Mary Willis was the second daughter of Henry Lane and Martha Ann "Hinton" Mordecai. On Wednesday, 12 Jan 1881, at noon, Mary Willis married William Armstrong Turk, a Southern Railway Executive, at the "Mordecai House" in Raleigh, the former home of Judge Moses Mordecai and his wife, Margaret Lane. They were married by the Episcopal minister of Christ Church, Dr. M. M. Marshall. They became the parents of two children, Margaret Lane, who married Gavin Hogg Dortch, and Rudolph, who never married.
Mary Willis's husband died at the early age of 50 in 1904 after a three-day illness from pneumonia at his home in Washington, DC. She died in Neuse River, NC, from a cerebral hemorrage in 1937.
It is said of the Mordecai House that it has a ghost. Most of the hauntings that are said to occur at the "Mordecai House" revolve around the famous Mary Willis Mordecai Turk. Many individuals have heard the sound of the piano playing only to discover the appearance of a female apparition sitting at the musical instrument. This apparition is said to consist of a gray mist-like substance. While the evidence of spiritual mist is present, these same individuals can clearly describe what appears to be dress that was considered to be standard in the 19th Century, as well as physical details of the female playing the piano. Historians who have taken an interest in the home believe that the descriptions match what Mary Willis Mordecai Turk would have looked like at the time she owned the plantation mansion.
Mordecai House was featured on an episode of the Sci-Fi Channel's "Ghost Hunters", where the band of erstwhile plumbers displayed their usual adeptness by completely confusing the history of the house and then all coming down with food poisoning.

Mary Willis was the second daughter of Henry Lane and Martha Ann "Hinton" Mordecai. On Wednesday, 12 Jan 1881, at noon, Mary Willis married William Armstrong Turk, a Southern Railway Executive, at the "Mordecai House" in Raleigh, the former home of Judge Moses Mordecai and his wife, Margaret Lane. They were married by the Episcopal minister of Christ Church, Dr. M. M. Marshall. They became the parents of two children, Margaret Lane, who married Gavin Hogg Dortch, and Rudolph, who never married.
Mary Willis's husband died at the early age of 50 in 1904 after a three-day illness from pneumonia at his home in Washington, DC. She died in Neuse River, NC, from a cerebral hemorrage in 1937.
It is said of the Mordecai House that it has a ghost. Most of the hauntings that are said to occur at the "Mordecai House" revolve around the famous Mary Willis Mordecai Turk. Many individuals have heard the sound of the piano playing only to discover the appearance of a female apparition sitting at the musical instrument. This apparition is said to consist of a gray mist-like substance. While the evidence of spiritual mist is present, these same individuals can clearly describe what appears to be dress that was considered to be standard in the 19th Century, as well as physical details of the female playing the piano. Historians who have taken an interest in the home believe that the descriptions match what Mary Willis Mordecai Turk would have looked like at the time she owned the plantation mansion.
Mordecai House was featured on an episode of the Sci-Fi Channel's "Ghost Hunters", where the band of erstwhile plumbers displayed their usual adeptness by completely confusing the history of the house and then all coming down with food poisoning.