Nebraska is where I began catching the cemetery bug. I went on my first true “hop” with my best friend, Christi, in Blair. It’s a small town not far from Omaha, where a number of my Claar ancestors once farmed and are now buried. That was in 2009.

When I went out to Omaha this past September, I already had a list of “must see” cemeteries. But since we’d also planned a road trip to Lincoln, I hoped to visit a few I knew nothing about.

Christi wanted to make a stop in Greenwood (population of about 550) to visit the Bakers Candies store. Founded in 1987, Bakers makes mouths water with their famous meltaways. After sampling a few, I could see why.

Greenwood Memorial Cemetery is less than a mile from Bakers Candies, so it wasn’t hard to find. Like many Nebraska cemeteries, Greenwood is located amid cornfields. This one, however, is fairly large with around 1,500 burials and is well maintained.

I couldn’t find out much about the history of Greenwood Memorial Cemetery. I saw burials dating back to the 1860s to just a few months ago.

There’s something quite different about walking through a Nebraska Cemetery from a Georgia one. The landscape is mostly flat, with open sky that seems to last forever. And it feels like you can see for miles.

You also don’t often see grasshoppers this size lurking about.

One of the first markers I noticed was for Margie Armstrong, who died at the age of 20. I’m not sure what kind of material it’s made out of or how it was made.

I was intrigued by the design of the top because it looked like it had been damaged. Upon consulting Margie’s memorial on Find a Grave, I saw what it originally looked like. I don’t know if it was vandalized or if the harsh Nebraska winters had damaged it over time.

I couldn’t find out anything about Margie at all. But there was a marker for another Armstrong that might be related to her. Ralph Armstrong died over 25 years before Margie, but his stone also made me look twice.

I’d never heard of the U.S. military having a Balloon Air Service, although I was aware that they had experimented with balloons for observation during the Civil War. After I got back home, I did a little research and discovered Omaha’s brief history as a site for the U.S. Army Balloon Corps.

Fort Omaha’s Signal Corps Balloon School operated in the years before World War I, experimenting with the new Baldwin Airship Signal Corps-1 (SC-1), which became the first powered aircraft purchased by the Army. This happened just months before the Army purchased the now-proven Wright Flyer (pioneered Orville and Wilbur Wright).

The Fort Omaha Balloon School flew the SC-1 until around 1911, when it was no longer serviceable. Officers and enlisted men continued to train until the school was abandoned in October 1913. It was turned into a government weather station until the outbreak of World War I.

Since the English, French and Germans had been using “kite”, or captive balloons for battlefield observations for years, the U.S. Army again set up its balloon training operations at Fort Omaha and tried to play catch-up. About 16,000 young men received training and balloonist skills that they would use on the battlefield in France.

Duty was dangerous not only because balloons were favorite targets, but due to the fact they were filled with highly flammable hydrogen gas. Observers were forced to jump from the basket more than 100 times but had few mishaps partially due to their excellent training. Seventeen U.S. balloon companies sent to Europe saw action on the front, 13 of them having been organized at Fort Omaha.

At 27, Ralph Armstrong enlisted in the Army on July 29, 1918 and was assigned as a private to the 53rd Balloon Company, stationed at Fort Omaha. A few days before the signing of the Armistice on November 11, 1918, the 53rd was moved to Camp Morrison, Va. About a month later, Ralph was honorably discharged and returned to Nebraska. He died in 1944.

As is often the case, there were several graves of young children. Some even died at birth. This was likely the situation for the Leesley twins, Teddie and Eddie. They died in infancy in 1916.

Nearby is the grave of their brother, Francis, born a few years later in 1922. He died soon after birth but his twin sister, Alice, survived. She married and had children, spending much of her life in Greenwood. She died in 2009 and is also buried at Greenwood Memorial Cemetery.

The children of James and Laura Elliott also died at young ages. A native of Wisconsin, James served for three years in the Union Army as part of the 25th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, Company I. They participated in the siege and capture of Vicksburg, serving under Sherman in his campaigns against Meridian, Atlanta, Savannah, and the Carolinas. The 25th lost more men than any other Wisconsin regiment, but mostly due to disease.

According to the Nebraska State Census taken in 1879, James and Laura were farming in Tipton, Nebraska (just south of Greenwood) with their children, Edwin “Eddie” and Mary “Mamie”. In December, Mamie died just a few days short of 1880. Brother Eddie died only a few months later. In the 1885 Nebraska State Census, Laura is listed as a widow with two children, Ford (born in November 1880), and Blanche (born in 1883). Both James and Laura (who eventually remarried) are buried in Greenwood Memorial Cemetery.

The last grave stone I’m going to feature was one I spotted on our way out. The wording on it was too surprising to breeze past.

Thanks to a 2012 newspaper article, it wasn’t hard to find out what happened to poor George.

My visit to Greenwood Memorial Cemetery was just one of many “hops”  during my visit to Nebraska. But it was the beginning of many discoveries that I’ll be sharing in the weeks to come.

 

In January, it will be two years since I started this blog. I’ve written a lot of posts but one from March 2014 that continues to stick with me was about the short life of Joshua Stulick. Today I’d like to revisit his story and share some of the results of that post.

I also now have a face to go with his name.

In the spring of 2013, I visited Sharon Baptist Church Cemetery in Forsyth County, Ga. to photograph someone’s grave for Find a Grave. As usual, I took pictures of other graves there with the intention of checking to see if I might post them on Find a Grave as well. And there were indeed some that had not been documented. This is something I do at almost every cemetery I visit.

Several months later, I got an e-mail from a woman named Jenn thanking me for photographing a grave and creating a memorial for Joshua Stulick. His name didn’t ring a bell, so I looked up his memorial and learned that he’d died in 1992 at the age of 19.

Jenn wrote:

Thank you so very much for your post of a grave for Joshua Stulick. I have looked for so very long to find him. At last I have it because of you. There was no goodbye when he was tragically killed. Now at least I can visit. Thank you! It means a lot.

Whoa.

I soon learned that Joshua was murdered in a park in Staten Island, N.Y. in April 1992. His murder remained unsolved for many years.

According to The Staten Island Advance, one night Joshua went to a friend’s house for drinks after finishing his shift in the hospital cafeteria where he worked. Later, he and some other people went to Ingram Woods (a nearby park).

On April 28, 1992, Joshua’s body was found, covered in the park’s underbrush. He’d been fatally stabbed in the throat and wrapped in the interior lining of a car trunk.

Suspicion fell on Joshua’s co-worker, James Russell, already on probation for a felony assault conviction. In that case, Russell had plead guilty to a 1989 attack.

Police suspected that the trunk lining Joshua was found wrapped in belonged to Russell’s car, but no other evidence was found. Russell swore he knew nothing about what happened, was released and the case froze up.

In 2005, an anonymous witness came forward. Based on what she said, Russell was arrested and eventually charged with second degree murder. He initially plead not guilty.

In December 2007, Russell changed his story, claiming he and Stulick were drinking and doing drugs that day before heading for Ingram Park. He said they started to “fool around with knives that we each had, playing karate moves and lunging and sparring with each other.”

“Joshua lunged at me as I was swinging my arm with the knife, and I cut him,” Russell admitted. “To my horror, the knife cut into Joshua Stulick’s throat.”

He said he covered the body in Ingram Woods and fled, thinking “everyone would blame me no matter what I said.”

Staten Island Supreme Court Justice Stephen J. Rooney sent Russell to prison for a minimum of three and a half years up to a maximum seven years under an agreement by which Russell pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter. Had he been found guilty of second-degree murder, he might have faced a lifetime jail sentence. As part of the deal, he was not allowed to appeal his sentence.

Joshua’s mother, Kathleen Melchers, spoke at James Russell’s sentencing:

Your actions of cold violence not only took my son’s life, but to drag his body onto a car trunk liner and lay him on the ground behind a rock for two days until being found by someone walking a dog, is an act of sensitivity coming from a wicked heart and extreme lack of respect for the human body and soul.

As a mother of a son myself, I felt disbelief and anger when I read about Russell’s plea deal. Russell’s sentencing took place in 2007 so he’s probably out walking the streets again now.

While I didn’t know if anyone would contact me after I published the original blog post, that didn’t matter to me. I felt that I was meant to photograph Joshua’s grave for a reason and writing about him was simply something I had to do.

A few months later, I was surprised to find that Joshua’s mother, Kathleen (who goes by the name Kathy), had left a comment on the blog.

The longsuffering was a walk no person should have to go through but God had his hand on many people and assigned a God appointed team in Staten island, which I still count them all dear to my heart. The Team was truly assigned to Joshua’s case. The God I serve took care of the judgement, hurting hearts, and the ability to forgive. I will see him in heaven; no tears or hurts every again. I have learned to love others in a special way as I know that is what Joshua would want me to do.

I had worried about Kathleen in light of Russell’s incredibly light sentence. Enduring the violent death of your own child is something no parent should have to go through. But her words showed me that while her journey had been difficult, she had turned to God for healing and understanding. And found it.

Joshua’s godmother, Bonnie, left a comment this past August:

I came across this article today and could not believe someone cared that he did die so young. He was my godson and very precious little boy. Have been thinking of him because his birthday is coming up on September 10th, he would have been 42 this year. My only peace is that he is with our Lord and hopefully singing for the angels.

Joshua’s friend and fellow bandmate, Mike Arguelles, left a comment just a few months ago:

I went to Curtis High School with Josh and briefly played in a band with him, ( “Section 8” ) He was a good guy and his own person. I last spoke with him over the phone shortly before he was to move down South. The move never got to happen. I often think about Josh, ( he was a good friend to me ) how he got cheated his due time and my heart goes out to his family and fellow friends. May you rest in peace, Josh. See you on the other side, Brother.

Jenn, who originally contacted me about Joshua, recently sent me an email to share some of her memories of him. While it had been many years since his death, she continues to try to come to terms with it.

When I finally saw a photo of his grave…it hit me like a brick. It’s not that I didn’t know he was dead, but I suppose finally a more tangible look at it hit me very hard, for a very long time after that. I have never stopped grieving. And all I will ever have of him is that photo on your site. Not even of him, but of his grave.

He was beautiful. And despite his pitfalls (I know he was not a saint), he was kind. He cared more about what was best for me than what he wanted. That jacket they found at the park was one he used to give to me when I was cold.

I have to say that I have a wonderful family of my own. A husband and tree precious children, but this loss has never ceased to ache. To say my heart was broken is a gross understatement; it was shattered and that cannot be mended.

Kathy left another comment this past October and I responded by telling her I was planning on writing an update to my original blog post. I asked if she might send me a picture of Joshua. She doesn’t have a scanner but was able to photograph a paper picture of Joshua that she had. I was thrilled to finally see his face, to get a glimpse of the young man I’d written about.

Joshua’s story points me to a truth I’ve known for a while. A name and a date on a gravestone is just the tip of the iceberg of the life of the person it represents. Each person has their own unique story, has impacted the lives of others in some special way. Every life is special.

Even if it ends long before it should have.

Postscript 4/28/2022: Today marks the 30th anniversary of Joshua’s death. Since I wrote the update above, I have talked to Kathy on the phone about Joshua’s memory. People still leave messages with memories of Joshua and I treasure each one.

Over the past weeks, I’ve highlighted a variety of people buried at South-View Cemetery. Civil rights pioneers, a famous Vaudeville sister act, a Tuskegee airman, outspoken clergymen and many more.

But there’s another side to South-View that is impossible to escape. The graves of ordinary men and women who did not have towering monuments and illustrious pasts. Some whose graves are not even marked. When you wander over to the older section of the cemetery that is not within the perpetual care area, you’ll find a more untamed, rugged beauty.

While John and I meandered around, I took pictures of whatever caught my eye. This rather crude inlay of the letter “H” for the Hardin family’s plot was one of them.

I saw a number of markers with the words “Mother at Rest” on them, which I found particularly touching.

On the far east side of the cemetery, the landscape is less manicured but it remains a peaceful sanctuary of reflection.

I noticed a few monuments standing alone in large stretches of grass nearby. These were plots purchased by black churches as part of burial societies decades ago. The one below was erected by the Daughters of Israel of the Reed (misspelled as Reid on the stone) Street Baptist Church, organized in 1867.

African-Americans were not allowed to be buried with whites before the Civil War and long into the years after it. Though some freed slaves preferred to remain on the plantation or settle in the countryside, many relocated to urban areas and established communities. They needed somewhere to bury their dead in an inexpensive way.

I could find no specific information about Atlanta’s black burial societies. But in Charleston after the Civil War, whites encouraged freed blacks to form benevolent societies so they might collect dues and purchase land for cemeteries. About nine of these have been identified but there were likely more. Such societies also existed in Northeastern Jewish communities and a few still exist today.

Arranging burial was only one part of some of these societies. They sometimes paid for the education of orphaned children, found work and supported families, provided financial support to the sick and dying, and offered widows an annuity or modest monthly stipend to help with living expenses.

Reed Street Baptist Church (misspelled as Reid Street on the monument) is now Paradise Baptist Church. Dinah Watts Pace, a former slave, began a Sunday School for poor and orphaned children in the Summerhill area of Atlanta. She also opened a children’s home later. The original Sunday School was the core of what would later become Reed Street Baptist Church.

The only marked grave in the Daughters of Israel’s plot is that of Ellen Shaw, who was born in 1837 and died in 1899 at the age of 64 years. According to census records, by 1870 she was widowed and working as a domestic servant with her daughter, Tempy, who was also a servant. Ellen is listed as a laundress in the 1877 Atlanta City Directory. It’s likely that she or her daughter was a member of Reed Street Baptist Church.

Another burial society monument I found was for the Independent Daughters and Sons of Bethel Society, Inc., formerly the Independent Daughters of Bethel Society, Inc. This society was affiliated with the Big Bethel AME Church.

Founded in 1847, Big Bethel is the oldest African-American congregation in the Atlanta area. The church is still active today and its “Jesus Saves” sign has been a city landmark since 1922 when the church was rebuilt after a fire.

The last burial society monument I found was for two different groups. The first was the Sisters of Love Society, organized in 1875, and the Rising Stars Society of the Wheat Street Baptist Church, organized in 1879. Perhaps the Sisters of Love Society was also part of this church since the two share one marker. I could find absolutely no information on either group and there were no grave markers within these plots.

Wheat Street Baptist, on the other hand, has a long and much-documented history. Established in 1869, parishioners from Friendship Baptist Church who wanted to attend a church closer to their homes organized into a mission known as Mt. Pleasant Baptist, with Rev. Andrew Jackson as their pastor. Their first place of worship was Jackson’s yard on Howell Street. After a fire in 1917, they moved into its current building on Auburn Avenue in the 1920s. It is still active today.

There are a few other graves that I paused at for their unique appeal. This one was definitely worth a second look.

I could find nothing about Andrew Mozley or his family. But the cross erected in their honor is lovely to look at. It’s also an interesting collection of Christian cemetery symbols.

In ancient times, the anchor was regarded as a symbol of safety. It was later adopted by Christians as a symbol of hope and steadfastness. Doves are a symbol for love and peace, as well as the Holy Spirit. A Lily of the Valley signifies innocence, humility and renewal.

Not very far from the Mozley monument is this one for Richard Kelsey. I could not locate him in any census records but his name appears several times in the Atlanta City Directory.

In the 1870s, he worked as a gardener for Alfred H. Colquitt, a lawyer and Civil War major general before becoming the 49th Governor of Georgia. Colquitt was elected U.S. Senator after that. In later years, Kelsey worked as a driver and a laborer.

The calla lily represents marriage and fidelity. But I can find no record of Richard Kelsey being married so that may not be the case in this example.

This last marker has no names at all but rested alone in a large plot. One was a wife, the other her daughter. Their identities are lost to time but this one last memento of them remains.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this journey through South-View Cemetery. It’s a hidden gem in Atlanta so if you ever have the chance to go there, don’t put it off like I did. You won’t regret it.

 

No tour of South-View Cemetery would be complete without talking about the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was initially buried at South-View after his untimely death. Several of his family members are buried there that greatly influenced his path in life.

The Rev. Adam Daniel (A.D.) Williams was the grandfather of Martin Luther King, Jr. As the son of slaves Willis and Lucretia Williams in Greene County, Ga., he was probably born in 1861 but celebrated his birthday on January 2, 1863, the day after the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect. His hopes of following his father into preaching were evident from an early age. Taught by several ministers in the community, Rev. Williams earned his license to preach in April 1888.

In January 1893, he was called to the pastorate of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church. Although Ebenezer had only 13 members when he arrived, the congregation grew to 400 members by 1903. Williams enrolled at Atlanta Baptist College (later named Morehouse College) and in May 1898, received his certificate from the ministerial program. Rev. Williams married Jennie Celeste Parks in 1899. In 1903, they welcomed their only surviving daughter, Alberta, who later became the mother of Martin Luther King, Jr.

In September 1895, Rev. Williams joined 2,000 other delegates and visitors at Friendship Baptist Church to organize the National Baptist Convention, the largest black organization in the U.S. By 1904, Rev. Williams was president of the Atlanta Baptist Ministers’ Union, and chairman of both the executive board and finance committee of the General State Baptist Convention.

In 1906, Rev. Williams helped organize the Georgia Equal Rights League to protest the white primary system. Twelve years later, Williams became branch president of the NAACP chapter he helped found. During his tenure, the branch grew to 1,400 members within five months and spearheaded a major effort to register black voters.

Daughter Alberta married Martin Luther King, Sr. (known as “Daddy King”) in 1926. Rev. Williams’ son-in-law succeeded him as pastor of Ebenezer in 1931 after his death.

Near the front gates of South-View is the tomb of Rev. King Sr. and Alberta. After Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn. in 1968 by James Earl Ray, his body was placed in this tomb until the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change (known as The King Center) opened in the 1970s when his remains were moved to a new tomb there. His wife, Coretta Scott King, joined him there when she died in 2006.

The son of sharecroppers Delia (Linsey) and James Albert King, Dr. Martin Luther King Sr. was born Michael King in Stockbridge, Ga. in 1899. As a young man, he moved to Atlanta, where his sister Woodie was boarding with Rev. A.D. Williams. After Dr. King Sr. started courting Alberta, her family encouraged him to finish his education and become a preacher.

In 1926, Dr. King Sr. started his ministerial degree at the Morehouse School of Religion and married Alberta at Ebenezer Baptist Church. The couple had three children: Willie Christine King (Farris), Martin Luther King, Jr. (born Michael King, Jr.), and Alfred Daniel Williams King.

Dr. King Sr. became leader of Ebenezer Baptist Church in March 1931 after the death of his father-in-law. By 1934, he’d become a much respected leader of the local church. He changed his name (and that of his eldest son) from Michael King to Martin Luther King after becoming inspired during a trip to Germany by the life of theologian Martin Luther, although he never changed his name legally.

Dr. King Sr. was the pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church for 40 years. In 1948, his son, Martin Jr., joined him at Ebenezer as an associate pastor. Despite theological differences, father and son would later serve together as joint pastors at the church.

Dr. King Sr. headed Atlanta’s Civic and Political League, and NAACP branch. After his son’s assassination in 1968, he lent his support to former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter during his 1976 Presidential campaign.

Dr. King Sr. endured more than one family tragedy. On June 30, 1974, while Dr. King Sr. was out of town, Alberta was playing the organ at Ebenezer Baptist Church during a service when she was shot and killed. The gunman, 21-year-old Marcus Wayne Chenault, claimed he planned to shoot Dr. King Sr. because of his hatred for Christians but in his absence, had shot his wife instead. Cheanualt was given a life sentence and died of a stroke in prison in 1995.

Dr. King Sr.’s younger son, Rev. Alfred Daniel Williams King. Jr., died in 1969 at the age of 39 when he drowned in the swimming pool at his home. After suffering a stroke in 1984, Dr. King Sr. died and was buried at South-View beside his wife.

There are two other graves I’d like to mention. The first is Carrie Cunningham and her son, McAllister “Red” Riggins. Had it not been for Red’s outrageous behavior, Atlanta’s famed Royal Peacock club might never have opened in 1949.

“Mama” Cunningham already owned and managed the Royal Hotel on Auburn Avenue. Hoping to keep her wayward musician son out of trouble, she opened the Royal Peacock (formerly the Top Hat, where the Whitman sisters performed). Cunningham already had experience in the entertainment world, having worked in large traveling vaudeville troupes as a girl.

Thanks to Cunningham’s business skills, the Royal Peacock became the hot spot for up and coming talent. Artists like James Brown, Ray Charles and Nat King Cole played there as relative unknowns who went on to become stars.

Cunningham was also a confidante and adviser to Martin Luther King, Jr. and newspaper columnist Ralph McGill. She also enjoyed the company of Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson, Mohammed Ali and other African-American celebrities.

Carrie Cunningham died in 1973 and the Royal Peacock’s fortunes have ebbed and flowed since that time. Currently, it’s a hip hop club but the Royal Peacock has yet to recapture the status it had once up on a time.

The last person I’d like to talk about is a man most known for an iconic picture in a magazine. In it, he’s weeping as he plays the accordion, mourning for his lost friend. But there was much more to Graham Jackson, Sr. than a photo.

A native of Portsmouth, Va., Jackson could master almost any instrument, giving piano and organ concerts at high school age. Sponsored by a wealthy patron, Jackson studied at the college level but when the patron died, Jackson stopped his formal training until he moved to Georgia.

During his early days in Atlanta, Jackson attended Morehouse College and Atlanta University. In 1928, he joined the faculty at Washington High School and served as its music director until 1940.

Jackson became a personal friend of Eleanor and President Franklin D. Roosevelt, having played command performances in Washington, D.C. He was present in Warm Springs, Ga., when Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945. The two had been collaborating on a version of Antonin Dvorak’s “Goin’ Home” the day before.

Jackson became a national icon when Life photographer Ed Clark took a photo of Jackson playing “Goin’ Home” as Roosevelt’s funeral train left Warm Springs.

Jackson served in the Navy from 1942 to 1945, receiving six honorary citations for his war bond fundraising (yielding more than $3,000,000 in sales) and Navy recruitment work.

Jackson went on to appear on Ed Sullivan’s Toast of the Town and formed the Graham Jackson Choir, which toured extensively. He also made guest appearances playing the huge Moller organ at Atlanta’s Fox Theater (nicknamed the “Mighty Mo”).

In later years, Jackson entertained with a combo and as a solo Hammond organ artist at Atlanta’s Johnny Reb’s Restaurant and Pittypat’s Porch. He was named Official Musician of the State of Georgia by then-Governor Jimmy Carter in 1971 and was inducted posthumously into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 1985.

There’s so much more to South-View Cemetery than what I’ve written in these three installments, so I’m returning next week to wrap things up in Part IV.

Last week, I introduced you to some of the history of Atlanta’s South-View Cemetery and featured a few of its more notable residents. Today, we’ll continue on our tour.

On the far side of the cemetery, John led me to the grave of one of Atlanta’s most successful businessmen. The story of how he went from a slave to Atlanta’s first black millionaire is well worth telling.

Born into slavery in 1858, Alonzo Franklin Herndon was the son of his white master, Frank Herndon, and a slave, Sophenie. Like many former slaves after the Civil War, the Herndon family (Alonzo, his mother, maternal grandparents and brother) became sharecroppers. Herndon worked as a farmhand in his teens and learned the barbering trade, opening his first shop in Jonesboro where he developed a thriving business.

After Herndon settled in Atlanta, he worked in a shop owned by William Dougherty Hutchins and later purchased half interest in the shop. By 1904, he owned three shops in Atlanta. His famous “Crystal Palace” shop at 66 Peachtree Street was advertised as the largest and best barbershop in the region.

Following racial practices of the time, African-American barbers served an exclusively white clientele composed of the city’s leading lawyers, judges, politicians, and businessmen. As Herndon’s success grew, he invested in real estate in Atlanta and in Florida.

In 1905, Herndon purchased a failing mutual aid association, which he incorporated as the Atlanta Mutual Insurance Association. The small association expanded its assets from $5,000 to more than $400,000 by 1922. In the same year, the company became the Atlanta Life Insurance Company and achieved legal reserve status, a position enjoyed by only four other black insurance companies at that time.

In the 1920s, Herndon expanded Atlanta Life into a half dozen new states. Seeking to save failing black enterprises whenever possible, he re-insured policyholders and merged the faltering business into Atlanta Life to maintain confidence in black businesses while saving jobs for African-Americans.

As a result of Herndon’s wealth and business stature, the African-American community looked to him for leadership. He knew many of the leading black intellectual and political leaders in the country, and participated in several organizations with a national political or economic focus.

On the local level, Herndon generously supported the YMCA, Atlanta University, three orphanages, the Herndon Day Nursery and the First Congregational Church. He also supported commercial activities, including the Southview Cemetery Association and the Atlanta State Savings Bank.

Herndon’s wife, Adrienne, was a drama professor at Atlanta University when they met. She was also admired for her beauty, intelligence and good taste. Along with her husband, she helped design and decorate their new Beaux Art-style residence that became the Herndon Home. Although she died shortly after the home was completed in 1910, it still stands today and is a museum.

Located not far from the Herndon family plot is a marker that’s quite different by contrast. George “Union” Wilder’s grave is believed to be the only existing marker for a black victim of the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot. This 2006 article by Jim Auchmutey goes into greater detail.

On Sept. 22, 1906, Atlanta newspapers were featuring extras with wildly exaggerated reports of rapes by blacks. An estimated crowd of 5,000 whites downtown started assaulting blacks at random. By the time the violence ended four days later, between 25 and 50 people were dead. One of them was 70-year-old George “Union” Wilder.

When the Civil War began, Wilder was a slave working for the Wilder family in Macon. On April 8, 1865, (the day before Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox), Wilder enlisted in Selma and became part of the 137th U.S. Colored Troops, a regiment of former slaves from Alabama and Georgia. Wilder was so proud of his service that he apparently adopted “Union” as a middle name.

After Wilder and his wife returned to Atlanta in the 1880s, he guarded leased convict labor at the Chattahoochee Brick Co. He applied for an invalid’s pension in 1890, complaining of rheumatism, heart disease and pain behind one eye burned by gunpowder during the war.

On the night her husband died, Wilder’s wife was working as a servant in a private home. But she had seen his corpse. She gave the cause of death as “cuts by knives and gun and pistol shots … in the hands of a mob.” Wilder’s death resulted in no charges. The Atlanta Constitution listed him as a riot fatality in a short brief, but none of the city’s newspapers bothered to write an obituary.

Seven of the riot victims lie in unmarked pauper’s graves at South-View. Only Wilder’s is marked with a broken piece of granite with an inscription that’s almost impossible to read. Below his name, age and affiliation with the Odd Fellows fraternal organization are three lines:

A soldier of the Civil War
was killed in the riot
of Atlanta Sept. 26, 1906 

Our next stop was the grave of Lieutenant Walter Drake Westmoreland, member of the legendary Tuskegee Airmen. The son of a letter carrier, Westmoreland was a graduate of Class 43-G. He earned his pilot wings at Tuskegee in 1943 and flew a P-51C fighter, nicknamed “Dopey”.

Westmoreland was a member of the 332nd Fighter Group, 305th Fighter Squadron based in Italy during World WWII. To identify themselves in combat, they painted the tails of their fighters bright red, which earned them the nickname “Red Tails.”

On Oct. 13, 1944, Westmoreland’s plane was shot down by enemy ground fire near Lake Balaton, Hungary, while returning from an escort mission to Blechhammer, Germany. First designated as missing in action, Westmoreland’s remains were not returned from Europe until December 1948 and he was laid to rest at South-View.

We’re not done with our tour yet so come back next week to continue the journey in Part III.

 

 

Ever have the best intentions of doing something but keep getting derailed? That’s the story of my wish to visit Atlanta’s historic South-View Cemetery.

Those intentions might have stayed just that had it not been for fellow “hopper” and author John Bayne. He’d bring up going there once in a while since he’s writing a book about South-View but something always came up. Over the summer, we found a Friday that worked and I picked him up in front of the King Center before we headed out.

South-View Cemetery has a rich history that few Atlantans know about and if not for John, I wouldn’t have discovered it either. I hope to share this local treasure over the next few weeks so more people will visit and learn.

After the Civil War, former slaves and their free-born children hoped to establish a new way of life for their families throughout the South. It wasn’t easy and they faced many obstacles. Those living in Atlanta were no exception.

African-Americans often had to enter cemeteries through back gates and even wade through swamps to hold funeral services. They were told “If you don’t like it, start your own cemetery.” In 1886, they did just that. Nine black businessmen (most of them former slaves) petitioned the State of Georgia for a charter to establish a cemetery and it was granted in April of the same year.

Today, South-View is the final resting place for many of Atlanta’s African-American elite. Civil rights icons, successful entrepreneurs and influential ministers can be found within footsteps of each other. About 70,000 people are buried at South-View and it’s still an active cemetery, with hundreds of burials a year.

During our visit, I had the honor of meeting South-View’s current president, Winifred Watts Hemphill. She is the great-granddaughter of one of the cemetery’s founders, Albert Watts, Sr. An accomplished attorney, Ms. Hemphill is dedicated to preserving and sharing South-View’s history. You can watch a video of her touring the cemetery here.

Thanks to a recently created audio tour, you can learn about some of South-View’s more notable residents. John and I tried it out using my iPhone and found it easy to follow.

The first stop was the grave of Geneva Haugabrooks, an icon in the African-American community. As founder (1929) and owner of Haugabrooks Funeral Home, which is still operated by family, she was one of the early African-American pioneers of Atlanta’s black business community and one of the few black female entrepreneurs on Auburn Avenue.

Geneva Haugabrooks was also recognized as an accomplished community leader who interacted with Atlanta’s nationally and internationally-known political figures, and local personalities.

Our next stop was the grave of John Wesley Dobbs. Often caled the unofficial mayor of Auburn Avenue, Dobbs was one of several distinguished African-American civic and political leaders who worked to achieve racial equality in segregated Atlanta during the first half of the 20th century.

Dobbs believed African-American suffrage was the key to racial advancement. Hoping to reach a goal of registering 10,000 black voters in Atlanta, he preached the importance of voter registration wherever he spoke. Dobbs also founded the Atlanta Civic and Political League in 1936 and, with attorney A. T. Walden, co-founded the Atlanta Negro Voters League in 1946.

Dobbs was also the grandfather of Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson (1972-82 and 1990-94). In 1994, Jackson honored him by changing Houston Street to John Wesley Dobbs Ave. I was working at United Family Life at the time (located on that street) and remember it well.

The next grave we came to is not on the tour but John stopped me to tell me about it. Without John Harden, Atlanta African-Americans might not have enjoyed several seasons of exciting baseball in the 1930s and 1940s.

From 1937 to 1949, John Harden and his wife, Billie, owned and managed the Atlanta Black Crackers, the city’s famed Negro Southern League baseball team. Harden owned a filling station on Auburn Avenue and was already well known in the community.

Like their white counterparts, the Black Crackers played at Ponce de Leon Park. On days when the white Atlanta Crackers were scheduled to play a home game, the Black Crackers played their games at either Morehouse College or Morris Brown College. Over the years, the team often suffered severe financial setbacks that kept them from playing but they were a hot ticket when they did. The team officially disbanded for good in 1952.

Upon first appearance, the Whitman family plot doesn’t indicate the depth of history involved with the occupants buried there. The largest stone is for the Rev. Albery Allson (A.A.) Whitman and his wife, Caddie. Born into slavery in Kentucky, Rev. Whitman became a prominent African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church pastor and a noted author. During his life, he was acclaimed as the “Poet Laureate of the Negro Race”.

While Rev. Whitman was well known in certain circles, the successful entertainment careers of his daughters would at the time far outshine that of their father.

While the upbringing of Mabel (May), Alberta, Essie and Alice Whitman was understandably strict, it included musical training and they often accompanied their father at gospel jubilees at various churches. Some say he taught them dances as a form of exercise. He probably wasn’t thrilled when the three oldest decided to start a vaudeville act in 1899, but the fact that he left them a sizable legacy after his death indicates he supported them.

The Whitman Sisters were unusual not only because they outlasted other black companies, but also because it was solely owned and managed by an African-American woman, May Whitman.

Because they were light skinned and sometimes performed in blackface, white audiences thought they were white. The Whitman Sisters started their show business career touring in many white vaudeville shows. They toured in Europe at one point and eventually made Chicago their home base, focusing on black audiences. The Whitman Sisters would become the highest paid black act on the black vaudeville circuit.

May successfully directed and ran the production company that sometimes employed as many as 30 people. In an environment dominated by male white theater owners and booking agents, Mabel stood apart and was dubbed the “Tiger Show Woman”. Her business savvy in negotiating contracts while keeping her show clean and respectable was admirable. Ever a preacher’s daughter, she insisted that all performers attend church services on Sundays.

Alberta (“Bert”) was an agile dancer who worked as a male impersonator in her acts. She handled all the show’s finances and composed much of the music. Essie, a big-voiced singer, was in charge of designing and making the costumes for the group. Her comedy routines were audience favorites. She retired from the act in 1926 to become an evangelist.

Alice, the youngest, was regarded by many as the “Queen of Taps” and performed many dances of the day, including the Shim Sham Shimmy, Ballin’ The Jack and Walkin’ the Dog. Her son, Albert, joined the show as a child and grew to become a talented dancer.

The Whitman Sisters’ fortunes waxed and waned over the decades but thanks to May’s financial planning, they retired to an elegant 15-room home in Chicago by 1940. All had been married a few times by this point.

May died in 1942 while planning the troupe’s next show. Essie died in 1963 from smoke inhalation when the Chicago home burned and Alberta died a year later. Alice died in 1969 and is buried in Lincoln Cemetery in Blue Island, Ill. with her son, Albert. He died in 1950 at the age of 33. The other sisters are all buried at South-View. While I was able to find markers for Alberta and Essie, I could not find one for May.

Sadly, the Whitman Sisters’ individual grave markers have not stood the test of time well. They are the temporary markers from African-American owned funeral homes that often remained their only marker since a permanent one was never purchased. Both are in very poor condition.

Today, few pictures remain of the Whitmans Sisters and no audio/video recordings of their performances survive. I’m hopeful that someday, a memorial to these four remarkable women will be placed to honor their special niche in vaudeville history.

Next week, we’ll continue our tour of South-View in Part II.

I photographed so many great portraits at Chicago’s Mount Carmel Catholic Cemetery that it seemed unfair to relegate them to a file on my computer, never to be seen. So I pulled out some I like most and made today’s post a simple pictorial.

I tried to do some research on the people pictured here but it didn’t yield much useful information. As I discovered in doing research on my own family tree, immigrants did not always divulge accurate information to census takers, if they told them anything at all.

The tradition of placing a portrait of the deceased on the grave marker was embraced and cherished by the Italian immigrants that came to Chicago and made it their home. Their gazes are often solemn, attired in their best clothes. We are blessed to have these mementos of their lives.

Maria Campo Rosone (spelled Rosoni in some records) came from Italy with her parents, Tom Campo and Margaret Gatagopa Campo. Her death record lists her as a housewife but I couldn’t find her husband’s name. She was only 40 when she died.

The only record for Sophie Rosone that I could find was that in 1928 she was living with her husband, Joseph, who was a candy maker. I don’t know if she was related to Maria Rosone.

I am 95 percent sure that this young man is Carmen Pintozzi but his name is not on the monument he shares with Vito Pintozzi (whom I believe was his father). It’s on a ground level marker, however. Vito (who was a newspaper dealer) died only three years after Carmen, who was a florist and married to Ruth Pintozzi. Carmen and his parents came to America from Salerno, Italy.

Three members of the Angelico family share one monument. Antonio and Rafaella both came from the village of Brienza in Italy and lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina before moving to the U.S. sometime after 1900.

Antonio is listed in the 1910 as a laborer. He looks rather well to do in his photograph.

I’m certain Rosina was greatly missed by her parents. In her portrait she is wearing her first communion dress. She was only 14 at the time of her death. The Angelicos had several other children who lived well into adulthood.

Rafaella Mautone came from Marigliano, Italy and was married to Sebastiano Mautone, who is listed as a laborer. She shares a marker with him and what appear to be two of her children who died in their 20s. But her face is the most interesting of the four. She most likely never became a U.S. citizen. Her husband died about 20 years before she did.

I wanted to include Onofrio Taglia’s mausoleum because it is a good example of how Italian immigrant families honored their beloved sons. His mausoleum features a statue and two portraits of him.

His parents, Vincenzo and Angelina, were from Italy but Onofrio was born in Chicago and worked for the city’s sewer department before he was drafted during World War I.

He died at Camp Logan in Houston, Texas in January 1919. I discovered that Camp Logan fell victim to the massive Spanish Flu pandemic. Military bases were especially susceptible to Spanish Flu outbreaks, so it is highly likely that Onofrio died from it.

The Sorianello monument leaves more questions than answers. This is Francesco “Frank” Sorianello, the son of Francesco Sorianello, Sr. He died at the age of 32. One record for him concerns a will indicating he left an estate of around $10,000 behind.

Even less is known about Francesco Sorianello, Sr., who died at the age of 50. He was probably an Italian immigrant. His wife is not buried with him but the words “Ricordo di Vittoria Sorianello” are on the base of the monument.”Ricordo” usually means “memory” or “remembered by” in Italian.  The only record I could find for him was that he died intestate and the amount of his estate was undetermined.

Vittoria later remarried and was the wife of Rocco Petiffo, a butcher.

This portrait is on the side of the Sorianello monument and there are no names or dates under it. The only clue to whom it might be is that one more name is listed under those of the father and son. Franco Sorianello died at the age of one. But are these two different pictures of him? I don’t know.

This last portrait has to be one of the…well…creepiest I’ve ever seen. I was walking through the cemetery and looked up to see Pasquale staring back at me. It’s the first “post mortem” photo I have seen up close on a monument. I’ve seen a few online but never one in person. A post-mortem photo is taken after the person has died.

Pasquale’s name is a bit of a puzzle. The monument lists him as Pasquale Marcandento but the children listed below him are all Mercadante. I’m thinking perhaps his name was changed after he came through Ellis Island, as many Italian names were (remember The Godfather?).

I found a will for Pasquale that states he had an estate worth $20,000 when he died, so he must have been prosperous in his day. I have no idea why his family chose to have him photographed like this but perhaps no photos were taken of him when he was alive.

While I could post several more of these portraits, I’ll end it here. I hope you’ve enjoyed my Chicago rambles.

Arrivederci e che Dio vi benedica.

Last week, I put the spotlight on the bad boys buried at Mount Carmel Catholic Cemetery. Lest you think only gangsters rest in peace there, I’m going to change gears and share the story behind the beautiful Bishops’ Mausoleum, located in the center of the cemetery.

Informally called the Bishops’ Mausoleum, the full name is the Mausoleum and Chapel of the Archbishops of Chicago. It was built between 1905 and 1912, at the order of Archbishop James Quigley (who is interred inside of it).

Archbishop Quigley chose architect William J. Brinkman to design the Mausoleum. The son of German immigrants, he supervised the construction of Chicago’s Masonic Temple, a skyscraper that was the world’s tallest building at the time of completion in 1892.

Brinkman also designed several churches, among which are St. Josaphat’s, St. Michael’s in South Chicago and St. Mary’s in Buffalo Grove. He was one of the three architects involved in the design of Our Lady of Sorrows Basilica.

Here’s an odd postscript about Brinkman, who died before the Mausoleum was completed. His decapitated body was found on train tracks near 73rd Street in February 1911. Contradictory evidence prevented an inquest from determining a clear reason for his death or a finding of murder. Was it suicide or was he pushed onto the tracks?

Brinkman’s funeral was held at St. Leo’s Church on 78th Street, a church he had himself designed in 1905. His death remains unsolved.

Archbishop Quigley chose Aristide Leonori, noted for his 1899 design of the Mount St. Sepulcher Franciscan Monastery in Washington, D.C, to handle the mausoleum’s interior. Leonori reportedly relied heavily on marble and mosaics to give the chapel a Roman look while still referencing Celtic, Nordic and Slavic saints in the design so it would reflect the archdiocese’s many ethnic groups and national churches.

I wish I’d been able to see the inside of the Bishops’ Mausoleum, but it was tightly locked up.

The most famous of this group of two bishops, two archbishops and three cardinals is Cardinal Joseph Bernardin (1928-1996). He was much beloved in Chicago and considered by many to be a candidate for the Papacy.

As the son of Italian immigrants, Bernardin had early ambitions to be a doctor but later chose the priesthood. Ordained a priest of the Diocese of Charleston in 1952 (which covers all of South Carolina), he served there 14 years.

In 1966, Pope Paul VI appointed now Monsignor Bernadin titular Bishop of Ligura and Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Atlanta. His episcopal consecration took place that same year and at only 38 years of age, Bernardin became the youngest bishop in America.

Over the next years, Bernardin ascended in rank and prominence. Following the death of Cardinal John Cody of Chicago in 1982, Pope John Paul II chose Archbishop Bernardin to lead the Archdiocese of Chicago.

On Nov. 20, 1996, after a battle with pancreatic cancer, Cardinal Bernardin joined his predecessors in the Bishops’ Mausoleum. He visited there a few months before his death to choose a crypt. Choosing one next to Cardinal Cody, he remarked, “I’ve always been a little left of Cody”.

Located very close to the north gate is the grave of a young bride who did not possess the infamy of a gangster or reverence of a Catholic Cardinal. But her story has made her almost as famous in some circles.

For many years, rumors and ghost stories have abounded about the Italian Bride of Mount Carmel Cemetery. I found a fantastic article by Adam Selzer, who has a blog called Mysterious Chicago. He spent considerable time finding the truth amid the sensationalism. While some of the legend is faulty (such as the assertion that she died on her wedding night), the basis of it appears to be true.

Julia Buccola and her mother, Filomena, came to Chicago from Palermo, Italy in 1913, joining Julia’s siblings Joseph, Henry and Rosalia. Filomena’s surviving descendants said the death of her own husband in Italy had left her a bitter woman who depended a great deal on her children.

According to Selzer’s article, Julia married Matthew Petta in 1920. Her death certificate reveals that she died in childbirth almost exactly nine months after her wedding. Two days later, she and the baby were buried in the same plot at Mount Carmel Cemetery, near the north gate. She was only 29 when she died.

Julia’s husband remarried a few years later and moved away. In the years after Julia’s death, Filomena moved back and forth between Chicago and Los Angeles (where son Henry and his family now lived).

Five years after Julia’s death, Filomena claimed she was having terrible nightmares in which her daughter demanded to be let out of her grave. Being a rather demanding mother, she pressured Henry into having his sister dug up. Having become a successful designer of women’s clothing, he could afford it.

Six years after her death, Julia Buccola Petta’s casket was exhumed and opened. You can see it in the photograph installed on the new monument that was placed there after she was reburied. Julia looks amazingly, uhm, fresh for having been underground for all that time.

So why did Filomena go to all that trouble? Some think it wasn’t nightmares at all but that she wanted a new, more elaborate monument to take the place of Julia’s much smaller gravestone. Son Henry grudgingly ended up paying for that as well. Since Filomena’s name is on it not once but twice, perhaps she was looking for a little bit of attention herself.

Some people have claimed to see a woman in white visiting Julia’s grave. I didn’t see anybody during my visit. But it was broad daylight on a hot, humid day so that’s not surprising.

There’s one more resident of Mount Carmel that I want to talk about. He’s buried in the far Northwest corner of the cemetery, not far from Sam Giancana’s mausoleum. His grave is marked by a simple flat stone that took me a little time to find.

I first became aware of Dennis Farina from the 1986 NBC TV show Crime Story. My Dad was a huge fan of classic 60s automobiles and the show was set in that era, so he watched every episode. Farina played hard-bitten Chicago cop Lt. Mike Torello.

I found out years later that Farina was a cop in Chicago’s burglary division for 18 years before becoming an actor. He began working for director Michael Mann as a police consultant, which led Mann to cast him in a small role in the 1981 film Thief. He left the Chicago PD in 1985 to become an actor full time.

Two of Farina’s best-known movie characters are Jimmy Serrano, the mob boss from Midnight Run, and Ray “Bones” Barboni, a rival criminal to Chili Palmer in Get Shorty (for which he won an American Comedy Award). Farina also played FBI agent Jack Crawford in the first Hannibal Lecter crime film, Michael Mann’s Manhunter. He was good at portraying rough and tough characters but had great comic timing as well.

Having battled lung cancer, Farina died in July 2013 from a pulmonary embolism. Michael Mann told the Chicago Tribune, “He was the best guy on the planet. And he was a lot more than a nice guy. He had the charisma and the ability as a storyteller and raconteur to hold your interest. He appreciated the fullness, the roundness, of human life.”

Because Mount Carmel has so many monuments featuring portraits of the deceased on them, they will be the focus of next week’s blog post. I hope you’ll come back to see them.

Today’s post is Part I of the final installment of my Chicago Cemetery Adventure. Having visited Rosehill, Bohemian National and Graceland, I saved Mount Carmel Cemetery for last.

Getting to see Mount Carmel Catholic Cemetery was an unexpected gift. My son was eager to visit a Lego exhibition at the Morton Arboretum in Lisle. Out of habit, I looked to see if there were any cemeteries nearby and my eyes lit up when I saw Mount Carmel was about 20 minutes away. So after dropping off my fellas at the Arboretum, I headed over.

Consecrated in 1901, Mount Carmel Catholic Cemetery was the first cemetery to be opened in the western area of the Archdiocese of Chicago. At about 214 acres, Mount Carmel combined operations with Queen of Heaven Cemetery (which is across the street) in 1965.

There are more than 226,275 graves/family mausoleums at Mount Carmel and about 800 people are interred there annually. In all, the cemetery grounds contain over 400 family mausoleums. Many families are of Italian descent.

I freely admit that I wanted to see Mount Carmel’s main claim to fame, the grave of notorious gangster Alphonse “Al” aka “Scarface” Capone. Not because I think Prohibition-era mobsters should be glamorized but because of the impact they had on Chicago at that time in history.

Born Alphonse Gabriel Capone in 1899 to Gabriel and Theresa Capone in Brooklyn, N.Y., Al quit school in eighth grade. Later, he was a Five Points Gang member who became a bouncer in organized crime premises (such as brothels).

In his early 1920s, Capone moved to Chicago. He became bodyguard and trusted friend of Johnny Torrio, head of a criminal syndicate that illegally supplied alcohol. The group, which came to control the Southside of the city, became known as “the Outfit”.

Torrio retired after North Side Gang (more on them later) gunmen almost killed him, handing control to Capone. Capone expanded the bootlegging business through increasingly violent means, but his mutually profitable relationships with Chicago Mayor William Hale Thompson and the city’s police meant Capone seemed safe from law enforcement. His notoriety also gave him some measure of public popularity.

But after the infamous Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1929, Capone’s image was tarnished and he came under FBI scrutiny. He was eventually convicted of tax evasion in 1931 and ordered to serve 11 years in prison, some of it spent at the Atlanta Penitentiary.

Capone died in 1947 in Miami but not in a hail of gunfire. He contracted syphilis in his youth and thought he was cured when it went into remission, so he never sought treatment. During his incarceration, the disease ate away at his mental capacities. His final years were spent at his Palm Beach mansion and he died of a stroke brought on by his late-stage syphilis.

After a wake in Miami, Capone’s body was sent to Chicago for burial. He was first buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery but after his mother’s death in 1952, he was moved to Mount Carmel (along with his father and brother Salvatore) in hopes a change in location would stop the vandalism to his gravestone. You can read more about that here.

Deeper into Mount Carmel you can find two of Capone’s bitter enemies, Henry Earl J. Wojciechowski (better known as Hymie Weiss) and Dean O’Banion. As a Polish-American, Weiss was a petty criminal who befriended Irish-American O’Banion. With Weiss and George “Bugs” Moran, O’Banion established the North Side Gang, which eventually controlled rum running, bootlegging and other illicit activities in northern Chicago.

Unlike the Outfit run by Torrio and later Capone, the North Side Gang was made up of Irish, German and Polish criminals. Ultimately, clashes between the two groups led to both the death of O’Banion and Weiss. In 1924, after personally insulting his arch rival Angelo Genna, O’Banion was shot and killed inside his own flower shop, Schofield’s, by Southsiders John Scalise and Albert Anselmi.

In October 1926, Capone sent his best hitmen to Weiss’ headquarters on State Street, O’Banion’s old flower shop. Two gunmen hiding in a nearby rooming house opened fire with a sub-machine gun and shotgun at Weiss and his three associates as they crossed the street.

On the other side of Mount Carmel you can find the mausoleum of the Giancana family. It’s the final resting place of Salvatore “Mooney Sam” Giancana. Among his other nicknames were, “Momo”, “Sam the Cigar,” and “Sammy.” He was the son of Sicilian immigrants.

Sam Giancana joined the Forty-Two Gang, a juvenile street crew headed by boss Joseph Esposito. Giancana soon developed a reputation for being an excellent getaway driver (he was wheel man for Capone at one time), a high earner and a violent killer.

After Esposito’s murder, in which Giancana was allegedly involved, the 42 Gang became an extension of the Outfit. Gangsters like like Frank “The Enforcer” Nitti (also buried at Mount Carmel), Paul “The Waiter” Ricca (buried across the street at Queen of Heaven) and Tony “Joe Batters” Accardo (buried at Queen of Heaven) took notice of Giancana and in the late 1930s, Giancana became the first 42er to join the Outfit.

After doing some prison time in the early 1940s, Giancana set out to take over Chicago’s illegal lottery gambling operations, specifically those in the city’s mostly African-American neighborhood. Through a brutal string of events, including kidnappings and murder, he and his associates got control of the numbers racket, increasing the Chicago Mob’s annual income by millions of dollars.

When Accardo stepped down as head of the Outfit in the mid-1950s, Giancana took his place. By 1955, he controlled the gambling and prostitution operations, narcotics trafficking, and other illegal industries in Chicago. He later told an FBI agent that he “owned” not only Chicago, but Miami and Los Angeles as well.

In 1965, Giancana went on trial for refusing to testify before a Chicago grand jury investigating organized crime and was sentenced to a year in jail. After his release, Giancana lived in self-imposed exile in Mexico until 1974. Extradited by Mexican authorities to testify before another grand jury, he was given immunity from federal prosecution and appeared before that jury four times, but provided little information worth using.

Giancana was then called to testify before a U.S. Senate committee investigating Mafia involvement in a failed CIA plot to assassinate Fidel Castro. Before he could testify, Giancana returned to his Chicago home on June 17, 1975. Two days later, Giancana was shot once in the back of the head and several more times up through the chin with a .22-caliber pistol while cooking sausages and peppers in his basement.

While many theories exist as to who killed him, no one was ever arrested in connection with the murder. Some think it was someone Giancana knew that he let in the house because he himself could not handle spicy foods and may have been cooking them for a friend.

Next week in Part II, we’ll visit a bride who died young, noted Chicago bishops and a beloved American actor. You won’t want to miss the rest of Mount Carmel’s story.

Last week, I shared the history behind Graceland Cemetery’s origins and spotlighted a few of the more eye-catching monuments. This week, we’ll continue that theme and make a few new discoveries.

After photographing the massive Kimball monument, I noticed that behind it was a rock monument with a man’s profile on it. As is often the case, I took a picture because I thought it looked interesting and would look up the name later because it sounded familiar.

Later, I learned that Louis Henri Sullivan (1856-1924) is considered not only the “father of skyscrapers” but the “father of modernism” in the architectural world.

Born to immigrant parents in Boston, Sullivan entered MIT at 16 by completing not only high school early but skipping past his first two years of college studies by taking a series of exams. He worked with noted architects Frank Furness and William LeBaron Jenney (also buried at Graceland) before going to Paris for a year of study at the Ecole des Beaux Arts.

It was Sullivan’s work from 1883 to 1895 when he partnered with engineer Dankmar Adler (1844-1900) that his career took off. Adler oversaw business and construction aspects of each project while Sullivan’s focus was on design.

Along with a young draftsman named Frank Lloyd Wright, the team completed many architecturally significant buildings such as the Chicago Stock Exchange, the Wainwright building in St. Louis, Mo., the Guaranty Building in Buffalo, N.Y. and New Orleans Union Station (demolished in 1954). Before demolishing the Chicago Stock Exchange in 1972, Sullivan’s grand arch was removed and installed at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Instead of imitating historic styles, Sullivan created original forms and details. Older architectural styles were designed for buildings that were wide, but Sullivan was able to create aesthetic unity in buildings that were tall.

Sullivan is perhaps best known for the following quote:

It is the pervading law of all things organic, and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things super-human, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law. —1896 essay “The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered.”

Sullivan and Adler also designed two of Graceland’s tombs. I didn’t get to see the celebrated Getty tomb but I did unwittingly take a picture of the Martin Ryerson tomb, having no idea Sullivan designed it. Martin Ryerson (1818–1887) was a wealthy Chicago lumber baron and real estate speculator. His son commissioned the team to create the impressive yet understated Egyptian Revival tomb.

Across the way from the Ryerson tomb is another Egyptian Revival mausoleum but of a much grander style. With its quirky mix of Egyptian and Christian iconography, the Schoenhofen mausoleum definitely makes you stop in your tracks.

German-born Peter Schoenhofen (1827-1893) came penniless to America in 1851 and took jobs in various breweries around Chicago. Eventually he and a partner, Matheus Gottfried, opened a brewery. Schoenhofen bought out Gottfried in 1867 and the company became the Peter Schoenhofen Brewing Company. Ads bragged that the beer’s clean taste came from the artesian spring located under the brewery. Their Edelweiss brand was the best known.

The Schoenhofen Brewing Company has quite a storied past (including unfounded rumors they were broadcasting war secrets to the Germans during World War I) that you can learn more about in this excellent podcast.

Some of the Schoenhofen Brewing Company’s buildings in Chicago still survive today and are on the National Historic Register. You can glimpse two of them in the iconic movie The Blues Brothers when the fellows are driving to St. Helen of the Blessed Shroud Orphanage. German architect Richard Schmidt, who designed a number of them, also designed Schoenhofen’s mausoleum.

The monument to George Pullman, inventor of the Pullman sleeping car, features a Corinthian column flanked by curved stone benches. It was designed by Solon Spencer Bemen, architect of the company town of Pullman (where those sleeping cars were manufactured).

The story behind Pullman’s burial is unique. Fearing that some of his former employees or other labor supporters might try to dig up his body, his family arranged for Pullman’s remains to be placed in a lead-lined mahogany coffin. After lowering that coffin into a deep pit whose base and walls were reinforced with 18 inches of concrete, they poured more concrete and a layer of steel rails that were bolted together on top of that. The entire burial process took two days.

There’s one more mausoleum I want to feature that I saw as we were driving toward the front gate to leave. It looked so different from the others I made Chris stop so I could hop out.

The Huck mausoleum was built in 1915, probably by the wife of Louis Carl Huck, on a plot Huck purchased in 1888. The architect is unknown. Like Schoenhofen, Huck was a German-born brewer who founded his own business, the Louis C. Huck Malting Company. He sold it 22 years later and went into real estate, leaving behind an extensive list of holdings after he died.

Huck’s namesake, Louis C. Huck, Jr., invented the blind rivet which was first used in the B-24 Bomber in 1943. He formed Huck Fasteners in 1940 and developed what became known as the Huck Bolt, an aluminum fastener that is used today in trains, planes and automobiles. He is entombed in the mausoleum with his parents.

As we left Graceland Cemetery, I reflected on what a lovely oasis we had enjoyed amid the frenetic busyness that is Chicago. So much history rests there in the monuments, and the beautiful flora and fauna that surrounds them. I hated to leave it.

Later that week, I visited one last Chicago cemetery that is the final resting place of some fellows with less than stellar reputations. If you want to learn more about Chicago’s colorful mobster past and some of its starring players, come along with me next week to Mount Carmel Cemetery.

It’s an offer you can’t refuse. 😉