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Chapter 1: What are the reasons for revisiting the classic episode 'Mary, Mary'?
Hey folks, Aaron here. We're quickly slipping into the summer months here in New England. Honestly, it feels like the autumn colors were just yesterday, and spring came and went in a flash. Basically, life has been busy, and I'm sure that you can relate. With that in mind, I'm giving the team a well-deserved break this week.
So, rather than the typical new episode of lore, I want to offer you a classic from deep in the past. No, reruns have not been a normal thing around Lore HQ, but making 52 episodes each year can be exhausting, and I think we can sacrifice one every six months to give the team some rest.
And thankfully, there are a ton of fantastic oldies in our back catalog, and the one that I've picked out for you today is one of my absolute favorites. Maybe you're new to lore and are working your way backwards, or it's been many, many years since you've heard some of the earlier episodes. Either way, you are going to love this trip into the past.
Today, we'll be listening to one of my all-time favorite stories on lore, episode 50, Mary Mary. This classic has a powerful mixture of community life, unusual beliefs, and some very unexplainable circumstances. And almost a decade after first recording it, I can still remember the chill I got in the recording booth from narrating that very last line of the main story.
I think you are going to love it.
And with that, on with the show.
Planes aren't supposed to collide with each other. Just taking statistics into account, you're a lot more likely to hear about automobile collisions than airplanes because of the simple fact that there are a lot more cars on the road today than planes in the air. Still, as unusual as it sounds, it happens.
In the late 50s, two military planes were flying off the coast of Georgia, above the waters of the Atlantic that feed into Savannah's Tybee Roads. It's a busy shipping lane on the surface of the water. But on February 5th of 1958, the sky above was busy as well. At 2am that morning, a B-47 bomber was running a simulated mission along the coast, heading up from Florida.
At the same time, an F-86 fighter plane was patrolling from the north. When they collided, it wasn't disastrous like you might see in a movie. Neither plane exploded, but they were both badly damaged. The pilot of the fighter plane had to eject and let his plane drop into the sea. The bomber, though, managed to stay in the air.
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Chapter 2: What mysterious event happened with military planes in 1958?
So they began to come to the house to test her. One person who visited suggested that she might have memorized the encyclopedia entry. She'd been obsessed with blood for years, of course, so they asked her for a deeper test. They took a few of Mary's personal letters, written in her own hand, and then shuffled them into a larger stack of papers.
Still blindfolded, Mary was able to pull out her own and then read them aloud to the people in the room. A local newspaper editor even stopped by to do an experiment of his own, and his was the most astounding of them all. He arrived with an envelope in his coat pocket. It was still sealed, and inside it, he told everyone, was a letter from a friend who lived far away.
He then handed the envelope to a blindfolded Mary, who turned it over and over but never opened it, and then, without hesitation, she announced the name of the person whose signature was on the letter. The editor opened it up and checked. Mary had been correct. But it wasn't all magic shows and wonder.
No, Mary was still having seizures on a daily basis, and as a result, her depression was deepening, and that led to more cutting. It's tragic, really. Mental health care was practically medieval in the middle of the 19th century, and that meant that Mary was left to suffer largely without help outside of her own family.
And then, on July 5th of 1865, Mary's parents left her home alone while they took a short trip. Mary got up that day, made herself breakfast, and then went back up to her bedroom. And it was there that she had a powerful seizure and died as a result. She'd only been 19 years old at the time.
A year before the tragic death of Mary Roth, Thomas and Lucinda Venom welcomed a daughter into their family. Mary Venom was born in April of 1864, and almost immediately, the family took to calling her by her middle name, Laurencee. In 1871, when Laurence was just seven, her family moved up from Milford County to South Middleport.
But in those years between Mary Roth's death and the Venom's move, the township had incorporated. The newly formed city was called Watsika, in honor of a well-known Native American woman who had been born in the area. For a while, Laurence's childhood was nondescript. She was healthy and happy, and that continued to be true for a number of years.
But then, in early July of 1877, at the age of 13, Laurence started to complain that she'd been hearing voices in her bedroom. She claimed that they were calling out to her, saying her name over and over. Her parents, chalking it up to the overactive imagination of a child, largely ignored her. Then, on the night of July 5th, Laurence had a small seizure that left her in an odd state.
She was still conscious, but stayed mysteriously rigid for nearly five hours. When she finally did snap out of whatever trance she seemed to have been in, she told her parents that she felt rather strange. Of course she did, they said. She'd had a seizure, after all. The following day, Laurence had a second seizure and entered into that awake yet stiff state once more.
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Chapter 3: How did Mary Roth's seizures impact her early life?
Unless, of course, she really was Mary, back from the dead. All of this went on for over 15 weeks. There were periods here and there when Mary seemed to disappear and Laurence would return to her body. But these were brief moments, and Laurence never seemed to be fully there. She was confused, especially by her surroundings in the Roth house.
She asked to be taken home, but before anything could be done, Mary would return. On May 7th, Mary announced to the Roths that Laurence was ready to return for good. There were more brief switches between the two spirits for another two weeks, and then it was over. On May 21st, Mary stood in the parlor of the Roth home and said tearful goodbyes to her family.
Then, one of the Roth daughters took her by the arm and escorted her down the sidewalk to the Venoms. They chatted as they did, with Mary discussing family matters and giving life advice to the other woman. And then they arrived. Mary mounted the steps alone and knocked on the front door. When the venoms opened it, Mary vanished.
Laurence was in full control of her own body again, awake and aware. She said she'd felt as if she'd been dreaming and then embraced her parents. They wept for joy and welcomed her home. And for as long as she lived, she never had another seizure. This is one of those events that's difficult to accept. I fully admit that. Many people believe Laurence Venom made the whole thing up.
It was a cry for attention, or a youthful prank, or maybe even a stunt put on by both families together. Others, though, think it's possible that she suffered from some sort of psychosis, which ultimately manifested as schizophrenia.
They believe that had the Roths not taken her in and given the girl time to recover, the Venoms might have sent her to a mental asylum, which in the 1870s was a one-way ticket to suffering and possible death. According to those who subscribe to this theory, it was the generosity and open-mindedness of her neighbors that saved her.
But too many questions are left on the table for us to sort through. How did symptoms as dramatic and serious as powerful seizures simply vanish after just 15 weeks? How did she know things about the Roths that no one else could have known? There was even a moment during the ordeal when Laurence, claiming to be Mary, told Dr. Stevens that she had seen his deceased daughter in heaven.
Mary described a cross-shaped scar on his daughter's cheek. Dr. Stevens, amazed, confirmed that the scar was from a surgery that she'd undergone to stop an infection. Whatever we end up believing, here and now, today, Laurence's parents were convinced.
They said that their daughter had returned to their home and, I quote, "...more intelligent, more industrious, more womanly, and more polite than before. She'd grown up somehow, and she was physically restored. No more seizures, no more random trances. It was all gone." For a couple of years, though, Laurence tried her hand at being a medium.
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Chapter 4: What unconventional treatments did Mary Roth undergo for her condition?
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