Edward “Eddie” Grimms 25 Mar 1892 — 24 Jul 1915 The Eastland, one of five chartered excursion boats meant to ferry employees, their families and friends from Chicago over to the Michigan City shore for the annual Western Electric Company picnic, keeled over into the Chicago River while still at dock, trapping hundreds inside its […]
John “Johnny Appleseed” Chapman 26 September 1774 – 18 March 1845 Johnny Appleseed was a folk figure from the early days of the United States, famed for roaming the wilderness frontier that later became Ohio, Indiana and other parts of the Midwest and Canada, often shoeless, and usually carrying a bag of appleseeds he sowed […]
John Samuel and Maud G. (Kennedy) Holmes John (1868 – 1931) was originally from Canada and came to the US as a teenager. Maud (1878 – 1955) was born in Michigan, the oldest of 5 children. The couple married in Chicago in 1900 when John was 32 and Maud was 22. In 1910, the census […]
1802 in Ireland – 17 July 1881 in Chicago Bridget Clark immigrated to the US from Ireland in 1865 with her young adult children: Patrick J., James, and Mary. Due to everyone’s ages and the lack of an inscription for a father Clark, I believe that he likely died prior to 1865. The 4 were […]
10 June 1882 – 26 July 1903 Ida was the oldest of three surviving children of Magnus and Minnie (Barneko) Oesterreich. On the 1900 census, she was living at home with her parents and younger siblings, sister Alma and brother William. She was working as a drygoods saleslady. In September of 1902, she married Albert […]
Four generations (and possibly five) of Illinois natives are entombed here. The mausoleum was first erected for matriarch Barbara Cure Espert who died in 1907, many years before her husband. Originally buried at Elmwood Cemetery, she was moved to this mausoleum a year after her death. It would be another 24 years before her husband […]
Joseph “Josie” Lyon 1882 – 4 December 1891 Josie was the youngest child of George and Catherine (Katie) Murphy Lyon. George had emigrated from Ireland at the age of fifteen, all by himself. He married the 10-years-younger Katie in 1877, 15 years after his arrival. On the 1880 census, his occupation was saloon keeper, so […]
Designed by Louis P. Sullivan, this is possibly my favorite of the traditional mausoleums I saw at Graceland. It is massive and black and sits back between two trees, glowering out at passersby. It is extraordinarily goth, and I love it. Martin Ryerson Sr was born in 1818 in New Jersey and came to Michigan […]
Charles Enke, Sr. 5 May 1827 – 25 October 1898 Emma Enke 28 October 1863 – 16 November 1880 Charles and his wife Henriette (Zellmer) Enke were born in Saxony in Germany. At some point prior to 1860, they immigrated to the US and spent some time in Wisconsin. It’s unclear if they married in […]
Thomas Rice and Harriet Wade (Rice) Lyon Thomas (1854 – 1909) was from Ohio and Harriet (1856 – 1936) from New York, but they met and married in Michigan. Thomas — who it seems may have come from family money (and at least his family seems to have been very well established, dating back to […]