History & local legend
At Mosquito Valley Cemetery near Duboistown, an Allison family marker became the focus of a story about a headless woman. Some versions call her a wartime nurse killed in a plane crash; others say a mist above the grave foretells an accident near the bridge. Halloween visits and a search for her missing head became familiar parts of the local legend.
The real woman associated with the marker was Edna A. Bogart Allison. Local genealogical research connected her with a 1964 plane crash in Colorado, rather than service as a nurse during either world war. Accounts of the crash do not establish the decapitation described in the legend.
There is also an older regional story: an 1899 newspaper reported a headless apparition in South Williamsport, decades before Allison’s death.
Sources
- The Cemetery Mom, a local resident recounts the wartime nurse legend she grew up hearing
- Heather Truckenmiller, period clippings from The Columbian (September 28, 1899) and the Berwick Enterprise (October 20, 1964), plus the later cemetery tradition
- Local cemetery inventory, surname-only stone and GPS, USGenNet
- Lycoming County Veterans Affairs cemetery directory
