Forest Home Cemetery is at 863 S. DesPlaines Ave,
Forest Park, Illinois
Forest Park (formerly Harlem) is a village in Cook County, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, United States. The population was 14,339 at the 2020 census. The Forest Park terminal on the CTA Blue Line is the line's western terminus, located on the ...
, adjacent to the
Eisenhower Expressway
Interstate 290 (I-290) is an auxiliary Interstate Highway that runs westward from the Chicago Loop. The portion of I-290 from I-294 to its east end is officially called the Dwight D. Eisenhower Expressway. In short form, it is known as "t ...
, straddling the
Des Plaines River
The Des Plaines River () is a river that flows southward for U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed May 13, 2011 through southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois''American Her ...
in
Cook County
Cook County is the most populous county in the U.S. state of Illinois and the second-most-populous county in the United States, after Los Angeles County, California. More than 40% of all residents of Illinois live within Cook County. As of 20 ...
, just west of
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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. The cemetery traces its history to two adjacent cemeteries, German Waldheim (1873) and Forest Home (1876), which merged in 1969.
The cemetery is known for its ''
Haymarket Martyrs' Monument
The ''Haymarket Martyrs' Monument'' is a funeral monument and sculpture located at Forest Home Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Dedicated in 1893, it commemorates the defendants involved in labor unrest who were blamed, conv ...
'' and surrounding gravesites.
History
Forest Home Cemetery was the site of a
Potawatomi village and burial ground until 1835.
[Forest Home Cemetery. n.d. "Points of Interest". Forest Park, IL.] Ferdinand Haase, founder of
Forest Park
A forest park is a park whose main theme is its forest of trees. Forest parks are found both in the mountains and in the urban environment.
Examples Chile
* Forest Park, Santiago
China
*Gongqing Forest Park, Shanghai
* Mufushan National Fores ...
, and other members of the Haase family are buried on what at one time also was a Haase family
homestead
Homestead may refer to:
*Homestead (buildings), a farmhouse and its adjacent outbuildings; by extension, it can mean any small cluster of houses
* Homestead (unit), a unit of measurement equal to 160 acres
*Homestead principle, a legal concept t ...
.
The cemetery was formally established and incorporated under the laws of the State of Illinois in 1876.
The German Waldheim Cemetery was organized by a group of German
Masonic Lodges in 1873 with the first interment on May 9, 1873. The Waldheim Cemetery was established as a non-religion-specific cemetery, where Freemasons,
Romani
Romani may refer to:
Ethnicities
* Romani people, an ethnic group of Northern Indian origin, living dispersed in Europe, the Americas and Asia
** Romani genocide, under Nazi rule
* Romani language, any of several Indo-Aryan languages of the Roma ...
, and German-speaking immigrants to Chicago could be buried without regard for religious affiliation.
The two adjacent cemeteries merged on February 28, 1969, with the combined cemetery being called Forest Home (''Waldheim'' means "forest home" in German).
Jewish Waldheim Cemetery, located across the street, is a separate cemetery and is not affiliated with Forest Home.
Haymarket Memorial
The "Haymarket martyrs", as the five defendants sentenced to death in the
Haymarket affair
The Haymarket affair, also known as the Haymarket massacre, the Haymarket riot, the Haymarket Square riot, or the Haymarket Incident, was the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square (C ...
came to be called among their sympathizers, were buried at Waldheim because since its establishment, it had a policy of not discriminating on the basis of race, ethnicity, or politics. In addition, it was the only Chicago-area cemetery that would accept their remains. After their burial, the cemetery became a place of pilgrimage for anarchists, leftists, and union members. In 1893, the ''
Haymarket Martyrs' Monument
The ''Haymarket Martyrs' Monument'' is a funeral monument and sculpture located at Forest Home Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Dedicated in 1893, it commemorates the defendants involved in labor unrest who were blamed, conv ...
'', designed by sculptor
Albert Weinert
Albert Weinert (June 13, 1863 – November 29, 1947) was a German-American sculptor.
Born in Leipzig, Germany, Weinert attended the Royal Academy of Art and Applied Art there and then the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, Belgium.
...
, was erected.
In homage to the Haymarket martyrs, other anarchists and socialists later chose to be buried at Waldheim, well into the 20th century, including:
Other notable interments
The cemetery also includes the graves of:
*
Harry Aleman
Harry "The Hook" Aleman (January 19, 1939 – May 15, 2010) was a Chicago mobster who was one of the most feared enforcers for the Chicago Outfit during the 1970s. Aleman got the nickname "Hook" from his boxing career in high school. He is also ...
(mobster)
*
Billy Sunday
William Ashley "Billy" Sunday (November 19, 1862 – November 6, 1935) was an American outfielder in baseball's National League and widely considered the most influential American evangelist during the first two decades of the 20th century.
Bo ...
(evangelist, prohibitionist, baseball player)
*
Doris Humphrey
Doris Batcheller Humphrey (October 17, 1895 – December 29, 1958) was an American dancer and choreographer of the early twentieth century. Along with her contemporaries Martha Graham and Katherine Dunham, Humphrey was one of the second gen ...
(modern dance pioneer)
*
Paul Harvey
Paul Harvey Aurandt (September 4, 1918 – February 28, 2009) was an American radio broadcaster for ABC News Radio. He broadcast ''News and Comment'' on mornings and mid-days on weekdays and at noon on Saturdays and also his famous '' The Rest ...
, (radio announcer)
*
Belle Gunness
Belle Gunness, born Brynhild Paulsdatter Størset (November 11, 1859 – possibly April 28, 1908), nicknamed "Hell's Belle", was a Norwegian-American serial killer who was active in Illinois and Indiana between 1884 and 1908. Gunness is thought ...
(serial killer)
* Father, mother, and grandparents of author
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fic ...
*
Joseph Carter Corbin
Joseph Carter Corbin (March 26, 1833 – January 9, 1911) was a journalist and educator in the United States. Before the abolition of slavery, he was a journalist, teacher, and conductor on the Underground Railroad in Ohio and Kentucky. After th ...
(educator and founder of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff) and his wife, Mary Jane Corbin and sons, John Ward Corbin and William H. Corbin.
The cemetery is also the final resting place for 45 victims of the 1903
Iroquois Theater fire
The Iroquois Theatre fire occurred on December 30, 1903, at the Iroquois Theatre in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is the deadliest theater fire and the deadliest single-building fire in U.S. history, resulting in at least 602 deaths.
Thea ...
that killed over 600.
See also
*
Burials at Forest Home Cemetery (category)
*
List of cemeteries in Cook County, Illinois
This list of cemeteries in Cook County, Illinois includes currently operating, historical (closed for new interments), and defunct (graves abandoned or removed) cemeteries, columbaria, and mausolea which are historical and/or notable. Cook Coun ...
*
Chicago Helicopter Airways Flight 698 crashed at the cemetery in 1960
References
External links
Forest Home Cemetery official website
Forest Home Cemeteryat Graveyards.com
Forest Home Cemetery OverviewWaldheim Cemetery Co.at Findagrave.com
{{Coord, 41.8698, N, 87.8198, W, display=title
Cemeteries in Cook County, Illinois
Freemasonry in the United States
German cemeteries
German-American culture in Chicago
Romani in the United States
Forest Park, Illinois
1969 establishments in Illinois