A few years ago, there was a bit of a silly online discourse going on about reading comprehension and analysis. The premise (as I remember) is that an English teacher posits that the blue curtains mentioned in a book are symbolic, and represent the author’s sadness. However, a student pushes back to suggest that maybe the curtains are blue for no reason, and the book lacks the depth the teacher is suggesting. As the years have gone by since the relevance of this discourse, many have come back around to defend the teacher in this scenario, and I pride myself personally for having always sided with the teacher.
I had thought of this anecdote as I was writing this post, and how it relates to the tension that exists in Inez Briggs’s story– between what is interpreted as truth, and the awkwardness of not actually knowing it. This post idea originated from watching and reading the comments on YouTube and TikTok about Inez. When I saw them, I felt frustrated that most comments didn’t say much, if anything, about Inez’s real life. Her ghost story tends to be completely divorced from the life she actually had.
Initially, I felt like a post purely about the documentation of her life as a person would serve to dispel the false information of her ghost story. Now, revisiting my earlier drafts, I see the flaws in that stance. Even if I didn’t get it at first, there are reasons why ghost stories develop, and Inez’s is no exception. Even so, I think there is still value in examining the assumptions and misconceptions that have stemmed from her ghost story. These assumptions, truthful or not, reflect back on ourselves, carrying value and meaning. Essentially, the purpose of this post is to point out, correct (to some degree), and question some of these assumptions.
Inez doesn’t exist, & there’s a boy buried instead
To start, one prevalent story that still gets repeated comes from 2007, claiming that an individual named Amos Briggs, a boy, is buried underneath Inez’s monument instead of Inez Briggs, who does not actually exist (Konkol, 2007). This idea comes from the interment records at Graceland, where Amos Briggs is written in the interment records instead of Inez Briggs. The misspelling was likely a clerical error, but it snowballed to where a former director of Graceland backed the claim. This point has been debunked since 2009, but it still pops up on occasion. I don’t think there’s any particular reason why this part of the story has stuck, either.
Inez’s statue looks like her
Another decently common assumption made about Inez is that her monument looks like her. Really, we don’t know what Inez looked like, because no photos of her are known to exist¹. We also don’t know if the sculptor, Andrew Gagel, had ever seen Inez while she was alive, or if he would be able to remember her features accurately in the year it took to create her monument. To me, this is important because there have been so many comments made about the monument’s appearance. On the kinder end, there’s the generic “beautiful,” and in the middle you can expect a little more forwardness like, “Rest In Peace my little Angel. I Love You,” (Datta, 2018; Katrina, 2018). On the more extreme end, you get comments about how “she was not allowed to grow up and turn a fine heartbreaker,” (I’m assuming he meant “turn into,” but I’m not sure?) (Michl W, 2011). There’s even assumptions extended to Inez’s clothing.
Within Ursula Bielski’s Chicago Haunts (1997), she notes that the monument is wearing Inez’s favorite dress. That level of detail adds an emotional pull to the story, making the parents seem as sentimental & intentional as possible. In doing so, there’s a justification made for the monument’s grand nature. Why, in an era where child mortality was so common, would Inez be special? It is not enough that Inez’s family had the money and simply wanted a large monument. The curtains cannot only be blue for the sake of being blue within a ghost story.
Inez’s parents were heartbroken/distraught at her death
The final point is the most debatable, since is what we have the least amount of documentation for. Of course, any parent would be upset at their child’s death, so there is no need to debunk this point. However, I think it is worth mentioning because there are several aspects of her story that get ignored when this idea is prioritized.
For one, Inez’s biological father, Wilbur Briggs, wasn’t in the picture when she died. When people think of family structures in the past, there tends to be an assumption that divorce didn’t exist, and men didn’t abandon their families- but they did. John Clarke, the man commonly assumed to be her father, only came into the picture (at least, formally) about 3 months before Inez’s death. John’s first wife, Sophia, had divorced from him on 20 May 1880 due to “cruelty and desertion,” and he wed Mary, Inez’s biological mother, on 30 May 1880 (Chicago daily tribune, 1880, Marriage Record). His census and death certificate information confirm he worked as a bookkeeper, which was not the most lucrative work, though he likely provided more stability for the family than Wilbur ever did (Census, 1900; Census, 1910).
Additionally, what we know from the Graceland records is that John paid for 2 children’s graves on 5 August 1880, the same day of Inez and Delbert’s burials. In one column of the records, it says $400, and in the other, $100. When discussing what this might’ve meant with my boss (the books not having much context themselves), our assumption was that the total is $400 and the down payment was $100. Unfortunately, there isn’t a straightforward method to know exactly how much that would be in today’s money, and there’s nothing in the records to say whether our theory is even correct. We are also not sure how much Inez’s family paid for lot 475-D, either. The original owner of the lot, Benjamin F. Quimby, paid for part of 473-D as well as all of 474-D and 475-D in May 1866, and he conveyed 475-D to David Rothrock (Inez’s step-grandfather) and John Clarke upon Inez’s death. His initial payment for the 2+ lots was $270.72.
Motives for her ghost story, final thoughts
Most, if not all, of this information is irrelevant to Inez’s ghost story. Historical records relating to her and her family were either undiscovered or wholly ignored for the majority of the ghost story’s lifespan. But why was the story made up at all? For one, ghost stories can exist to answer questions, like why her unconventional monument was created, and why the depiction is holding an umbrella. The details surrounding Inez’s actual death are relatively mundane, and creating additional layers of tragedy to her story is another means of justifying the monument. Secondly, Inez’s real life doesn’t hold any moral weight, but her ghost story does. In Bielski’s book, she frames the existence of Inez’s ghost as someone who is looking for a sense of closure or truth surrounding her death- which is a relatively common motif in many supernatural stories (1997). Her ghost story, depending on which version you follow, can both ask children to behave (lest they get locked out), and parents, to perhaps be less harsh. A final more cynical reason is that the people who are credited with bringing her ghost story into popularity had a financial incentive to do so. At the time of the story’s popularization, the likes of Richard T. Crowe and Ursula Bielski had lucrative ghost tour businesses.
When I started drafting this post, it was with a much more cynical outlook, narrowly focusing on making “corrections” to the ghost story. However, that kind of premise was shortsighted, only considering the profit motivations leading to the story’s popularization. With any supernatural or folkloric stories, there will always be motivations for their existence unrelated to money and instead reflecting back on their creators (even Crowe admits in his own book that he didn’t create Inez’s story, he just perpetuated it on tours) and their environments.
Footnote
¹known to exist (photos): Looking the slightest bit into it, I found a news clipping from 1873 with an advertisement for “Hall, Hall, Photographer,” saying 12 Berlin cards of one photo were $2.50, or about $65 in 2024. So, photography wasn’t expensive per-say, but it wasn’t cheap by any means either.
Sources
(1880, May 20). Chicago daily tribune. (Chicago, Ill.), Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84031492/1880-05-20/ed-1/seq-12/
(1900). United States, Census, 1900. FamilySearch. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MSQQ-MCG
(1910.) Illinois, Cook County Deaths, 1871-1998. FamilySearch. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q2M7-8DGQ
Bielski, U. (1997). Chicago haunts: Ghostly lore of the Windy City. Lake Claremont Press. https://archive.org/details/chicagohauntsgho0000biel_i2f8
Datta, A. (2018). These Chicago public artworks will give you nightmares. Chicago Magazine. https://www.chicagomag.com/arts-culture/October-2018/These-Public-Artworks-Will-Give-You-Nightmares/
Katrina. (2023, May 18). Rest In Peace my little Angel. I Love You. [Flower on Inez Briggs’s page]. Find A Grave. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6343132/inez-briggs/flower
Michl W. (2011). unusual idea to protect stone monuments from the weather, but why not the little girl looks very ladylike with that umbrella, what a pity she was not allowed to grow up and turn a fine heartbreaker[Comment on a post of Inez Briggs’s monument]. Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/38039613@N08/5810861117/#comment72157626789489105
Wisconsin Historical Society. Marriage index records: Briggs, Mary C. https://wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Marriage/MR1951946
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