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 […]
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 […]
Potter Palmer 20 May 1826 – 4 May 1902 Bertha Honoré Palmer 22 May 1849 – 5 May 1918 There are quite good biographies of both Potter and Bertha on their @findagrave pages and both have Wikipedia entries as well (Potter Palmer – Wikipedia | Bertha Palmer – Wikipedia), so I’ll just do a highlight […]
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 […]
This interesting monument belongs to Frederick Seymour Winston (1856 – 1909) and his wife Mary Ada (Fountain) Winston (1858 – 1919). Frederick was a lawyer specializing in corporate law who made his name working with a few railroad companies as their General Solicitor. Though they were based in Chicago, both died in California. They first […]
This stunner was hard to get good shots of the day I was there just due to the time of day and angle of the sun, so I tried to get a lot of detail photos to make up for it. Peter Schoenhofen was a German immigrant who started a brewery in Chicago that became […]
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. […]
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 […]
All three generations of Ludwig/Louis* Wolffs are interred at Graceland. Ludwig Sr is entombed in this sunken mausoleum on the far northern side of the cemetery while his son Louis Jr and grandson Louis III are buried together on a family lot near the southeastern corner of the cemetery, memorialized by this unique stone. The […]