Forest Park, IL
23 January 1897 – 24 July 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 hull and leading […]
William (Wilhelm) A. Rossow, Sr. 7 April 1876 – 24 July 1915 Mamie Groth Rossow 7 September 1879 – 24 July 1915 Ruth Rossow 20 June 1901 – 24 July 1915 William (Wilhelm) Rossow, Jr. 15 April 1909 – 24 July 1915 The Eastland, one of five chartered excursion boats meant to ferry employees, their […]
Rudolph John Adolph Riep 6 March 1882 – 21 May 1916 (aged 34) Rudolph was born in Chicago to German immigrant parents and was one of only four siblings of ten to survive childhood. His father worked at a lumber yard in the early years after arriving in the US, but eventually he became a […]
12 September 1899 – 24 July 1915 This is the first in what will be an ongoing series of posts documenting the graves of Eastland Disaster victims in Chicago area cemeteries. Ella was a fifteen-year-old telephone inspector working for the Western Electric Company when she was killed in the Eastland Disaster. She’d been employed for […]
15 July 1891 – 25 October 1918 Louis Katzel was the second oldest and oldest surviving child of Franz and Berta (Wendt) Katzel, German immigrants who both arrived in 1881 but who did not marry each other until 1888. Louis grew up as a comfortable, middle-class American boy in Oak Park. His father worked as […]
Captain, Chicago Fire Deparment 26 January 1849 – 19 December 1903 This fantastic headstone is in the middle of its section – a tree stump hidden in a forest of headstones — and I didn’t spot it after all these years of visits until just this past week. At first glance, it looks like just […]
Herman Gehrt 29 January 1857 – 10 July 1920 Sophie Fahs Gehrt 17 December 1863 – 18 May 1940 I absolutely love this headstone and had not seen one like it prior to the Gehrts but have since seen similar examples in others’ photos. It seems odd that such grand headstones could be catalog options, […]
Beata Ida Charlotte Gildemeister Unruh December 28, 1907 – August 14, 1955 Elmer A. Unruh October 31, 1899 – September 1, 1978 I love this simple, metal headstone. It’s very small but stands out from the more usual stone headstones around it. Beata was the second oldest child and oldest daughter of John and Louisa […]
August 17, 1902 – May 8, 1913 When I chose a photo of this headstone as the icon for my instagram, I had no idea how it would tie into the other stories I would discover in my research. At the time, it was just a lovely headstone that I’d taken a lot of pictures […]
Johann “John” Beutner 23 March 1849 – 14 March 1923 Sophia Elizabeth Boldt Beutner 7 January 1850 – 24 November 1927 Maria “Mary” Beutner Holpuch Kojisek (Kozisek) 3 August 1874 – 28 December 1957 Johann “John Thomas” Beutner 15 February 1877 – 18 November 1925 Karl “Charles William” Beutner 28 September 1886 – 18 February […]