Boo! The Italian Bride

My Aunt Tina lives in Chicago, Illinois.  She’s helping me out today with my 31 Days of Spook.  Recently she visited Mount Carmel Cemetery right there in Chicago.  What?  Don’t you visit cemeteries during your down time?  I’ve heard they can be very relaxing and an educational experience.  Let’s take these for pictures for instance that my Aunt Tina took and shared with me.

It’s a beautiful grave site.  Of course there are lots of beautiful headstones and memorials in this cemetery but this one is different.  Let me introduce you to Julia Buccola Petta.

Julia Buccola Petta died at age 29 while giving birth to her stillborn son, Filippo.  Julia was buried in her wedding dress and given the nickname of The Italian Bride.  According to legend, Julia’s mother Filomena began having dreams in which Julia was telling her that she was still alive.

Years after her death, Filomena received permission to have the grave opened and her daughter exhumed.  Her mother then took a picture of Julia in her casket which was then placed on the monument.

The picture is still there on her grave at the Mount Carmel Cemetery in Chicago, Illinois.  Do you notice anything in the picture?

After years of being buried, Julia looks – how shall we say it? – still together if you catch my drift.

 

 

 

 

 

 

31 Days of Spooks – Coffins

Hello my friends.  I’m so glad to see that you are staying with me during my 31 Days of Spook.  Hasn’t it been fun?  Scary?  Are you second guessing the bumps you hear in the middle of the night?  Today, I want to talk about something that I learned about coffins.  It’s an interesting tale of a time back when.

Did you know that around 1829, they had bells attached to coffins?  I didn’t either until I stated doing some research.  You’ll never believe what those little bells were for.  Evil snort.  People in this time often got smallpox, diphtheria and cholera and doctors hastily pronounced they were dead and signed death certificates.  Sometimes they did this without even seeing the bodies themselves – just by the word of family.  Medical procedures were nothing like they are today.  Often with such, people were buried and and would wake up in a casket – shivers – the fear of that!  Patents were put out on caskets that had a hole drilled the coffin through which a chord was run that would be attached to a bell that was mounted above the grave.  The chord handle was placed in the ‘dead’ person’s hand just in case they ‘woke up’ from the dead.  They could ring the bell in hopes that someone would hear above and dig them back up.  It was an unfortunate time to live through, you think?

 

New Show I Watched

Sometimes I watch the strangest shows on television.  Maybe I should rephrase that.  Sometimes Hollywood puts out the strangest shows on television that of course this oinker can’t pass up and has to watch.  Take for instance, a couple of weeks ago on A&E a new show came out called Fear: Buried Alive.  Now, it intrigued me and mom. We thought you know we gotta check this out and see what it is all about.  Now, I’m kind of like on one hoof WOW ya’ll did what and on the other hoof like that was time I can’t get back in my life.  Why do you say?  Let me break it down for you like only this oinker can – snorts.

There are three subjects that volunteered for this experiment.  Now here’s something I forgot to mention – this is live television.  Not only will they be buried alive in a coffin six feet under ground, they will be wired so that doctors on scene can watch their vitals and there are cameras as well as sound in the coffins.  There are two guys and one girl.

The entire reasoning behind being buried alive is to conquer fears.  Mom said she could somewhat maybe do the buried alive part.  I mean, there are so many people watching you that they aren’t going to let anything happen.  But that’s where they start throwing in twists.  One twist is that as you are laying in your coffin, you are strapped in and then they push a button and your restraints are tighter.  Another time, they play on your biggest fear.  In one box with a guy, they let in a snake.  Another box with the girl, they let in large rats.  Another box with a guy, they let in thousands of huge roaches.  All of this while you are six feet under the ground in a box.  Can you handle that now?

During this time, the audio is turned off and on between the boxes so they can’t talk to each other while they adapt to their biggest fears.  Now here you are in a box, hot, dark, you have something in the box with you, you are tied down and now you don’t have any communication with anyone – you are cut off from the world.  You are thinking to yourself, “What have I gotten myself into?”

The guy with the snake – did I tell you his history?  When he was little, he fell in a hole with a momma
snake and her babies.  The momma snake bit him on the arm.  And there he is with a snake in his coffin with him.  He tapped out during a commercial towards the end.  He couldn’t take it when the snake started slithering up from his feet towards his head.

Then the coffin with the girl, dirt starts falling in from the top of her coffin and she thinks it’s caving in.  The remaining guy, his alarm starts going off and he thinks he’s running out of oxygen.  Of course, mom and me called this – it was all in the plans to make them “think” they had immediate death upon them.  A little over an hour they stayed in their boxes under ground.

How long would you stay?

 

Bacon’s Tales of Terror

Oh friends – welcome back to my Bacon’s Tales of Terrors for this month.  This month I’m taking another true story one that you might have heard out of the headlines.  We here at the Hotel Thompson were in awe hearing and seeing it on the news last month and then we found out more information that was just simply astonishing.  So, are you ready for it my friends?

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During the mid-part of March last month, Lynn Groesbeck was traveling in her vehicle with her 18 month old baby, Lily.  For some reason, the car went off the road into the freezing river in Spanish Fork, Utah.  The two were trapped in the car for over 14 hours.

A fisherman happen to see the vehicle and called authorities.  When four rescue workers came to the car, they all said they heard a woman yelling for help – a mature older voice.  This voice was so pleading that the workers got into the frigid waters and were able to work harder and flip the car over.  The vehicle had been partially submerged in the freezing water and workers were shocked to see the mother had passed away and had been deceased for hours but the baby was still alive and in her car seat.

Was it adrenaline that helped the workers push the vehicle over?  Was it the pleading voice of Help that gave the four workers the adrenaline they needed to get the car upright? Was it the deceased mother that was still looking over her precious baby?  Where did the voice come from that all four heard?  And let me add that the water was so cold that some of the workers had to be treated for hypothermia.  How did the baby survive the cold for 14 hours?

Baby Lily is recovering in the hospital and family say that she is going to be just fine.  What do you think of this true story?  Did it give you goosebumps like it did us here at the Hotel Thompson?

 

Do You Have a Little Pluviophile In You?

I think my mommy does.  She absolutely loves it when it rains outside and looks miserable.  She says that she feels most alive during these days.  She’s a strange human.  But then again I thought to myself, I wonder if there are others like her out there.  So my friends I ask you.  Do you have a little pluviophile in you?  Snorts.  Happy October!