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 Spook – The Italian Bride

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.

Story courtesy of FIND A GRAVE

 

31 Days of Spook – La Pascualita

Oh my friends.  This tale today is scary unbelievable. It makes you want to do a double take… and possibly a triple take.  But, I’m getting ahead of myself.  You see working on my 31 Days of Spook takes month of advance preparation.  All year long, I’m looking for just the right stories to bring to you.  Stories of the macabre, ghosts, strange tales, paranormal and things that go bump in the night.  But this story, it caught my attention and I’ve been waiting for some time to share it.

This is something that is strange.  It takes place in Chihuahua, Mexico.  There’s a well known bridal shop in the town called La Popular.  In the bridal shop, there is a mannequin nicknamed La Pascualita that is wearing a wedding dress in the store window.  Sounds all innocent enough, right?  Well here’s the twist.  Some say that La Pascualita might be real.  Do I have your interest piqued now?

You see, for the past 75 years this bridal shop has had rumors flying around about La Pascualita.  Some believe that this mannequin is actually a perfectly preserved corpse!

La Pascualita was placed in the window on March 25, 1930.  Locals saw it and knew that something just wasn’t right about it.  Look at the pictures to the left.  Do you know notice anything odd?

According to the legend, La Popular’s owner Pascuala Esparza had a daughter. His daughter tragically passed away on her wedding day from the bite of a black widow spider.  Some believe that Esparza had his daughter embalmed and that she is now the famous La Pascualita in the shop window.  Of course Esparza has denied such rumors.

Funny thing though – if La Pascualita isn’t Esparza’s daughter why all the secrecy.  What secrecy you ask?  Well, of all of the employees of the shop there are only two that are allowed to change her clothing and that is only behind a closed door.

Other employees of the shop so that La Pascualita’s hands are very realistic and some say you can even see wrinkles and varicose veins on her legs.  Other employees say they come into the shop in the early mornings only to see that La Pascualita has changed positions on her own.  And then there are other employees that say La Pascualita ‘watches’ them during the day.

You be the judge.  What do you think?

Story courtesy of Greg Newkirk with Roadtrippers and Pictures from Pinterest

 

31 Days of Spook – La Pascualita

Oh my friends.  This tale today is scary unbelievable. It makes you want to do a double take… and possibly a triple take.  But, I’m getting ahead of myself.  You see working on my 31 Days of Spook takes month of advance preparation.  All year long, I’m looking for just the right stories to bring to you.  Stories of the macabre, ghosts, strange tales, paranormal and things that go bump in the night.  But this story, it caught my attention and I’ve been waiting for some time to share it.

This is something that is strange.  It takes place in Chihuahua, Mexico.  There’s a well known bridal shop in the town called La Popular.  In the bridal shop, there is a mannequin nicknamed La Pascualita that is wearing a wedding dress in the store window.  Sounds all innocent enough, right?  Well here’s the twist.  Some say that La Pascualita might be real.  Do I have your interest piqued now?

You see, for the past 75 years this bridal shop has had rumors flying around about La Pascualita.  Some believe that this mannequin is actually a perfectly preserved corpse!

La Pascualita was placed in the window on March 25, 1930.  Locals saw it and knew that something just wasn’t right about it.  Look at the pictures to the left.  Do you know notice anything odd?

According to the legend, La Popular’s owner Pascuala Esparza had a daughter. His daughter tragically passed away on her wedding day from the bite of a black widow spider.  Some believe that Esparza had his daughter embalmed and that she is now the famous La Pascualita in the shop window.  Of course Esparza has denied such rumors.

Funny thing though – if La Pascualita isn’t Esparza’s daughter why all the secrecy.  What secrecy you ask?  Well, of all of the employees of the shop there are only two that are allowed to change her clothing and that is only behind a closed door.

Other employees of the shop so that La Pascualita’s hands are very realistic and some say you can even see wrinkles and varicose veins on her legs.  Other employees say they come into the shop in the early mornings only to see that La Pascualita has changed positions on her own.  And then there are other employees that say La Pascualita ‘watches’ them during the day.

You be the judge.  What do you think?

Story courtesy of Greg Newkirk with Roadtrippers and Pictures from Pinterest

 

31 Days of Spook – The Italian Bride

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 legen, 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.

Story courtesy of FIND A GRAVE

 

Bacon’s Tales of Terror

Oh my friends – we have an excellent Tale of Terror today on this 13th. It’s so scary, that I scared myself while typing it out for you to read. Are you ready? Do you think you can handle this today? It’s definitely a nail biter. You might want to turn on the lights. Don’t say I didn’t warn you my friends – enjoy.

Becky finally met her one and only – the man of her dreams. Not only was he good on the eyes but he was charming, had a great job and a great home. His house, that he referred to as his ‘bachelor pad’, was just a miniature mansion that had been in the family for years. They had only been dating for nine months but the day Josh proposed to Becky was one of the happiest days of her life…almost. They were in the drawing room and upon her saying yes to his question, a dove flew into the window breaking his neck. Should that have been a sign? A warning of such?

Becky moved into Josh’s home and started making it hers. Little by little, she put a feminine touch on it – adding pictures, flowers and dreaming of the day she would be married to Josh. Once she moved in though, that’s when the little things started. A slam of a door. A framed picture of her and Josh falling off the wall and across the floor shattering. Cabinet doors opening. Noises. All of this happening when she was alone. It was strange. Even one day when Josh was leaving, he had forgotten his phone. She ran out the front door to give it to him. She could have sworn she saw a woman in the back seat of his car. Was it just her imagination?

Then one night, they were in bed together and something woke her. When she opened her eyes, she could have sworn she saw a woman in a wedding dress walking out of their bedroom. She must have been dreaming… well that’s what she thought anyway.

The next day when Josh came home, he dropped his bag in the living room where she was sitting and a picture almost fell out. She reached down to pick up the picture and it was a woman. Why would her fiancee have a picture of another woman in his bag? She questioned him. That’s when he told her it was his wife. Wife?! His deceased wife. His deceased wife who fell down the stairs and broke her neck in that very house.

Of course that bit of news put a little ice on the situation. The next day after Josh went to work, a neighbor came over to talk to Becky. She told Becky that things weren’t as they appeared. The deceased wife was a good friend of hers and that was actually her house. Becky didn’t want to believe such things and asked her to leave. Upon her leaving, she gave her a cut out news article telling about the woman’s death and how the husband was actually a suspect. What?! What had she gotten herself into? He couldn’t have been. Instead of leaving, she stayed to discuss this with him. There’s always two sides to every story and she was in love with him.

When he came home, the questions began. He said it was his deceased wife’s house but he inherited it and thus it was a family home. And he was upstairs taking a shower when his wife fell down the stairs. He had nothing to do with it. Would you have believed him?

They went to bed that night and Becky couldn’t sleep. She just stared at him thinking and replaying everything in her mind about the information she had learned. Finally she got up to go downstairs to watch television to get her mind off of the situation. Upon her going down the staircase, she saw what appeared to be a woman laying at the foot of the stairs. The ghost like woman got up and floated up the stairs towards her. She was frozen in fright. The woman stopped in front of her and she could have sworn she heard, “Look in his nightstand”. Then the woman disappeared.

Now, she was not only seeing things she was hearing things? She went back into the bedroom and went to Josh’s nightstand. Taped underneath the top of the shelf of the night stand was an envelope. She quietly removed it and went downstairs to open it in the kitchen. When she did, she took off her engagement ring and left it on the kitchen counter with the paperwork. She left that night with the clothes on her back and never looked back.

What exactly was in the paperwork? It was a life insurance policy on her, Becky, for $250,000.00 – something she didn’t even know Josh had taken out on her.

Story premise care of My Haunted House