautiful young blonde woman standing alone in a stunning
1:23.0	white party dress, he made his way over to her and asked for a dance. They wound up dancing together
1:30.4	all night, but as much as Jerry tried to get to know her, she offered very little conversation
1:36.5	in return. Other than to say her name was Mary, and that she lived on the south side of town,
1:42.9	south of Damon Avenue. While they danced, Jerry noticed something odd about her. Her hands were
1:50.0	ice-cold. As the night drew to a close, he offered her a ride home. They left Liberty Grove and
1:57.4	walked out to Jerry's car. Along the way, Mary told him that she'd like to go out to arch her road.
2:03.8	Getting to it wasn't too far away, but it was in the exact opposite direction of South Damon
2:10.3	Avenue, where she claimed to live. Jerry asked her why, and she insisted she just wanted to go for a
2:17.2	drive out archer. At the time, it was not nearly as developed as it is today, and the drive was a
	...

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