Old Book and the Graveyard Elm

Peoria State Mental Institute

The Peoria State Mental Institute For The Incurable Insane was in operation from 1902 until 1973. In its first 25 years, over 13,500 patients had been housed there. Many of them died there. Because there were so many deaths, burial detail teams were established. This was made up of 1 staff member and 6 strong male inmates who, although insane, were competent enough to dig the graves and assist with the burial.

One of the gravediggers was a large, but very gentle man known as A. Bookbinder. He had suffered a mental breakdown while working at a printing house which had left him unable to effectively communicate. The police officer who had taken him in wrote on his report that the man was "a bookbinder" and a court clerk had written "A. Bookbinder" as his name on the intake form. Being unable to communicate, that is how he remained named for the rest of his life. After a while, he had gained the respect of the staff and everyone began to just call him "Old Book" or simply "Book."

Book was soon assigned to the burial detail. The staff found he was especially suited to the work. Normally, after digging the grave and placing the coffin on 2 cross beams over the hole, the workers would stand back a respectful distance until the funeral ended. They would then lower the coffin into the grave and fill it in. Almost every person who died was virtually unknown to the staff or other patients and if they were buried on the property, it meant no family claimed them. The funeral was mostly held out of respect for the deceased who were usually buried with only a patient number on their headstone since most arrived at the hospital with no known name. For this reason, everyone was surprised when at the first funeral he worked, Book removed his cap and began weeping loudly for the departed. He did the same thing at every funeral he worked; first removing his cap then he walked over and leaned against an old elm tree at the center of the cemetery and begin to loudly weep. When he did this several times in a row, he was assigned to each and every funeral and without fail, he would cry his eyes out while leaning against the tree.

A few years later, having attended several hundred funerals, Old Book himself passed on. The staff decided it was only fitting to bury him under the spreading limbs of the old elm tree where he always cried at the funerals for others. The news of his death got out and since he was well liked and had done such an excellent job on burial details, over 100 of the nurses, 50 of the male staff, and 200 patients attended the service for Book. The head of the facility gave the eulogy. When the service was over, 4 men each took the end of the ropes under the casket and prepared to lift it off the 2 crossbeams to lower the casket into the grave. At a signal given by the staff leader of the burial detail, the 4 men gave a mighty heave on the rope ends to lift the heavy coffin a few inches into the air so the other two men in the detail could remove the crossbeams. However, they were instantly all laying on their backs as the coffin easily lifted up as if there was no body within it! 

Of course this caused a huge commotion. The nurses screamed, the male staff was stunned, a lot of the patients began crying or hitting themselves in the head or simply fell to the ground moaning as nobody had seen anything like this happen before. Suddenly, above all the commotion, the people heard a mournful voice keening in despair and loudly crying. They all looked over toward the trunk of the Graveyard Elm where the sound was coming from and over 300 people witnessed Old Book, standing as always against the tree, weeping and crying out with even more earnestness than ever before.

After some seconds to recover from total shock and now convinced that Old Book absolutely could not be inside it, the doctor who had given the eulogy ran over to the coffin and ordered the 4 rope handlers to remove the lid. As soon as it was lifted, the wailing and crying completely stopped. Inside the coffin, seen by more than 100 nurses, staff and the head of the facility, lay the body of the very dead Old Book. When everyone looked back at the tree, the apparition was gone.

Only a few days later, the large old elm which had stood for over 100 years, began to die. Specialists were brought in to save it, but all of their efforts were in vain and within a year, the tree had died. The director ordered it cut down and removed. Three separate teams of men tried to cut it down, but all returned from their task saying they couldn't do it because every time they began to saw, the tree would cry out as if a human were in great pain. The city's fire department was hired to burn it down, but after 2 tries, the firemen stated they had to put out the fire as soon as they lit it because it sounded like a human inside the tree was screaming in agony and a human figure could be seen in the flames. After this, the tree was left alone.

 Over the years, the limbs of the tree rotted and dropped one by one until there was little left except the trunk. Shortly after it was announced the hospital was to be closed, lightning hit the trunk and all but a stump exploded and burned away. 

The buildings are vacant and abandoned now, the grounds deserted. There are No Trespassing signs posted on the property, but that doesn't stop everyone. Those brave enough to be in the cemetery at night have reported hearing a sad wailing and crying which seems to come from the area of the Graveyard Elm stump. A hasty retreat is always the result. Evidently, Old Book is still crying for all the unnamed patients buried on the grounds of the asylum.

The Woman in Blue

In the early 1600's, Spanish missionaries came to the Texas wilderness to teach the Indians about Jesus and God. They found the "savages" were already in possession of a number of religious material - a stone alter with Jesus on the cross, crude but recognizable paintings of several Catholic saints, and some who wore carved crosses on leather strips around their necks. And they all told of white-skinned gods who had once walked among them.. According to the Indians, these divine visitors had spoken to them in a language different from theirs, but one they could understand. These gods had come and gone in ages past, but all promised they would come again someday.

A common story which got the most attention from the missionaries was about a beautiful young white goddess who appeared among several different groups of Indians living in Texas and elsewhere in the southwest. The Indians called her the "woman in blue" because every time she came, she wore a blue cloak.

Intrigued and confused by these stories, the missionaries quickly informed the church back in Spain that something very strange was going on over here. It was a profound spiritual mystery - how could these pagan savages living on the far edge of a strange new world know about the Catholic doctrine and be in possession of symbols of Christian faith? In response, numerous more missionaries were sent to Texas by the church with an assigned task - solve the mystery of the "woman in blue."

One of these emissaries from the church was Father Damien Manzanet. By chance, Father Damien had recently read a new book titled The Mystical City of God. In the book, Sister Maria de Agreda, a cloistered Castilian nun who was then 29 years of age, told how she had been mysteriously transported to a remote wilderness on the edge of New Spain. There she had met a race of pagans and she introduced the Christian religion to them. The sister claimed to have made the mystical journey more than 500 times. She told how she had been well received by a tribe of dark-skinned savages who called themselves "Tejas" and that they had somehow understood her every word. She claimed her out-of-body travels occurred only as she slept when she would suddenly grow rigid in bed and a state of supreme ecstasy would seize her. She would then suddenly be whisked away at blinding speed to the wilderness where she worked and prayed with the naked savages. Most of her visits were with the Tejas tribe, but sometimes she would be sent to a different group of natives. Even though the different tribes spoke different languages, she claimed they all could somehow understand her. All of this was naturally looked on with skepticism by the church since Sister Maria had come to the convent when she was just 15 and had never been outside the convent walls since her arrival. 

The same year Father Damien came to this new frontier, about 50 Jumano Indians appeared at Isleta, a Pueblo mission near Albuquerque asking that missionaries be sent among them to teach them more about God and to baptize them. When asked why they wanted this, they explained that a beautiful white goddess had been coming to them for many years and instructed them in "the truths of Christian faith." She had recently instructed them to come to the mission and ask for missionaries to come to their village and baptize them. She had given them directions from their village to the mission over 300 miles away and had seen them safely during their journey through the territory ruled by the fierce Apache.

Texas Bluebonnets

During Father Damien's travels into and across Texas, he heard more stories about the lady in blue. One chief told how the lady had healed his mother by touching her brow. Another legend told by a number of different tribes was that delicate blue flowers, Texas Bluebonnets, always blossomed wherever she stepped. One old chief who's wife was near death asked Father Damien for a piece of blue cloth to bury her in. When asked why it needed to be blue, the chief explained "that was the color of the cloak worn long ago by the beautiful young woman who came to Texas to tell us about God."

The stories and legends told by so many different Indians and the similarities between them and what Sister Maria de Agreda claimed in the book led Father Damien to conclude that God had indeed sent her among the Indians in the new world to spread the Gospel. He eventually traveled back to Spain and met with Sister Maria. He found her to be extremely pious, always dressed in the white tunic and blue robe of her order, and physically very beautiful, just as the Indians had claimed. She accurately told him not only the names of numerous tribes, but even the names and descriptions of individuals. Nearly all of the tribes and most of the individuals she talked about were verified by Father Damien who had met them during his travels.

Isleta Pueblo where Franciscan friars first learned
about the "Lady in Blue" teaching God to
the Indians.

Sister Maria died of natural causes in 1665. After 244 years in the ground, her body was exhumed in 1909 and was found to have not decayed. She was placed in a glass-lidded coffin and moved inside the convent she had faithfully served for 45 years. Her body is still there and with permission, may still be viewed.

Today, there remains legends about the beautiful "goddess" dressed in blue who supernaturally roamed the southwest teaching Christianity. Some believe she still roams the hills and deserts causing flowers to bloom and bestowing love and riches on the unfortunate. Who's to say she doesn't?

Sister Maria almost 350 years after death