Ghost Research Society

Mount Carmel Cemetery

Just inside the Harrison Street entrance to Mount Carmel Cemetery in south suburban Hillside is a rather impressive-looking statue of a woman holding a bouquet of roses in her arms. This monument marks the gravesite of Julia Buccola Peta, often know as "The Italian Bride".

Julia died in 1921 in Schaumburg of apparent complications from childbirth and was buried here with her stillborn infant. Shortly after her burial, her mother, Philomena Buccola, began to have a series of unusual dreams in which her deceased daughter, Julia, would beg and plead with her to exhume her grave. This went on for sometime as the poor mother tried to have the local priest grant her permission. Finally after six years, permission was given.

In 1927, the grave of Julia Buccola Peta was opened, the casket lifted out of the ground and placed on the grass. As the lid was pried off the coffin, there was Julia still as fresh and perfect as the day she was buried.

Friends and relatives of Julia said that because the body was uncorrupt could only mean that she was a saint. The body of Julia was resealed in a coffin and reburied. An imposing monument was erected showing Julia in her wedding dress holding a bouquet of roses. On the base of the monument are two small porcelain photographs. The first one shows her in her wedding dress and it is the one the monument was copied from. The second picture is photographic proof of the story because it shows Julia lying asleep in her coffin, loose dirt lying around the casket and the lid just taken off.

But Julia's story goes much farther then just the body in the ground. Students of Proviso West High School just east of the cemetery on Wolf Road have reported seeing a girl walking through the cemetery by night. In fact, rumors that Julia was walking through the cemetery emptied a school dance near Halloween in 1976.

A carload of people driving down Harrison Street were startled to see a girl walking through the tombstones. They saw this girl and stopped the car to have a better look. They assumed it was someone playing a prank for Halloween. As they watched, they became very frightened because they realized that it was pouring rain outside and although it was very wet, the girl that they could see only 25 to 30 feet away walking through the cemetery was perfectly dry. Her hair and dress untouched by the fall weather. They left the area in a hurry!!

Interviews from the Hillside Police Department have yielded strange things out there like odd white shapes floating around. This has been seen by a number of the police department. These are apparently different from the Julia sightings, as these are multiple sightings.

Julia is most often seen around the small administration building just inside the Harrison Street entrance to the cemetery. And the most recent paranormal occurrence out near her grave is the psychic smell of roses especially in the colder months when fresh flowers would all but be dead! "The different scents are quite distinctive," says Chicago floral designer Ruth Bukowski. "I was there in November of 1982 and the flowers I smelled were definitely baby roses - better known as tea roses."

In 1978 an eyewitness reported seeing the grave of Julia apparently glowing!

Mount Carmel Cemetery is located at Wolf and Roosevelt Roads in south-suburban Hillside. Mount Carmel contains many other fascinating graves, including those of Al Capone and Deanie O'Banion. For more information on Mount Carmel, see the Mount Carmel site at Graveyards of Chicago

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