The Oh Henry Ballroom is jumping, as it usually is on a weekend. It must be close to midnight, judging by the haze of cigarette smoke hanging over the increasingly drunk young people dancing and laughing.
You’ve danced a bit here and there, but haven’t really connected with any of the girls so far. Maybe tonight just isn’t your night. Then, you see her. A waifish girl in a white dress stands by herself away from the crowd. She’s beautiful, and you’re transfixed. But there’s something more about her. She seems… different.
Almost without realizing it, you’re walking over to her. She sees you approach and you lock eyes. Those dark eyes nearly stop your heart.
You ask her to dance. She smiles and nods, and you dance… and dance. It’s all a haze, really. You try to ask her about herself, but she barely speaks. You get her name: Mary. After a while, you stop trying. She must have her reasons for not wanting to talk, and frankly you’re too entranced by her touch to care.
It both feels like you dance forever, and at the same time the evening is over before you know it. You and she are one of the last couples to leave the dance hall and step out into the night air. You ask if you can drive her home, and again, she smiles and nods. She says she lives close by—you know the place—and you both climb into your 1941 Buick Roadmaster (your pride and joy).
As you drive down Archer Road, the moon is full and the night air is warm. All in all, you can’t imagine a more perfect evening.
Unexpectedly, she grabs your arm and tells you to stop the car. You look around, but you’re still a ways off from her house. The only thing here is Resurrection Cemetery. She looks over at you urgently, her hand tightening on your arm, and tells you to stop once more.
You hit the brakes. Without a word, she gets out of the car and begins walking toward the cemetery gates. Just as she reaches the wrought iron and lifts a hand to touch it, her figure begins to fade. She looks back at you with mournful eyes. Then, right in front of your disbelieving eyes, she vanishes.
For a moment, you’re too stunned to move. When you regain some of your senses, you jump out of your car and run to the gates. They remain closed. You push them open and enter, scanning the darkness. Nothing moves. There’s no sound. There’s… nothing…
You search the cemetery, looking for any indication of what happened to Mary, but you are alone. When you plop back down behind the wheel of you car, you just stare out the windshield and desperately try to process what just happened. Are you drunk? Are you dreaming? You glance over at the empty passenger seat and you know… she was there.
A thought pops into your head. She told you where she lived. It’s late, probably too late to go calling, but you have to know.
Following a short drive, you park in front of a small house. The porch light is on, but the rest of the house seems dark. Despite this, you walk to the front door and knock. It takes a few more knocks before a light flicks on inside and you hear footsteps.
When the door opens, an older woman in a robe answers. She blinks her bleary eyes at you.
You apologize for disturbing her at such a late hour. You just wanted to make sure that Mary got home safely.
“Mary?” She asks.
You explain that you met her at the dance and was driving her home, but she asked to get out at the cemetery.
“It couldn’t have been my Mary,” the woman says with a shake of her head. “My daughter Mary died three years ago in a car accident.”
You’re about to apologize for getting the wrong house, but then you catch sight of a framed picture sitting on a table behind the woman. It’s a picture of Mary, your Mary. You feel the blood drain from your face and you feel a bit dizzy.
The woman asks if you’re alright. You quickly apologize for bothering her before turning and hurrying back to your car.
As the years pass, you get on with your life. You get married, have a family, and you eventually die of a cardiac arrest at 81. To your dying breath, however, you can’t escape the memory of your evening with Resurrection Mary.
The legend of Resurrection Mary has endured for nearly a century in and around the Chicago area, one of many ghostly hitchhiker legends from around the country. In it, drivers stop to pick up a beautiful, but lonely looking young woman. She tells them where she lives, but before they get there she asks them stop outside the cemetery. There she walks up to the gates and disappears before their very eyes.
Other motorists report that a young woman suddenly appears on the road in front of them. The drivers don’t have time to hit the brakes before they hit the woman. Panicking, they bolt from their cars and search the area for the person they ran over, but there’s no one there. Some of these drivers even report the accident they’re sure just happened, but no victim is ever found.
The identity of Resurrection Mary is a mystery, even today. Some think that Mary is Mary Bregovy, who was killed in a car accident in 1934. This theory is complicated by the fact that the accident happened further downtown, away from the cemetery.
Another idea that’s gained popularity is that Resurrection Mary is a woman named Anna Norkus. Anna also died in a car accident in 1927 while on her way home from a night of dancing at the Oh Henry Ballroom. We will probably never know for sure.
But, if you’re driving down Archer Road near Resurrection Cemetery in the middle of the night, keep an eye out for poor Mary. If you do see her, and you’re brave enough, stop and give her a ride.