Aside from harried motorists who encountered Mary along Archer Avenue, one of the first people to ever meet Mary face to face was a young man named Jerry Palus. His experience with Mary took place in 1939 but would leave such an impression that he would never forget it until his death in 1992. Palus remained an unshakable witness and appeared on a number of television shows to discuss his night with Resurrection Mary. Regardless, he had little to gain from his story and no reason to lie. He never doubted the fact that he spent an evening with a ghost. Palus met the young girl at the Liberty Grove and Hall, a dance hall that was near 47th Street and Mozart. He had apparently seen her there on several occasions and finally asked her to dance one night. He did note in later interviews that he did not recall ever actually seeing the girl come into the dance hall. He looked away and then looked back a few moments later and she just seemed to appear near the wall.

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Jerry asked the young woman to dance. She accepted and they spent several hours together. Strangely though, she seemed a little distant and Palus also noticed that her skin was very cold, almost icy to the touch. When he later kissed her, he found her lips were also cold and clammy.

At the end of the evening, the young woman asked Palus for a ride home and when they got to his automobile, she directed him to drive down Archer Avenue. Palus admitted to being confused. Earlier in the evening, the woman had told him where she lived and he knew that it would be far out of the way for them to travel there via Archer. When he asked her about it, she simply told him again that she wanted to go down Archer Avenue.

As they drove down the street, they approached the gates to Resurrection Cemetery and she asked him to pull over. She had to get out here, she told him. Again, Jerry was confused, not being able to understand why she would want to get out at such a spot. He agreed that he would let her out, but only if she allowed him to walk her across the street. She refused to allow this though. The beautiful girl turned in her seat and faced Palus. “This is where I have to get out,” she spoke softly, “but where I’m going, you can’t follow.”

Palus was bewildered by this statement, but before he could respond, the girl got out of the car and ran toward the cemetery gates. She vanished before she reached them – right before Jerry’s eyes! That was the moment when he knew that he had danced with a ghost.

Determined to find out what was going on, Palus visited the address the girl had given him on the following day. The woman who answered the door told him that he couldn’t have possibly been with her daughter the night before because she had been dead for several years. However, Palus was able to correctly identify the girl from a family portrait in the other room.

Who is Resurrection Mary? The most accurate version of the story of Resurrection Mary concerns a young girl, Mary Bregovy, 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.

 The Legend of Resurrection Mary from Unsolved Mysteries