This stunning monument marks the Cummings family plot in the Fairlawn section at Graceland. Patriarch Columbus R. Cummings (1834 – 1897) — another of the Gilded Age tycoons whose monuments dot the cemetery’s landscape — came to Chicago from New York as a young man and went to work for Potter Palmer (whose spectacular monument […]
27 February 1849 – 5 January 1900 Ernst is another one of those Victorian rags-to-riches stories that are inescapable in American folklore. He was born in Germany to poor parents who immigrated to hte US when he was a toddler. They first lived in Wisconsin and then moved to Chicago. His father made baskets and […]
31 December 1910 – 4 June 1926 Lucille was the middle daughter of three sisters (as well as having one living older brother and another older sibling who had died in infancy), and her headstone marks her as a deeply loved child whose family took special pains to commemorate. The Katz family plot is pretty […]
Joseph & Adelaide Mazza Galli Joseph (1874 – 1935) was a candymaker in the early decades of 20th Century Chicago. He was from Italy, and Adelaide (1874 – 1939) was born in Chicago to Italian immigrant parents. They married in 1894 and seem to have been partners in business as well as in life. In […]
Victim of the Iroquois Theater Fire February 1869 – 30 December 1903 The Iroquois Theater Fire was and remains the deadliest theater fire and the deadliest single-building fire in US history (though if you count the World Trade Center as a fire, it is of course the deadliest). 602 people lost their lives in the […]
31 October 1876 – 24 August 1898 I’ve seen Spanish-American War headstones before, but they were more traditional military-issue. There are at least 2 like this one at Calvary and both are for young men who died in Cuba. The epitaph inscribed on Eugene’s beautiful marker is “He gave his life for love of his […]
1871 – 19 December 1898 Edward married Minnie E. Cronin in 1895, and together they had 2 sons: Edward Jr in 1897 who died in infancy and John Raymond, born 1898. Edward Sr. was a Chicago fireman with hook and ladder 11. At the age of only 27 years old, he was badly injured along […]
The Hinch family was wealthy and well-connected, especially through matriarch Elizabeth Magee Hinch’s side of the family, but tragically, almost all of them died relatively young. Elizabeth married William Hinch in 1888 and they had three children: sons Henry and Leslie and daughter Mabel. William died in 1899, leaving Elizabeth to raise the children on […]
28 October 1902 – 19 November 1922 My friend and I visited this new-to-me cemetery yesterday and found many gorgeous monuments. Calvary is spectacular, situated literally across the street from Lake Michigan. Among all the really stunning headstones, monuments, and MASSIVE mausoleums, though, my favorite was the memorial to 20-year-old Anna Spahn. Anna had 4 […]
9 June 1895 – 13 September 1918 Lt. Jones was shot down over France when his squadron (the 103rd led by Major William Thaw) was attacked by eight German chase planes. The combat was fierce, and Gene and his comrades shot down four enemy planes; Gene was the only allied casualty of that battle. Though […]