In the early 1930s, so the story goes, a young Polish woman was killed in a car crash on the way back from a dance at the O’Henry Ballroom on the south side. Since then many people have reported picking up a young woman in a fancy dress along Archer Avenue, only to see her disappear from her seat as the car passed Resurrection Cemetery. One story has a passerby noticing a woman locked behind the cemetery’s fence after dark and calling the police. When the police arrived, they didn’t find anyone–but they did discover two bars of the gate bent outward, bearing the imprint of human hands. The legend of Resurrection Mary has been a favorite Chicago ghost tale for years.
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“There’s another story where people thought they hit somebody and got out of the car and nobody was there,” says Michele Volansky, dramaturge of Steppenwolf Theatre Company. “It’s very similar to the urban legend of the woman in white, but this is so specific to that area of Resurrection Cemetery that I don’t think it’s a variation.”
Thebus says one reason such stories have so much power is that they serve as “warning tales. If you have too much fun or ignore the warnings of elders, then this thing happens. A lot of the explanations as to why the devil baby existed were about cultural taboos–about unwed mothers or sin or religious teachings being disobeyed. It’s also an expression of being in a dangerous new place and losing the values of the country you came from…but who knows? There’s also the element of mystery–where did it start, and how did so many people know about it?”
Whispering City: Great Chicago Ghost Stories will be performed at 11 AM Saturdays at Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted, through October 23. Tickets cost $10; call 312-335-1650. Additional performances will be presented at 7 on October 28 and 29 and at 3 on October 30 and 31 at the Chicago Historical Society, Clark at North; tickets for these shows are $7, $3 for kids (call 312-642-4600 for reservations).
