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. 😉

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last week, I completed a two-part series on Chicago’s Rosehill Cemetery. On the same day, my husband and I also visited Graceland Cemetery. Having already visited two other large cemeteries on a hot and humid day, I was tempted to call it quits but we pushed on. I knew it would be a long time before I’d have the chance again.

Like most cemeteries, Graceland has a personality all its own and it shines. The landscape has a decided flow to it and the grounds are beautifully kept. There are no rough, weedy edges to Graceland. You can tell they work hard at keeping it neatly trimmed but not to the point of making it look unnatural.

Graceland was established in 1860 when Thomas Bryan, a successful Chicago lawyer, purchased the original 80 acres (located in the Buena Park neighborhood very close to Wrigley Field) and received a perpetual charter from Illinois in 1861. Thomas then chose landscape architect H.W.S. Cleveland to plan the layout.

During my research, I learned that Bryan was duped by the notorious serial killer, H.H. Holmes (who confessed to 27 murders but likely committed many more). Holmes’ story is featured in the best-selling book, The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. Bryan purchased stock in Holmes’ bogus A.B.C. Copier Company and ended up losing over $9,000 in the process. Fortunately, Bryan was only a financial victim of the bloodthirsty Holmes and lived

By the time he was hired, Horace William Shaler Cleveland had already established himself as a landscape architect. A native of Massachussets, he and his partner Robert Morris Copeland designed Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. He later went on to design Minneapolis’ park system.

Swedish landscaper Swain Nelson was also instrumental in the early planning stages of the project. William Le Baron Jenney (who is buried at Graceland) and later Ossian Simonds also had key roles. Simonds said, “The great diversity of tastes, opinions, superstitions and prejudices that must be consulted or controlled make cemetery landscape-gardening the most difficult branch of the art.”

If you were mayor or governor of Chicago, if you were not buried at Rosehill, Graceland was where you ended up. Graceland is the final resting place of department store founder Marshall Field, architects David Adler, Bruce Graham and Louis Sullivan (to name a few), and dancer Ruth Page. Railroad industrialist George Pullman and Jack Johnson, the first African-American heavyweight boxing champion, are also buried there.

One of the more obscure burials at Graceland is Augustus Dickens, brother of acclaimed author Charles Dickens. He died penniless in Chicago in 1866.

While Elvis is nowhere to be found at this Graceland, the place is certainly fit for a king. Or a knight. I’ve never seen one in a cemetery before.

Created by Illinois-born Lorado Taft, “The Crusader” honors the life of Chicago newspaper publisher Victor Lawson, who became manager of  the Chicago Daily News in 1876. At the foot of the monument are the words:

Above All Things Truth Beareth Away The Victory

Lorado Taft is credited with another sculpture at Graceland that instantly grabs your attention when you see it. It’s formal title is “Eternal Silence” but some refer to it as the “Statue of Death”.

My first thought was, “This is who Blue Oyster Cult was singing about.”

The bronze monument was crafted in honor of Dexter Graves (1789-1844), who was one of the earliest settlers in Chicago. According to the inscription on the back of the monument, he “brought the first colony to Chicago, consisting of 13 families, arriving here July 15, 1831 from Ashtabula, Ohio, on the schooner Telegraph.”

Although Graves died in 1844, his son Henry did not have the bronze commissioned until near the end of his own life, 1907. Taft completed the sculpture in 1909. The black granite provides contrast for the bronze statue, which is heavily oxidized because of its age. Some say Taft’s own ideas on death and silence influenced him heavily.

It’s not surprising that “Eternal Silence” gets photographed quite a lot. Pictures of it show on on Facebook pages devoted to cemeteries all the time. But now that I’ve seen it up close, I can totally see why.

Across the way from “The Crusader” is the Charles Hutchinson monument. It’s often thought to be for a different Charles Hutchinson (1854-1924), who is buried in another part of Graceland. That Hutchinson was president of the Corn Exchange National Bank, as well as founding member and first president of the Art Institute of Chicago. This Charles Hutchinson (1828-1893) was a businessman with Sweet, Demster & Co.

The artist who created this monument, Alfeo Faggi (1885-1966) was known for his stylized forms and anti-Classical approach to the figure. In other works, he sculpted outside the conventional norms. The central figure of Christ is shown surrounded by four figures and the Cross, visible in the right corner. Faggi also contributed works in this style to the St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Hyde Park.

One of the most stunning monuments at Graceland is for William Kimball, the piano manufacturer. A native of Maine, Kimball moved to Chicago in 1857 and started the Kimball Piano Company with only four pianos. He sold these at a profit and eventually started selling pianos manufactured in the east then shipped to his store.

The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 destroyed his business and cost him around $100,000. In 1877, Kimball decided to manufacture his own pianos to keep down the costs. He opened his own factory in 1881 and began churning out around 100 pianos and organs every week.

Across the rear are four Corinthian columns, with two more on the sides. Below, an angel kneels, watching over the two graves beneath the floor. The entire monument is of white marble, and was erected in 1907 from a design by the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White.

Sadly, the face of the angel has worn away but the impression she leaves is still great.

I can’t help but wonder what her face looked like when she was installed in 1907. Photo by Chris Rylands.

Next week, Part II of my trip to Graceland will include the story of the father of the American skyscraper and feature an unusual Egyptian pyramid tomb with an angel guarding the door.

Last week, I shared Part I of my visit to Chicago’s historic Rosehill Cemetery. I featured some of the stunning stained glass in the mausoleums and told the story behind the elegant Horatio May Chapel.

After exploring the outside of the May Chapel and its unique receiving vault, we wandered over to one of the largest mausoleums in the cemetery. The Adam Schaaf Mausoleum is guarded by two distinctive lions. I knew I wanted to find out more about him and his family.

The Schaaf family mausoleum is a commanding presence. Adam, a piano dealer that eventually became a manufacturer, is interred inside along with his wife and at least one of his sons.

Adam Schaaf was born in 1849 in England and made his way to Chicago around 1870. Soon after, he married Karolina Gall, whose sister had married Adam’s distant cousin, John Schaaf. Adam worked for John and his brother (piano manufacturers) but only stayed a few years. Adam eventually began selling pianos out of his own home.

Adam’s success came slowly but it did come. Unlike other dealers, he capitalized on newspaper advertising to bring in business. He opened his own store but went even further in 1893 when he opened his own piano factory. When fire destroyed the showrooms in 1896, he rebuilt and his success only increased.

Adam’s sons, Fred, Harry and Walter, joined him in the business. They were instrumental in expanding its reach and in time, Schaaf pianos were being sold all over the country via agents.

Sadly, Adam’s last years were full of turmoil. With expansion and new factories came labor problems and a number of strikes (some violent) took place. Union demands were lengthy and often contentious. He died in July 1902, leaving the business to his sons to handle.

The stained glass inside was beautiful but I couldn’t get any good photos of it. But the lions were easy to photograph.

There are also lion details on the mausoleum itself.

Unfortunately, the 1930s brought an end to the Schaaf family’s piano business. But the Schaaf mausoleum is a beautiful reminder of the success they once knew. Karolina is buried inside along with their son, Walter.

Another striking mausoleum at Rosehill is located further into the cemetery. The Louis Stumer mausoleum is hard to miss due to the kneeling figure of a young woman that is part of the front door. I did not get a good overall photo of it, so I am borrowing one by Sid Penance on Find a Grave.

Louis M. Stumer’s mausoleum is definitely one of a kind. The young woman on the front was sculpted by Czech-American artist Mario Korbel. Photo by Sid Penance.

Stumer published three literary magazines, The Red Book, The Blue Book and The Green Book. He also owned (or co-owned) a store, Emporium World Millinery, in Chicago. The nature of his magazines seem to have been on the more sensational side than high prose/poetry.

The kneeling figure at the door of the mausoleum is hard to forget. She was sculpted by Czech-American artist Mario Joseph Korbel (1882-1954), a native of Osik, Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic). His work can be found in a number of cemeteries and art galleries. Stumer died in 1919 so the Art Deco style used by Korbel is in keeping with the time.

As I’ve noted in previous posts, I am continually fascinated by feet in cemetery statuary. Korbel’s work is no exception. But her hands are equally detailed.

You can’t help but linger on her face as well, especially the long lashes against her cheek.

Across the way from the Stumer mausoleum is Rosehill’s huge mausoleum. It’s probably the largest one I’ve seen except for perhaps Westview’s. The building was locked up tight so we could only photograph the outside.

Here’s a side view.

As you can see, if you look at it from the side, the vast size of the place becomes apparent. The front is an impressive Greek Temple style.

The carving above the doorway is in keeping with the Greek theme.

Dedicated in 1914, the Rosehill Mausoleum was designed by architect Sidney Lovell, who is himself entombed within. The interior is almost entirely of marble, with even the floors composed of Italian Carrara marble.

According to Graveyards.com, the Rosehill Mausoleum has two levels, with the lower level partially underground. Some areas, particularly in the west wings, consist mainly of large rooms or corridors lined with crypts. In the eastern side, there are several small private rooms owned by individual families, most with heavy bronze gates. Some have spectacular stained glass windows by Louis Tiffany and other artists.

Notable people interred inside are Chicago Mayors Richard Ogilvie and Dwight Green, A. Montgomery Ward and Richard Warren Sears (both of catalog fame) and John G. Shedd (second president and chairman of Marshall Fields department store). Shedd donated $3 million in 1927 to help found Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium (which we visited during our stay).

Cemetery lore states that the ghost of Richard Sears haunts the mausoleum. Some have said they’ve seen a tall man in a top hat within Sears’ locked room, walking toward the crypt of A. Montgomery Ward. These two giants of the mail order business are interred very near one another so considering they were fierce rivals, I wonder if they have verbal sparring matches.

Fortunately, I was able to get a photo of the front hall through the door so you can get an idea of what it looks like. My apologies for the poor quality of it. The features and proportions are supposed to be modeled after the Parthenon at Athens, where similar columns lead to an enormous statue of the goddess Athena.

Not far from the Mausoleum is a small Jewish section marked with a stone.

I took a few photos of graves and came upon this one. It looked much older than it actually was. You can make out the words “Forever Over The Rainbow” and that got me intrigued. As I learned long ago, some of the smallest graves hold some of the most interesting stories.

An executive for Riverside Graphics in Chicago, Steve was married and had two daughters. After them, his great love was for the movie The Wizard of Oz and the books it was based upon. He was an enthusiastic collector of memorabilia and attended several conventions, where he made a warm and lasting impression on fellow collectors. A tribute page details his life here.

Time was running short so we started making our way back to the entrance when I caught sight of this distinctive monument.

Reclining on a divan is the figure of Mattie Swanson May, a young woman who died at the age of 20. Born to Swedish parents in Michigan in 1873, she married Harry May at the age 16. I don’t think Harry was related to Horatio May (of May Chapel fame).

Naturally, I had to get a picture of her feet!

But I think my favorite feature was her delicate hand touching a book.

The inscription on the base of the monument reads:

In sweet and loving remembrance of my wife Mattie M. May, Born Sept. 5, 1873 – Died July 13, 1893. She was an ideal woman and model wife.

From what little I could find, I learned that Harry May was a baker when he died in 1914 and it doesn’t appear that he remarried after Mattie died. His love for Mattie, despite the brevity of their union, may have been too deep to be replaced by another.

There are so many beautiful and unique monuments at Rosehill that I didn’t have a chance to see, such as the Frances Pearce statue of a young mother and her infant daughter. Or the statue of a little girl, Lulu Fellows. Those will have to wait for another day.

In the meantime, if you have find yourself in the Chicago area and are looking for a beautiful cemetery to get lost in, Rosehill is where you need to go. It sets a high standard for similar big city cemeteries to meet. You won’t regret it.

Next week, I hope you’ll join me for one last Chicago cemetery, Graceland, which is equally spectacular.

Just be aware that Elvis isn’t there. 🙂

When we were planing our visit to Chicago, I was hopeful I would visit at least three cemeteries: Rosehill, Graceland and Bohemian National. On the Sunday after we attended Chris’ cousin’s wedding, we headed north of the city and I got to see all of them! Not knowing my way around at all, I was glad Chris was driving.

We only had a few hours to cover a vast amount of territory, so for those who know the place well, I know I missed some of the more famous and eye-catching graves. Believe me, I wish I’d been able to see all of them.

At 325 acres, Rosehill Cemetery is one of oldest and largest in Chicago, chartered in 1859. The name “Rosehill” was actually a mistake. Because of a city clerk’s error, the area previously called “Roe’s Hill” (named for nearby farmer Hiram Roe) become “Rosehill” instead. Roe is said to have refused to sell his land to the city until it was promised that the cemetery be named in his honor.

My theory is that “Rosehill” just sounded better than “Roe’s Hill Cemetery”

Rosehill is the final resting place of several Chicago mayors (including Long John Wentworth), Civil War generals and soldiers, and Charles Gates Dawes, a U.S. Vice President. Icons such as Oscar Mayer, Montgomery Ward and Richard Sears are buried there, too.

Rosehill is located in the Lincoln Park neighborhood and an elevated Metra train line bridge runs right in front of the Ravenswood Avenue entrance. This impressive gate was designed by William Boyington, who also designed Chicago’s famous Water Tower and many other Chicago buildings. The sign on the gate says it follows the castellated Gothic architecture style.

I did notice that the folks at Rosehill want to make sure you don’t stay past closing time and end up locked in. I saw more than one sign making that clear.

A few days after our visit to Rosehill, I read about a guy dubbed “Creepy Clown” that was filmed a month before hopping the 7-foot gate and hanging out just inside the cemetery after sunset. So maybe they’re just trying to give people fair warning.

Once inside (and properly warned), we headed over to some beautiful crypts that surrounded a pond. Chris took some great pictures of the stained glass inside some of them, much better than my iPhone’s capabilities.

Not far from this area is the Horatio N. May Chapel, designed in 1899 by architect Joseph L. Silsbee. He’s noted for having mentored Frank Lloyd Wright and a number of other Prairie School-style architects. The building and the story behind it fascinated me for a number of reasons.

Who was Horatio N. May and how did he get a chapel built for him? Good question! Thanks to Jim Craig and his delightful blog, Under Every Stone, I was able to find that out so I can share the story.

Born in Canada, Horatio May came to Illinois and eventually became a grocer. But his star didn’t rise until he married Anna Lush Wilson in 1882, daughter of pioneer and newspaper editor John Lush Wilson. When May was appointed a Lincoln Park commissioner in 1886, Anna was very pleased. Even more so in 1891 when he was named Controller of Chicago by new mayor Hempstead Washburne (buried at nearby Graceland Cemetery).

Horatio went to the spa town of Bad Nauheim, Germany in July 1898 in hopes of shaking off the lingering effects of the flu. (known as “la grippe” in those days). Despite initial signs of improvement, he died in October and Anna arranged to have his body sent home to Chicago. Abraham Lincoln’s son, Robert Todd Lincoln, was named an honorary pallbearer.

The Mays were admirers of Joseph Silsbee and had hired him to design their Chicago home on N. Astor Street. So when Anna considered how to honor her husband’s life at Rosehill, she went beyond providing a grave stone. She wanted a chapel built in his name and she asked Silsbee to design it.

You can’t go inside the May Chapel unless you request special permission and we didn’t have time to ask. From what I learned later, you can request to use it for a funeral service. And some weddings have been performed there. We did spend ample time looking around outside as there was plenty to take in.

Probably the most peculiar but fascinating area is the back of the May Chapel where the underground receiving vault is located until the hill. You can climb up it and peer down into it through some very old domed windows. I don’t know what you would call them.

As is the case with most receiving tombs at cemeteries, the Rosehill one stored bodies when the ground was too frozen to dig graves. Another reason was when a family mausoleum being built for the deceased had not been finished yet. It was also used to house bodies when the Rosehill Community Mausoleum was being built.

However, I’ve never seen one built into the hill in the back of a chapel like this. The entry is still intact. I don’t know if it still being used. From the look of it, I would say no. At least not for storing bodies/caskets.

Contrary to some reports, Horatio and Anna are not interred with the chapel. But they are buried to the right side of the entryway, with a small slab to mark the graves.

Silsbee also designed a mausoleum for the family of grain merchant and close friend William Bartlett that is on the grounds of Rosehill. Alas, I didn’t get any pictures of it so I am borrowing one from the excellent blog Searching for Silsbee.

Next week, I’ll share about Rosehill’s grand mausoleum and more stories about some of the people buried at the cemetery. I hope you’ll come back for more.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

— Matthew 11:28

They say death is the great equalizer. But in the cemetery, that hasn’t been the case in centuries past.

More often than not, the people you lived among and worked with were buried around you. This included your religious and ethnic background. The rich were buried with the rich and the poor…? Well, their final home was often a nameless patch of earth.

As I visited a number of cemeteries in Chicago recently, I saw this play out frequently. The grand mausoleums of Graceland and Rose Hill Cemeteries bore the names of wealthy financiers and blue bloods with family wealth. Some of the grandest monuments I’ve ever seen are there.

But it was at Bohemian National Cemetery (BNC) in Chicago’s North Park neighborhood that I saw some of the most fascinating and beautiful gravestones I’ve ever seen. And most of the people buried there were not wealthy at all.

BNC was created as a result of a desire to break down the barriers of class and religion. In 1877, a Catholic priest denied burial in the Bohemian-Polish Catholic cemetery to those he disliked. The refusal to allow the burial of Marie Silhanek was the last straw.

Frantisek “Frank” Zdrubek was editor of the Bohemian daily Svornost and gave lectures under the auspices of the Bohemian Freethinker’s Society. At a mass meeting of the more than 20 Czech benevolent, fraternal, workingman’s, gymnastic, and freethinkers societies on January 7th, 1877, Zdrubek asked all of Chicago societies to come together and create a “free national cemetery, where any Czech could be buried without regard to religion.”

The organization raised funds and obtained a suitable location for the cemetery, which was in the township of Jefferson. The first burial was the child of Charles Brada on July 1, 1877. BNC officially opened on September 2, 1877. Although they started with 50 acres, it expanded over the years and now covers about 124 acres.

One reason I wanted to visit BNC was to see the brand new memorial to the victims of the 1915 Eastland Disaster. Chris’ great-grandmother Minnie, whom I wrote about last week, is not buried there but some of his other relatives are. At 143 people, BNC is the resting place of the largest number of Eastland victims. The cemetery’s newly opened Section 16 was almost sold out after that tragic event.

At the time, it took two men about four hours to dig one grave. Because so many graves had to be dug for Eastland victims, an additional 50 men were hired to work 12-hour days to get the job done.

A number of families and local organizations have purchased memorial bricks at the foot of the new Eastland monument at BNC.

Wandering through Section 16, I could see that the date of July 24, 1915 is inscribed on many of the markers. They run the gamut from individuals to entire families who died that fateful day.

One of the saddest stories is of Emilie Samek and her fiance, William Sherry. According to the Friends of BNC, Emilie’s father was too ill to work so Emilie got a job at Western Electric as a switchboard operator. With her salary, she was able to help support her parents and four siblings.

Theresa Danda also worked for Western Electric and was engaged to George Dobek, a casemaker. On the fateful day, they took Theresa’s little brother, Edward, with them to join the other employees boarding the boat. Theresa’s sister, Frances, was the only one of the group to survive.

There are many other stunning monuments at BNC that kept me wandering from section to section. Unlike many cemeteries, many of the markers at BNC have lovely porcelain discs with photos of the deceased on them. It’s amazing that they’ve remained in such good shape. Just seeing the faces gives you a better idea of what the person who lies beneath the stone was like.

BNC also boasts an impressive collection of monuments of World War I soldiers and sailors. I’ve seen these online but they are very difficult to find in the South. At BNC, these tributes to young men who died in the flower of youth are common.

The Kuchar brothers served in the U.S. military but Charles survived World War I. I believe younger brother John did not but I cannot trace his military records beyond his service in the 72nd Coast Artillery.

Another monument features young sailor Edward Bartizal. He died of influenza at the Great Lakes Naval Hospital in 1918. While he was not killed in action, I am sure his death was no less painful to his parents.

Pvt. Michael Kokoska was 27 when he died. He was a soldier in the the 127th Infantry, Company L. He was killed in action in France. His is one of the few detailed stories I was able to find in my research.

Michael was the son of two Bohemian immigrants, Joseph and Majdalena. After finishing school, he found work as a tailor and later as a truck driver. According to his Find a Grave memorial, he was temporarily buried in Morvillars Military Cemetery in France after his death and word was sent to his parents. The task of getting Michael’s remains sent home to America took time but he was eventually buried at BNC in 1921.

On a lighter note, there’s one section of BNC that is bound to put a smile on a few faces. In 2009, Cubs fan were given a unique opportunity to combine their passion for a beloved baseball team with a fitting final resting place.

Cubs Fans Forever: Beyond the Vines was created as a special place just for Chicago Cubs fans to place their cremated remains. About 288 “skyboxes” are available for urns in a unique interment wall. Loved ones can sit in four seats from Wrigley Field that face the wall or even play catch on a small lawn grown from Wrigley sod.

I could have stayed at Bohemian National Cemetery for the rest of the day and spent another several exploring the place. As is often the case when cemetery hopping, we just didn’t have enough time. BNC has a distinctly rich character that’s reflective of the people buried there. You want to linger over every grave.

Because whether rich or poor, we all need a place to rest.

“People were struggling in the water, clustered so thickly that they literally covered the surface of the river. A few were swimming; the rest were floundering about, some clinging to a little raft…others clutching at anything they could reach – at bits of wood, at each other, grabbing each other, pulling each other down, and screaming! The screaming was the most horrible of all.” — Helen Repa, Western Electric nurse

Everything else fades away, all of our losses and all of our gains. And only the river remains… — Eastland: A New Musical

July 24, 1915 doesn’t mean much outside the city of Chicago. Until I married Chris, it was just another date on the calendar. But I soon learned it was a tragic day in the Rylands family.

On that Saturday, 844 Chicagoans lost their lives when the excursion ship S.S. Eastland rolled onto its side. Chris’ great-grandmother, Minnie Miller Rylands, drowned in the Chicago River. Her husband, James Stephen Rylands, and their little son, John Joseph, survived. So did James’ brother, William. John Joseph Rylands was Chris’ grandfather.

The Eastland, docked at the Clark Street Bridge, never left the Chicago River. Picnickers laughed amid the music and dancing as they boarded. When the crowded ship began listing back and forth from port to starboard, many thought it was a joke. But when the boat listed over so far that the people began sliding across the floor, panic set in.

The Eastland’s captain, Harry Pedersen, sounded the alarm, but only after it was too late. Witnesses say he (and some lucky others) climbed over the starboard railing and walked across the exposed hull to safety, never even getting his feet wet.

Passengers on the main deck rushed to the staircases leading upstairs, which proved to be the worst single death trap for those passengers within the interior decks of the ship.

More than 2,500 passengers and crew members were on board that day – and 844 people lost their lives, including 22 entire families. Why the Eastland rolled over that day is complicated but you can read about it on the Eastland Disaster Historical Society website. After the Eastland was raised in August, she was sold to the Illinois U.S. Navy Reserve and recommissioned as the U.S.S. Wilmette, then converted to a gunboat

This past July, my family spent a week in Chicago as our summer vacation. One reason was to celebrate the wedding of Chris’ cousin, Brett. But the other was to be part of the 100th anniversary events surrounding the sinking of the Eastland.

People still puzzle over the fact that today so few know about this maritime disaster, but the biggest reason may be the very status of the passengers.

Unlike many of the Titanic victims who were wealthy and notable, just about all of the Eastland passengers were working-class immigrants with little money to their names. Most were of Czech background and worked at the Hawthorne Works factory of Western Electric in the Berwyn/Cicero area of Chicago.

Minnie was of German background and her husband James was British born. Neither worked for Western Electric but a number of people attending that day were not either, having been invited by friends.

According to family lore, James had to decide whom to save first. His wife or his child. Because John Joseph was so young, James pulled him to the water’s edge first. When he went to save Minnie, it was too late.

In 2012, Eastland: A New Musical premiered in Chicago. One of the main characters is a responder. Reggie Bowles, a young man who sped to the scene on his motorcycle, jumped in the river hoping to save lives. But all he found were dead bodies. Because of his ability to hold his breath for long periods of time, Reggie earned the nickname the Human Frog. It’s reported that he brought over 40 bodies to the surface that day.

I had the pleasure of meeting the grandson of Reggie Bowles, David Bowles, at the Saturday luncheon. Many firemen, policemen and ordinary people like Reggie risked their own lives to pull passengers to safety or to recover victims so that their families could later identify them.

A majority of Eastland victims are buried at Bohemian Cemetery (which I will write about next week). But I knew Minnie’s grave was at Forest Home Cemetery. I contacted Chris’ Aunt Joan, who is the genealogist in the family. Nobody had visited her grave before because it’s unmarked and Forest Home is huge.

Fortunately, she located a map the cemetery had sent her a few years ago showing exactly where Minnie, James and their granddaughter Paula (who died in infancy) are buried.

Located off Des Plaines Avenue in the Berwyn/Cicero area, Forest Home Cemetery is actually the merging of two cemeteries (in 1969), Forest Home and Waldheim. Waldheim Cemetery opened in 1873 when the land was sold to a group of German Masonic lodges. Forest Home opened a few years later on land south of Waldheim.

Unlike other cemeteries of the time, Waldheim and Forest Home were open to all, regardless of ethnicity or religion. As a result, it became very popular with immigrants.

Along with Chris’ parents and his Aunt Beth, we (Chris, Sean and I) set out to find Minnie. With only 20 minutes until the gates closed, we drove through the winding roads to the back of the cemetery and found where Minnie, James and Paula were buried.

So why are there no markers for Minnie, James and Paula? I don’t have a good answer for that. Although James was a plumber, he was by no means wealthy. He remarried twice after Minnie died. According to my father-in-law, Craig, his father (John Joseph) never spoke about the Eastland. The few memories shared about that day came through Craig’s mother, Florence.

UPDATE: In January 2016, Chris’ Aunt Joan arranged to have a marker placed for Minnie, her husband, John, and their granddaughter, Paula. Aunt Joan died of cancer a few years later. It was one of her dearest wishes to have their tones placed.

On Saturday evening, the families of the survivors/victims/responders gathered at the edge of the Chicago River by the Clark Street Bridge. At precisely 8:44 p.m., we all turned on little battery-powered votives in memory of the 844 lives that were lost that day. Amid the bustle of the city, we observed a moment of silence.

Rest in peace, Minnie. You are not forgotten.

First, I’d like to apologize for being absent from the blog for over a month. Due to a move into a new home across town, I had to put my cemetery hopping and blog writing activities on hold for a while. I’m still unpacking boxes but for the most part, we’re settled in.

To stay sane, I did continue my volunteer duties over at Decatur Cemetery. I’ve been helping out in their office since the fall, trying to be there at least one morning a week. As a result, I’ve grown even more affectionate toward the place and feel quite at home there.

The cemetery boasts a variety of wildlife, from birds to squirrels to rabbits. I’ve not seen a deer yet. The Canada geese leave their “deposits” here and there. But the birds that always get my attention are the large raptors that hover over the grounds. One day I witnessed a hawk almost carry off a tiny puppy but thankfully, the dog’s owner pulled it to safety in time.

But it wasn’t until recently that I actually saw sheep on the premises.

Before you start thinking that Decatur Cemetery has become a farm, let me explain. They’ve been dealing with some overgrown vegetation on the far side of the cemetery that was fairly entrenched. We’re talking a mini wilderness. To hire workmen to get rid of it would have been costly and actually risky since much of it is on a steep hillside. Operating mowers on ground that’s so uneven is not a great idea.

So they decided to hire cheap labor that would work outrageous overtime and for very low pay. Dirt cheap, in fact. They tried it first in 2013 and the sheep did so well that they again contacted a company called Ewe-niversally Green to bring them back.

This may seem like a novel concept, but hiring someone with sheep or goats to clear large swaths of overgrown lots or acreage is not a new concept. Other cemeteries have been doing it for a while. Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport used the same sheep to take care of brush along their fifth runway.

The most recent example that got media attention was in 2013 when Congressional Cemetery hired a flock of goats to remove the thick growth of poison ivy that was wrapped around many of its trees. According to the cemetery staff, the more ivy smothers the trees, the heavier the trees get and the more susceptible they are to crashing down, which could damage gravestones. The ivy’s leaves also can interfere with the trees’ photosynthesis, killing them.

According to a Washington Post article, the cost of hiring the 50 or so goats to take care of the problem was around $4,000. That may seem like a lot but it’s actually a better option than using machinery. The goats require no fossil fuels and their waste provides fertilizer for the grounds. The gravestones and monuments are also left undisturbed. This graphic from USAToday does a good job at explaining it.

I was curious to find out what the difference is between sheep and goats in terms of efficiency. Which is better? Are they different in what they eat? Here’s what I found out.

Goats are natural browsers that like to eat leaves, twigs, vines, and shrubs. They are quite agile and will stand on their hind legs to reach vegetation. So they were an apt choice to eat the ivy at Congressional Cemetery. Sheep, on the other hand, are grazers. They prefer to eat short, tender grasses and clover.

In both situations, these plant-loving animals are kept within a low-current electric fence and watched over by a trained dog of some sort. Both are used as a means of protecting the animals from predators and keeping them focused on their task. Goats, I read, can be more curious than sheep and are more apt to seek an escape.

So when my partner in crime, Jenny, and I were working a few weeks ago, we decided to check up on the sheep to see what they were doing. With the heat and humidity being so instense, they weren’t really doing much of anything at the time.

It might surprise you to learn that even you and I can affordably hire sheep or goats to clear unwanted brush from property. Someone in my old neighborhood did it earlier in the year for a few days. Just be prepared for some spectators because they seem to bring out the inner animal lover in many people, including me.

I only saw one of the dogs from a distance at Decatur during my second visit the following week. Three of the dogs are featured on Ewe-niversally Green’s website.

So if you happen to hear some odd sounds coming from a cemetery the next time you visit, don’t worry. It’s not zombies or ghosts. It just might be some local livestock hungrily taking care of the landscaping.