The Face On The Bedroom Curtain

Early on Saturday morning, September 21, 1878, Milwaukee resident Mary Tubey died. Although the circumstances of her death were not unusual, her youth made her passing especially poignant to her relatives.

A block away, on Hill Street between Seventh and Eighth, her stepbrother, Dan Connell, had finished his noon dinner and was sitting in the front room, silent and alone with his grief. The door to the bedroom was open, and from where he sat he had a clear view of the window in that room. Suddenly he saw Mary's face on the curtain. Was it just a shadow? A pattern created by the folds of the material? No, the longer he looked, the clearer the face became.

Connell called his wife, and she too saw the strange likeness. They tried to divert their uneasiness by keeping busy in the house, but their curiosity impelled them to check the curtain several times during the afternoon. The face was always there . . . shimmering, smiling . . . in exactly the same place. Had Mary returned to say good-bye, or were the Connells, in their sorrow, imagining her presence?

Later that day the story got out, and neighbors by the dozens swarmed through the front and back doors of the small brown cottage. Some glanced at the curtain and, seeing nothing, held their laughter until they got outdoors; others were profoundly moved by what they believed they saw. A policeman, who visited the house at three o'clock, said later that he had never seen anything plainer in his life.

When the size of the crowds became unmanageable and the Connells were chilled to the bone from the cold air blowing through the open doorways, they barricaded the entrances and refused to admit more visitors.

The next day, Sunday, the crowds swelled into the hundreds. The doors were opened again and the curious callers filed past the window curtain. At dusk the phantom vanished but the visitors did not. From all parts of the city they came, and many were deeply disappointed upon learning that there was no longer anything to be seen.

The following week, a local reporter called on Mrs. Connell and also interviewed a number of neighbors who claimed to have seen the apparition. Each was positive that he had seen the face on the curtain. Some said emphatically that they could not be deceived, and all cross-questioning failed to shake them. They were so solemn about the affair that the reporter decided it was folly to hint that they were victims of imagination.

Were they?