Resurrection Mary

Resurrection Mary is a well-known Chicago area ghost story, of the "vanishing hitchhiker" type, a type of folklore that is known in many cultures. According to the story, the ghost resides in Resurrection Cemetery in Justice, Illinois, a few miles southwest of Chicago. Resurrection Mary is considered to be Chicago's most famous ghost.

Since the 1930s, several men driving northeast along Archer Avenue between the Willowbrook Ballroom and Resurrection Cemetery have reported picking up a young female hitchhiker. This young woman is dressed somewhat formally in a white party dress and is said to have light blond hair and blue eyes. There are other reports that she wears a thin shawl, dancing shoes, carries a small clutch purse, and possibly that she is very quiet. As the driver nears Resurrection Cemetery, she disappears into it. According to the Chicago Tribune, "full-time ghost hunter" Richard Crowe has collected "three dozen … substantiated" reports of Mary from the 1930s to the present.