What is so Rare 

as a Day in October?

Especially when it is spent touring graveyards in Chicago.

On Saturday, October 5, 2002 a fully equipped Dixon-Meyer Trailways bus will leave the Stephenson County Historical Museum (1440 S. Carroll Avenue, Freeport, Illinois) at 8 A.M. for a Chicago Architecture Foundation docent escorted tour of three Cook County cemeteries. Bring your own morning coffee with you as well as your own lunch and drink and we will find a quiet place to picnic at noon. We do plan to stop at a tollway oasis on the way home for a few minutes, arriving back at the museum at 6 P.M. Cost per person is $30.00.

We will be visiting Montrose Cemetery where in 1935, the Japanese Mutual Aid Society purchased a substantial group of lots for a communal burial site and distinctive mausoleum surrounded by a carefully tended Japanese garden. The cemetery also has a substantial Serbian-American section and plays host to an astounding array of ethnic populations, including Gypsies, East Indians, Iranians, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Cambodians, and others. An unusual diamond shaped monument to the 600+ victims in the Iroquois Theater Fire, December 1903, stands near the entrance to the cemetery.

Beginning in 1877, Bohemian National Cemetery attracted Czech settlers to Chicago's North Park neighborhood. The entrance gate housing an original funeral bell is fortress like and features separate waiting rooms for men and women. Many victims of the 1915 Eastland steamer disaster occupy a communal plot. The ship was loaded to overflowing with Western Electric employees embarking on a picnic cruise from a downtown river dock when it overturned resulting in the deaths of more than 800 people, including 22 entire families. Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak, shot while making a public appearance with FDR, was buried in this graveyard. Cermak's fatal mistake was sending police to rough up Frank Nitti, head of Chicago's most powerful mob. Assassin Guiseppe Zangara shot Cermak while he was on stage with the president-elect in Miami. Beside a Civil War Veterans Monument, a United Spanish War Veterans Memorial, World War I and II Memorials, the indoor columbarium (walls with niches for the storage of urns) is truly spectacular.

Our third stop will be Calvary Cemetery in Evanston, established in 1859.  Along with a Priest's Circle which serves as a final resting place for numerous ordained residents, their stones identified with chalices and other motifs, many famous Chicagoans are buried at Calvary: Edward Hines, John Cudahy, Lawrence Kelly (founder of the Lyric Opera), Mayor Edward F. Dunne, Mayor Edward Kelly, Mayor Martin Kennelley, Mayor John P. Hopkins, James T. Farrell, Charles Comiskey, and John M Smyth. Crooked politician extraordinary, Michael "Hinky Dink" Kenna, alderman of the legendarily corrupt First Ward lies under a simple headstone. Kenna took bribes and gave them with wild abandon, assembling a constituency comprised of everyone from madams to mayors. Kenna's will included a provision for a $33,000 mausoleum but his heirs had other plans.

Seats on this bus trip can be reserved by calling or e-mailing Suzy Beggin at the Historical Society (815) 232-8419 or sending a $20.00 deposit per person to Sally Spudich - 1660 Gladewood Drive, Freeport, IL 61032.

This trip is sponsored by the Stephenson County Historical Society.