Bruce Wrote:
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> It's Halloween time, and though I don't really get
> into the whole Chicago ghost hunter thing, I do
> have some interest since I am a local historian
> and researcher. I while back I came across a book
> on Chicago haunts by Ursula Bielski that mentioned
> a new discovery on Resurrection Mary. I've tried
> to contact her through E-mail, but have yet to get
> a response. In any case, I have a few ghost cases
> that I want to suck the wind out of. No - I don't
> really make it my practice to debunk stuff like
> this, but I would like to get this information out
> there to people like you all who care about local
> history, and perhaps set the record straight -
> well a bit anyway.
>
>
> Ursula wrote an article on the web stating in
> summation that Ressurection Mary is the ghost of
> 12-year-old Anna Norkus. The connection of Anna
> Norkus to Resurrection Mary was solidified through
> the rigorous research of Frank Andrejasich of
> Summit, Illinois. Frank had written Ursula a
> letter in 1997 that explained his version of Anna
> Norkus' fate, and eventually they met personally
> and Frank relayed his research that went into
> Ursula's Chicago Haunts book. . The following
> text is taken in part form the article written by
> Ursula Bielski on the www.ghostvillage.com web
> page.
>
> "In August of 1994, Andrejasich's brother had sent
> Frank a newspaper clipping telling the tale of
> Resurrection Mary, and, asking around at coffee
> after Mass one Sunday, Frank found that there were
> many local versions of the famous tale -- and many
> "candidates" for the role -- especially at his own
> St. Joseph parish, in the heart of Resurrection
> Mary country. Andrejasich was startled by the
> prevalence of the story in local memory -- and by
> the opinionated responses to his often-asked
> question: who was she? As it turned out, one of
> Frank's church buddies was a man named Jake Palus,
> who turned out to be the younger brother of the
> now-infamous Jerry Palus. Jerry is believed by
> many hard-core Mary researchers to have been the
> phantom's first encounter; till the day he died,
> Jerry claimed to have danced with her "all night"
> in 1936 at the old Liberty Grove and Hall ballroom
> on 47th street, in the storied Brighton Park
> neighborhood.
>
> After pondering the variety of accounts, combing
> early editions of the local papers, and checking
> with funeral directors and cemetery managers,
> Andrejasich came to believe that the ghost known
> as Resurrection Mary is the spiritual counterpart
> of the youngest of all the candidates: a
> 12-year-old girl named, surprisingly, Anna Norkus.
> Born in Cicero, Illinois in 1914, Norkus was
> given the name of Ona, Lithuanian for Anna. By
> the time she neared her teenage years, Anna had
> grown into a vivacious girl. Blonde and slim, she
> loved to dance, and it was her relentless begging
> that convinced her father, August, Sr., to take
> her to a dancehall for her 13th birthday. On the
> evening of July 20, 1927, father and daughter set
> out from their Chicago home at 5421 S. Neva for
> the famous O Henry Ballroom, accompanied by
> August's friend, William Weisner, and Weisner's
> date. On their drive home, at approximately 1:30
> a.m., the travelers passed Resurrection Cemetery
> via Archer Avenue, turning east on 71st Street and
> then north on Harlem to 67th Street. There, the
> car careened and dropped into an unseen,
> 25-foot-deep railroad cut. Anna was killed
> instantly.
>
> After the accident, her father, August Norkus was
> subject to devastating verbal abuse, even being
> told that Anna's death had been God's punishment
> for allowing the girl to go dancing at such a
> young age. In reality, the blame rested with the
> Chicago Streets Department, who had failed to post
> warning signs at the site of the cut. In fact,
> another death, that of Adam Levinsky, occurred at
> the same site the night after Anna's demise.
>
> Between July 28th and September 29th, an inquest
> was held at Sobiesk's mortuary in adjacent Argo.
> Heading up the five sessions was Deputy Coroner
> Dedrich, the case reviewed by six jurors. The
> DesPlaines Valley News carried the story of the
> inquest.
>
> Mary Nagode described to cousin Frank Andrejasich
> the sad procession that left the Norkus home on a
> certain Friday morning: First in line was Anna's
> older sister Sophie, followed by her older brother
> August, Jr. The pastor, altar boys, and a
> four-piece brass band preceded the casket, borne
> on a flatbed wagon with pallbearers on each side.
> Relatives and friends followed the grim parade for
> three blocks to the doors of St. Joseph's in
> Summit, where Anna had made her first communion
> only a year before.
>
> Anna was scheduled for burial in one of three
> newly-purchased family lots at St. Casimir
> Cemetery, and it is here where Andrejasich found
> the "if" that may have led to an infamous
> afterlife for Anna : as the world-famous
> Resurrection Mary, or as Anna called herself,
> Marija.
>
> Andrejasich discovered that, at the time of Anna's
> death, a man named Al Churas Jr., lived across the
> road from the gates of Resurrection Cemetery, in a
> large brick bungalow that was recently torn down
> as part of a subdivision development. Al's father
> was in charge of the gravediggers and was given
> the house to live in as part of his pay. In the
> mid-1920s, gravedigging was hard, manual labor,
> rewarded with low pay. Strikes were common. As
> Resurrection was one of the main Chicago
> cemeteries, the elder Churas was often sent to the
> cemeteries of striking gravediggers to secure the
> bodies of the unburied. Returning to Resurrection
> with a corpse in a wooden box, Churas' duty was to
> bury it temporarily until the strike ended and the
> body could be permanently interred in the proper
> lot. Because of poor coffin construction and the
> lack of refrigeration, a body could not be kept
> long, except in the ground. If the strike dragged
> on, identification at the time of relocation could
> be gruesomely difficult. Thus, reasons
> Andrejasich, if the workers at St. Casimir were
> striking on that July morning in 1927, it is quite
> possible that young Anna Norkus was silently
> whisked to a temporary interment at Resurrection,
> and that a rapid decomposition rendered her
> unidentifiable at the time of exhumation. The
> result? A mislaid corpse and a most restless
> eternity, if only one is willing to believe."
>
>
>
>
> Now there are a lot of issues with this story.
> First off, one would not drive north on Harlem
> from 71st in 1927, because it did not go through.
> And if it did, why would someone living on the
> 5400 block of Neva take 71st street home from
> Willow Springs anyway. Harlem avenue north of
> 63rd street and 63rd street east into Clearing was
> closed for sewer and water main work. This is
> what really happened as printed in the DesPlaines
> Valley News. I consolidated it a bit as it
> stretched over a few issues.
>
>
>
> July 21st 1927 – Car accident takes life of 13
> year old girl as car rolls over into old abandoned
> cut. A thirteen-year old girl was killed and five
> other members of an automobile party were injured,
> one perhaps fatally, last night, when in making a
> detour on Harlem avenue at 63rd street near the
> Community High School on their way to Clearing
> their machine ran into an old abandoned railroad
> cut and rolled over and over to the bottom. The
> dead girl is Anna Norkus, 5421 S. Neva, Archer
> Limits, who was crushed under the car and who was
> dead when taken out. Adam Levinski, 58 years old
> is at the Archer hospital with a badly fractured
> pelvis and with possible internal injuries. While
> the injury may prove fatal the physicians at the
> hospital say he has a good chance for recovery.
> August Norkus, father of the dead girl, incurred a
> broken colar bone which was set at the hospital.
> William Weisner and two girls Sophie Norkus, 16
> years old and Loretta Gwozdz, 14, suffered minor
> injuries. All were treated at the Archer
> Hospital, Weisner staying over night and the girls
> being sent home. August Norkus and his two
> daughters were on their way with the others in
> Weisner's car to give bond for a man who had been
> arrested in Clearing. They came from the limits
> via Archer avenue to 63rd street, which was closed
> for the laying of water mains and sewer, and at
> Harlem they attempted to detour by riding south to
> 65th street. Passing 65th street in the darkness
> they ran into the old abandond cut, and at its
> edge their machine struck the guy wire of a
> telegraph pole so that it turned over and plunged
> down top first. Having passed 65th street the
> prarie flattens out into a smooth plateau and a
> few hundred feet farther on comes a steep drop as
> from a table’s edge to an old abandinded
> railroad cut, 25 feet deep. Summit police and
> County Highway Police and a number of volunteers
> were attracted to the scene and rescued the
> injured persons from the wrecked car. The body of
> the girl victim was taken to the mortuary of
> George A. Sobiesk whose ambulance had been called.
> An inquest was set for this afternoon. Mr.
> Sobiesk also will have charge of the funeral.
>
> July 28th 1927 -Action was taken at the inquest
> held Thursday and Friday of last week at the
> Sobiesk mortuary in Argo to establish
> responsibility for the “death trap” at the
> 63rd and Harlem detour which on Wednesday night
> caused the immediate death of a young girl and the
> death on the following day of a man from Archer
> Limits. The girl victim was Anna Norkus and the
> man Adam Levinski, the latter passing away at
> Archer Hospital. Anna Norkus, a pupil of St.
> Joseph’s school, who had met with an
> instantaneous death at Harlem avenue and 66th
> street, when the automobile in which she was
> riding plunged into a deep pit, was buried from
> St. Joseph’s church Friday at 9 am. Burial took
> place at St. Casimir’s Lithuanian cemetery. The
> pastor, Rev Joseph A. Sehnke, celebrated the
> requiem high mass and preached the sermon in the
> church. The remains were escorted to the church
> and accompanied to the cemetery by the pastor and
> altar boys. May her soul rest in peace. The
> funeral was in charge of George Sobiesk.
>
>
>
> Poor Mr. Andrejasich - he got the wrong Mary
> here!
>
> Bruce

The house on 5421 neva is still standing and was built in 1919 or 1920. I think is was across from the Wenthworth house thet was across the street on the west side of Neva.