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"The Devil Baby of Hull House " *jslin* just a lil something for halloween |
The Devil Baby of Hull House
The most famous American Devil Baby has to be the Chicago’s Devil Baby of Hull House. At least, this is certainly the most widespread legend.
Hull House represented the life’s work of Nobel Prize winning philanthropist Jane Addams. It was a place envisioned as a stepping-stone for underprivileged and impoverished members of Chicago’s poor immigrant society. Because of Addams’ particular interest in suffrage and women’s and children’s rights, it was natural that immigrant women and mothers would be attracted to the beacon of Hull House.
Despite Addams’ fervent denials (she dedicated more than 40 pages to the legend and its impact on her life in her autobiography) the story persisted that Hull House was the home of a creature not of this earth.
TEUFEL BABY
Originally, the rumor was just a whisper among the large immigrant population of late 19th century Chicago. Mostly superstitious and uneducated, it is certain that they brought with them from their homelands many ethnic and cultural beliefs that shaped their perception of their new foreign world. However, the “facts” were no fabrication: Most sources agree that Jane Addams, out of charity, took in the female who would bear the burden that would plague the good woman for generations to come.
The mother of the Devil Baby, though nameless, is said to have fled to Hull House to escape a brutal marriage. This is a central part of the story and an important one: evidently the young immigrant woman found herself pregnant once again and the husband, already having too many mouths to feed on his meager income, is said to have ruthlessly beat his wife, all the while cursing the unborn child. When the young woman fled to the shelter of Hull House, she found an understanding matron who was prepared to take her in and to protect her through the difficult pregnancy.
And it was a difficult pregnancy, according to the written accounts of Hull House servants who rendered firsthand descriptions of the notorious events. The mother-to-be complained of unusual pains throughout the pregnancy, of hearing voices and of having vivid, frightening nightmares. Jane Addams and the Hull House physicians put this down to the tormented life that the woman had led prior to escaping to Hull House, exacerbated by the continuous efforts of her husband to gain access to her.
As the time of her delivery came due, the horrible nature of what she had carried and nurtured for nine months was finally revealed. A writhing monster child full of scales and reptilian coldness with gleaming, black eyes, clawed hands and feet, and the protrusions of tiny horns on its forehead.
Legend has it that the mother died on the spot, mercifully released from this world. But in an unexpected turn of events, it is said that Jane Addams was overcome with such compassion that it moved her to take the child into her care.
Thus the story grew up over the years, whispered in every quarter, that behind the walls of Hull House an evil was growing.
This infant grew to a child – a monstrous lump of a human-like creature – that prowled the darkness and had full run of the dreaded third storey of Hull House. It is said that the child would peer from the windows, envious of the other children with whom it was not allowed to associate. Children and other residents of Hull House often awoke in the night to strange scrabbling noises and furtive breathing near their faces, only to discover in the lamplight that they were completely alone.
Eventually, Jane Addams died, but the legend of the Devil Baby of Hull House lives on and even today passersby and visitors to the location report seeing the shadow of “something” childlike peering at them from the darkness.
You can see pictures of the baby here (not the real baby but a sculpture, and it is pretty wicked. There are also other devil baby stories here. SLEEP TIGHT WAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAAA :p http://www.hauntedamericatours.com/devilbabies/
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| Alias | Date | Reply |
| Apy |
10/12/2007 7:51:00 PM |
This has always been one of my favorites! How have you been? I haven't seen you around in a while. |
| 32Degree |
10/12/2007 8:17:00 PM |
Yep. About this time of year this "urban legend", which is all I think it is, gets trotted out. I'd put the "Jersey Devil" in the same category. Thanks for posting though. |
| ladyspiritguide |
10/12/2007 8:35:00 PM |
O.K.-I have goosebumps! Good Halloween story!! (I had forgotten this one). |
| 32Degree |
10/12/2007 9:23:00 PM |
I did a posting back in 2000 on the "Devil Baby" that you might finf interesting. |
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