~ GHOST STORIES ~

Arden said:

Bumping this oldie, you never know when there might be something new to add


~Setting out a basket of Snickers, Reeses cups, Turtles, Almond Joy bars... dig deep, there are other kinds at the bottom~

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Arden said:

Ouija, anyone?

http://www.prairieghosts.com/ouija1.jpg

Has playing this game ever given you the chills?

OUIJA BOARD STORIES AND EVENTS

- One of the most mysterious looking buildings in Los Angeles is the famed Bradbury Building. Over the years, a variety of Hollywood film makers have been drawn to it and have shot films like DOA, Blade Runner and Seven here. Legend has it that George Wyman consulted his dead brother using a Ouija Board about it before he built it for Louis Bradbury in 1893. Wyman had little architectural experience at the time and debated on whether or not to take on the monumental task. His brother convinced him, through the board, that the building would make him famous -- and it did.

- Arthur Henry Ward (better known as Sax Rohmer), the author of the famous "Fun Manchu" adventure novels, was also a member of the Golden Dawn and penned a number of occult books as well. According to his own account, he started his lucrative writing career on advice gained through a Ouija board. He asked how to best make a living as a writer and the board spelled out "c-h-i-n-a-m-a-n". The novels that followed brought him fame and fortune and franchise that is still popular today.

- A St. Louis housewife named Pearl Curran stunned the literary world in the early 1900's by channeling a spirit through the Ouija Board and producing thousands of pages and novels and poetry that allegedly came through a spirit named Patience Worth. Click Here to Read the Complete Story

- Starting in 1919, author Stewart Edward White and his wife, Betty, spent 17 years studying Betty's mediumship with a group of entities who called themselves the "Invisibles". She made initial contact with them using a Ouija board and then continued the communications through automatic writing. The White's later produced the Betty Book to chronicle the events in 1937.

- In 1933, Dorothea Turley and her 15 year-old daughter, Mattie, were convicted of the murder their husband and father. On the witness stand, Mattie stated how the Ouija board, which had been directed by her mother, had told her that it was all right to kill her father so that her mother could marry "cowboy". Mattie later killed him with a shotgun. The jury determined that the crime had more to do with insurance money and Dorothea's lover than a Ouija board and Dorothea went to prison and Mattie for reform school, where she stayed until she was 21. Her mother was released on an appeal three years after the original trial.

- In 1972, poet Jane Roberts founded the "channeling" movement when she had a paranormal experience that she described as "feeling her consciousness leave her body". She and her husband began experimenting with a Ouija Board and made contact with a being known as "Seth". The result of this was several popular books that were dictated by Seth himself, including Seth Speaks.

- According to legend (and boy, is this one questionable!) musician Alice Cooper allegedly named his band (and himself?) after the spirit of a 17th century witch with this name that he claimed to have contacted through a Ouija Board. He and his band mates thought the name so cool that they decided it was the perfect moniker for the group -- except for one hold out, who thought the name was stupid. It should be noted that earlier names of the band had been the Earwigs, the Spiders and Nazz, so perhaps "Alice Copper" was an improvement. Regardless, this was the first story of the band name's origin and there have been others since then. It's likely that they don't even remember what really happened!

- In 1990 (or 1991) several students decided to try out a Ouija Board at a small cemetery on the campus of Benedictine University in Chicago. One of the young men who participated in the session allegedly became “possessed”. He started screaming and howling uncontrollably and his companions were unable to calm him down or to keep him from kicking, biting and flailing about. Campus police were said to have assisted in getting the young man back to his room and he ended up being taken to an area hospital, where he was sedated and treated. The story of the incident was told, re-told and embellished around campus over the course of the next few days and interesting elements began to be added to the tale. One of the most popular was that the boy was taken to Benedictine Hall and locked in a room all night, in hopes that he might tire himself out. When the door was unlocked, he was sitting quietly in a chair and looking out a window that was covered with swarming flies! Unfortunately, the real story was not so chilling or exciting. According to reliable sources, the boy simply freaked himself out during the Ouija session. The spooky setting and the excitable nature of the boy combined for a disaster when one of his friends decided to play a prank and make everyone think the ghost was close by. The young man became hysterical and the events that followed were a result of his own overactive imagination.

Rather than the story of the “possessed” boy being a cautionary tale, Ouija boards became even more popular on campus in the weeks that followed. Some credited the boards with terrible powers, including one girl who blamed her séance for a mysterious fire that started in her room on Neuzil Hall. She had left her Ouija board sitting on her sofa when she went to dinner but was called back to her room when the sofa somehow went up in flames. After the fire was put out, no trace could be found of the Ouija Board!

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Arden said:

Resurrection Mary

Although stories of "vanishing hitchhikers" in Chicago date back to the horse and buggy days, Mary’s tale begins in the 1930’s. It was around this time that drivers along Archer Avenue started reporting strange encounters with a young woman in a white dress. She always appeared to be real, until she would inexplicably vanish. The reports of this girl began in the middle 1930’s and started when motorists passing by Resurrection Cemetery began claiming that a young woman was attempting to jump onto the running boards of their automobiles.

Not long after, the woman became more mysterious, and much more alluring. The strange encounters began to move further away from the graveyard and closer to the O' Henry Ballroom, which is now known as the Willowbrook. She was now reported on the nearby roadway and sometimes, inside of the ballroom itself. On many occasions, young men would meet a girl at the ballroom, dance with her and then offer her a ride home at the end of the evening. She would always accept and offer vague directions that would lead north on Archer Avenue. When the car would reach the gates of Resurrection Cemetery, the young woman would always vanish.

More common were the claims of motorists who would see the girl walking along the road. They would offer her a ride and then witness her vanishing from their car. These drivers could describe the girl in detail and nearly every single description precisely matched the previous accounts. The girl was said to have light blond hair, blue eyes and was wearing a white party dress. Some more attentive drivers would sometimes add that she wore a thin shawl, or dancing shoes, and that she had a small clutch purse.

Others had even more harrowing experiences. Rather than having the girl vanish for their car, they claimed to actually run her down in the street. They claimed to see a woman in a white dress bolt in front of their car near the cemetery and would actually describe the sickening thud as she was struck by the front of the car. When they stopped to go to her aid, she would be gone. Some even said that the automobile passed directly through the girl. At that point, she would turn and disappear through the cemetery gates.

Bewildered and shaken drivers began to appear almost routinely in nearby businesses and even at the nearby Justice, Illinois police station. They told strange and frightening stories and sometimes they were believed and sometimes they weren’t. Regardless, they created an even greater legend of the vanishing girl, who would go on to become Resurrection Mary.

But who is this young woman, or at least who was she when she was alive?

Most researchers agree that the most accurate version of the story concerns a young girl who was killed while hitchhiking down Archer Avenue in the early 1930’s. Apparently, she had spent the evening dancing with a boyfriend at the O Henry Ballroom. At some point, they got into an argument and Mary (as she has come to be called) stormed out of the place. Even though it was a cold winter’s night, she thought, she would rather face a cold walk home than another minute with her boorish lover.

She left the ballroom and started walking up Archer Avenue. She had not gotten very far when she was struck and killed by a passing automobile. The driver fled the scene and Mary was left there to die.

Her grieving parents buried her in Resurrection Cemetery, wearing a white dress and her dancing shoes. Since that time, her spirit has been seen along Archer Avenue, perhaps trying to return to her grave after one last night among the living.

It has never been known just who the earthly counterpart of Mary might have been, but follow this link to several suggestions that have been made.

Over the years, there have been many sightings and encounters with the ghost alleged to be “Resurrection Mary”. Dozens of young men have told of picking up the same girl, or meeting her at the ballroom, only to have her disappear from their car. Perhaps the most believable encounter with Mary took place in 1939 and involved a young man named Jerry Palus. Click here to read about his close encounter!

The majority of the reports seem to come from the cold winter months, like the account passed on by a cab driver. He picked up a girl who was walking along Archer Avenue one night in 1941. It was very cold outside, but she was not wearing a coat. She jumped into the cab and told him that she needed to get home very quickly. She directed him along Archer Avenue and a few minutes later, he looked back and she was gone. He realized that he was passing in front of the cemetery when she disappeared.

The stories continued but perhaps the strangest account of Mary was the one that occurred on the night of August 10, 1976. This event has remained so bizarre after all this time because on this occasion, Mary did not just appear as a passing spirit. It was on this night that she left evidence behind!

A driver was passing by the cemetery around 10:30 that night when he happened to see a girl standing on the other side of the gates. He said that when he saw her, she was wearing a white dress and grasping the iron bars of the gate. The driver was considerate enough to stop down the street at the Justice police station and alert them to the fact that someone had been accidentally locked in the cemetery at closing time. An officer responded to the call but when he arrived there was no one there. The graveyard was dark and deserted and there was no sign of any girl.

But his inspection of the gates, where the girl had been seen standing, did reveal something. The revelation chilled him to the bone! He found that two of the bars in the gate had been pulled apart and bent at sharp angles. To make things worse, at the points on the green-colored bronze where they had been pried apart were blackened scorch marks. Within these marks was what looked to be skin texture and handprints that had been seared into the metal with incredible heat.

The marks of the small hands made big news and curiosity-seekers came from all over the area to see them. In an effort to discourage the crowds, cemetery officials attempted to remove the marks with a blowtorch, making them look even worse. Finally, they cut the bars off and installed a wire fence until the two bars could be straightened or replaced.

The cemetery emphatically denied the supernatural version of what happened to the bars. They claimed that a truck backed into the gates while doing sewer work at the cemetery and that grounds workers tried to fix the bars by heating them with a blowtorch and bending them. The imprint in the metal, they said, was from a workman trying to push them together again. While this explanation was quite convenient, it did not explain why the marks of small fingers were clearly visible in the metal.

The bars were removed to discourage onlookers, but taking them out had the opposite effect and soon, people began asking what the cemetery had to hide. The events allegedly embarrassed local officials, so they demanded that the bars be put back into place. Once they were returned to the gate, they were straightened and painted over with green paint so that the blackened area would match the other bars. Unfortunately though, the scorched areas continued to defy all attempts to cover them and the twisted spots where the handprints had been impressed remained obvious until just recently, when the bars were removed for good.

During the 1970’s and 1980’s, Mary sightings reached their peak. People from many different walks of life, from cab drivers to ministers said they had picked her up and had given her rides. It was during this period that Resurrection Cemetery was undergoing some major renovations and perhaps this was what caused her restlessness.

During the 1990’s, reports of Mary slacked off, but they have never really stopped altogether. They continue to occur today and while many of the stories are harder to believe these days, as the tales of Mary have infiltrated our culture to such a degree that almost anyone with an interest in ghosts has heard of her, some of the stories still appear to be chillingly real.

So, who is Mary and does she exist? Many remain skeptical about her, but I have found that this doesn’t really seem to matter. You see, people are still seeing Mary walking along Archer Avenue at night. Drivers are still stopping to pick up a forlorn figure who seems inadequately dressed in the winter months, when encounters are most prevalent. Curiosity-seekers still come to see the gates where the twisted and burned bars were once located and some even roam the graveyard, hoping to stumble across the place where Mary’s body was laid to rest.

Who is she? No one knows but that has not stopped the stories, tales and even songs from being spun about her. She remains an enigma and her legend lives on, not content to vanish, as Mary does when she reaches the gates to Resurrection Cemetery.

You see, our individual belief, or disbelief, does not really matter. Mary lives on anyway. I doubt that we will ever know who she really was, or why she haunts this peculiar stretch of roadway. And, in all honesty, I don’t suppose that I ever really want to know who she was. I guess that prefer Mary to remain just as she is, a mysterious, elusive and romantic spirit of the Windy City.

(My Mom's infant sister is buried here)

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Whispering_Wolf57 said:

Your welcome for the bumps...I also wanted to say I have heard this story and really enjoyed your telling. On one of the shows I watched on it they said a bar across the road from the cemetary always leaves a bloddy mary on the bar for her and there is even a song about her on the juke box.. There is a song by dickie lee I like called laurie strange things happen. I wonder if it is based on mary because it is so much like her story. In the end he tries to pick up his coat he put on her..to find out she died a year before on that same night.

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DLL said:

i love this stuff..god I could spend all night listening and telling errie tales..

Hi Arden
Hi WW
when I have more time to type i will leave some creepy tales of haunted NY

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