27 October 1822 – 5 May 1871 George was born in County Armagh in Ireland to Scottish Protestant parents. He came to the US as a teenager. He first settled on the East Coast, showing up on the 1850 census living in Baltimore and working in sales (possibly as a storeowner or manager). By that […]
7 November 1828 – 19 August 1895 Leonard Volk was born in Wellston, New York. He got his start as a marble cutter in his father‘s business before deciding to become a fine-art sculptor. He studied in Rome to perfect his art. After returning to the US, he helped to establish the Chicago Academy of […]
1833 – January 28, 1868 Kate Warne’s early years are a mystery beyond the facts that she was born in Erin, New York, and was widowed by the time she was 23. It was unclear to me if Warne was her married or maiden name, but she used variations on this name throughout her career […]
Inez Clarke/Briggs 20 September 1873 – 1 August 1880 The story of this gravesite is pretty fascinating, and deep-dive research has already been done on it by Chicago historians and genealogists. Someone has helpfully appended the entire write-up to Inez’s findagrave.com record, and I recommend it as a very good and interesting read. In summary, […]
Eliza E. “Mother George” (Hamilton) George 20 Oct 1808 – 9 May 1865 Eliza was born in Bridport, Vermont and was the second wife of Woodbridge Cottle George, a man almost 20 years her senior. The couple started their lives together in New York where their three children were born (Eliza, Sterling, and Maria). Eliza […]
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 […]
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 […]
Carrie Eliza Anderson Getty 1843 – 24 February 1890 Henry Harrison Getty 20 September 1836 – 28 March 1919 Alice Eliza Getty 15 October 1868 – 12 June 1946 There is a thorough write-up about this mausoleum on Carrie Eliza Anderson Getty’s findagrave.com page as well as a Wikipedia entry dedicated to the mausoleum which […]
Karel Vaclav Janovsky (1876 – 1962) emigrated from Bohemia at the age of 14. He used “Johns” as an Anglicized surname but over time (and likely due to finding the tight-knit Bohemian community in Chicago) used both names to the point that he hyphenated them on the family mausoleum. He married first wife Mary Theresa […]
3 September 1856 – 14 April 1924 Sullivan was a massively influential architect whose work was foundational in both the birth of the skyscraper and in the Chicago School of architecture. He was a mentor of Frank Lloyd Wright and inspired many of the architects who would later be known collectively as the Prairie School. […]