The Vanishing Hitchhiker Tradition

The  young man picks up a young lady walking along a lonely stretch of road and offers to take her home. The strangely silent young lady in a pale dress joins the young man in the vehicle and as they journey down the darkening road....the girl suddenly and silently disappears.

This is a version of this familar 'vanishing hitchhiker' tale made popular in the 1920's in Chicago.  Yet, this truncated version was one collected in the south shortly after the Civil War. Washington Irvings'  1824 The Lady with the Velvet Collar is considered another early literary source of the tale type. Some also see the NT story of Philip disappearing after baptising the Ethiopian as a prototype of the same story form. The more familiar form of the story came to national attention with an academic survey and a version of the story on national radio and entertainment outlets in the early 1940's.

In the 1960's and 70's, as everyone was seeking enlightenment through chemical or spiritual means, a new version of the legend cropped up around the US (and elsewhere).  The silent rider was replaced by one who spoke of dire future events, the need for immediate spiritual life changes, or who predicted some local situation.  Few, if any of these prophecies ever panned out, with perhaps the exception of one who seemed to warn about the eruption of Mt. St. Helen's....but the signs, as they say, were everywhere on that one.

Going back far enough and surveying enough cultures and their tales reveals the motif is present into ancient days. They are often buried under layers of cultural elements, political paint, and religious wrappings but they are there.

(See http://www.snopes.com/horrors/ghosts/vanish.asp; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanishing_hitchhiker;http://www.prairieghosts.com/hwy365.html )

The Woman in White Motif

It is only a matter of weeks until it is Halloween. Here is a discussion to begin to set the mood for that fun autumn holiday.  It is a time for horror marathons, trick or treat events, and dress up.  It is also a time for storyelling (folk, historic, or urban tales).

Some tales are merely that - tales.  They have no true paranormal aspect to them, other than the ability to live forever as each new generation comes of age and the tale is retold.  One of the most prevalent themes in all of paranormal research and literature is the 'lady in white', 'the woman in white', and other similar descriptors.

Wilkie Collins in 1859 published what is considered to the the first mystery novel, The Woman in White.  It ranks as an  important book for that reason, along with the 1764 The Castle of Otranto, considered by many as the first Gothic horror novel.  Both are quick reads and full of the language and values of their respective time periods. They set the stage for decades of  high literary and popular strangeness.  

He no doubt drew inspiration from tales through out the British Isles of such women dating from medieval times.  The Irish Banshee may be a version that dates further back and reflect an older tradition still.  Other tales and legend of sightings of ghosts can easily fall into the category of this classic woman in white tale and include often a women wronged or harmed who restlessly wanders around in perpetual grief or remorse

Hispanic cultures may reflect the motif in their weeping mother or similar tales associated with the violation of innocence.  The La Llorna story pool with its versions of the woman who kills her children to join  a younger lover (harlot motif) and the mother whose children are robbed from her (the saint) may reflect the dichotomy of woman in a patriarchal society.  Although she is sometimes seen and reported as more sound than body, some legends suggest a pale waxen creature mourning and searching.

The famed "resurrection Mary' version from Chicago, and its many locale variants, may be inspired by ancient tales, Collins ,or be a manifestation of some ofter process at work in society.  The resurrection Mary story emerged at a time when young ladies were first gaining freedom to go out without chaperons and in wild automobiles to dance to hot music and drink cold liqueur.  There may be a tinge of a morality tale created to keep them 'down on the farm'.  She is often reported in a white dress, although some versions in Chicago and elsewhere will have the girl in a blue or red dress.  These, however, appear as mere attempts to separate their particular and regional version from the older Chicago story.

One local version of this woman in white motif in Oklahoma is set near Conners College, near Warner, Oklahoma.    There is supposedly (I have not verified any of this in the tradition of sharing a good story....) a College road that runs past the institution and passes a cemetery.  There, a 'white woman' has been seen by generations of people....

The informant told me the story "has been told for many years."

Marilyn A. Hudson, Historian and Storyteller....

ELIZABETH, EFFIE, AND WHO ELSE?: Hunting Down A Multi-State Legend

In Oklahoma City she is known as 'Effie'.   A poor woman who loved not wise but too well and found herself pregnant with a married man's child.  She a) either killed herself , b) was imprisoned by the married man, or c) was murdered.   She has been said to haunt the Skirvin Hotel in downtown Oklahoma City since the 1920's.

In Goldfield, Nevada there is the story of "Elizabeth" associated with the historic Goldfield Hotel, who was a poor woman who loved not wise but too well and found herself pregnant with a married man's child.  She a) either killed herself , b) was imprisoned by the married man, or c) was murdered. 

It should be remembered that in Oklahoma City when it was opened as the result of the Land run of 1889, there were 'working girls' on the next train into town.  "Big Annie" Wynn Bailey was a strapping girl in her mid-twenties fresh from the lucrative mining towns of Colorado. She saw opportunity and bought land, opened businesses in the heart of "Hell's Half Acre".  Soon she controlled much of downtown Oklahoma City through real estate and a system of well placed bribes.  

These "girls" as the prostitutes were sometimes called were a social subgroup with their own status, traditions, and behaviors.   Did they also share a common 'folklore' of cautionary or fear tales to warn each other, and potential customers?

So who came first, "Emma" or "Elizabeth," or perhaps some yet to be discovered woman?  It would be interesting to see how many of these tales of 'fallen' women with names beginning with an "E" might exist, identify when they first emerged, and discover if there movement could be tracked.

Other famous 'soiled doves' include Jerome, AZ's 'Julia' and 'Maggie' in Cripple Creek, CO.  Over all the motif is similar to the cautionary tale of the 'Cry Baby Bridge', which I feel is a transference of the  old Irish song, "Mary of the Moors."

NOTE: Anyone with knowledge of a story about a 'fallen women', 'scorned woman,' or 'compromised maiden' associated with a  hotel or other town site, please contact me for an upcoming work.