Resurrection Mary: A Fading Legend by Jeff Woodward

Resurrection Mary, Chicago’s most famous spectre, has had a dying off, if you will, over the past 20 years. Though there have been some occasional sightings in the last decade or so, the most recent sighting dates to 2001, by a young couple travelling northbound on Archer Avenue through the town of Justice, Illinois, in the vicinity of Resurrection Cemetery. They claim to have seen a young woman dressed in a white evening gown, walking northbound on Archer Avenue. Curiosity grabbing hold of them, they turned around after driving some blocks up the road, and heading back the way they came from. To their surprise, the woman in white was no longer to be seen. After the frightful experience, the young man and woman both swore off driving down Archer Avenue for the rest of their lives.

Was it Resurrection Mary that they report to have seen? Or perhaps it was their sub consciousness beaming the image of a ghost onto that of an everyday flesh and blood woman, who just happened to be walking down the road at the exact same time? To decide, let us take a walk through history, into the story of Resurrection Mary, the O’Henry Ballroom, and the myth itself.

The O’Henry Ballroom, now called the Willowbrook Ballroom, is located at 8900 Archer Avenue, in Willow Springs Illinois. At the time of Resurrection Mary’s death, O’Henry’s was one of the top ballrooms in the United States, drawing anywhere of up to ten thousand people a week to use it’s dance floor. Over the years, the ballroom has had its ups and downs, as the fad of ballroom dancing ceased to draw in the numbers they had in the 1930s and 1940s. The sightings of the apparition were at their peak between the 1940s and 1970s.

According to legend, in the 1930s, a young woman, who was dancing at the O’Henry Ballroom, became entangled in an argument with her boyfriend. Frustrated, she left the ballroom, and proceeded to hitchhike north on Archer Avenue. It was then that she was suddenly struck and killed, the driver of the vehicle not stopping. There has been speculation over the years on who the young woman actually was, and her identity is still a subject of debate among researchers. The crime remained unsolved, and the appearances of a woman in white, hitchhiking along Archer Avenue, from the vicinity of the O’Henry Ballroom in Willow Springs, to Resurrection Cemetery in Justice, Illinois, about 5 miles north, became more commonplace.

The sightings of Mary vary from person to person. During one account, a man claimed to have picked up a young woman, aged around twenty, dressed in a white dress, and drove her to a local bar, located just south of Resurrection Cemetery, on the east side of the street. There, he danced one song with her, and she disappeared before his and the other bar patrons eyes. During another account, a taxi driver picked up a young woman on a cold winters morning, wearing only a “fancy” dress, as he put it. The supposed ghost had the taxi driver drive her down Archer Avenue. When they pulled up in front of a shack-type dwelling, the woman yelled, “Stop here, stop here!” which the taxi driver did. He looked over at the shack, and was about to ask the young woman a question. When he glanced back at the woman, she had vanished. Or so the story goes.

The 1990s and into the new millennium brought a decrease in the apparition’s sightings. As the southwest suburbs of Chicago began to build up during the housing boom of the late 90s to the present day, traffic has increased substantially along Archer Avenue, from Route 83 to Route 45. With the increase of commuters, one would assume that the sightings of Chicago’s Most Famous Ghost would have skyrocketed, when in fact, they declined. There has only been one reported sighting since 2001, in contrast to the tens of sightings that have occurred during the 1970s and 1980s. Could it be that the spirit of Mary was only seen by those who knew of her story, and unconsciencly hoped to catch a glimpse of the apparition, hence causing it to become a reality? Or, quite possibly, Mary’s killer has passed away, causing her to find her peace on earth, and to finally be accepted into the world of the dead.