The Art of Nothing: Tombstone Thursday...Chicago's Graceland Cemetery

Graceland Cemetery is a large Victorian era cemetery located in Chicago. Established in 1860, the cemetery is typical of those that reflect Queen Victoria's reconception of the early 19th century "graveyard". Instead of poorly-maintained headstones, and bodies buried on top of each other, on an ungenerous parcel of land; the cemetery became a pastoral landscaped park dotted with memorial markers, with room left over for picnics, a common usage of cemeteries of that time. Many of Graceland's tombs are of great architectural or artistic interest...

Peter Schoenhofen (1827 - 1893) A wealthy brewer, Schoenhofen’s pyramid was designed by architect Richard Schmidt in 1893.

It features the unlikely combination of an Egyptian pyramid and sphinx with a typical Victorian era angel. It seems Mr. Schoenhofen wanted to cover all his bets in the afterlife.

George Pullman (1831 – 1897) The famous inventor of the sleeping car and the infamous landlord of his workers. George Pullman was buried at night...his coffin was covered in tarpaper and asphalt, is sunk in a concrete block the size of a room.

On top of the block lie railroad ties and even more concrete to prevent his body from being exhumed and desecrated by labor activists. I'm guessing he wasn't a popular guy with his employees.

Getty Tomb...considered the piece de resistance of all the fine monuments in Graceland

This masterpiece was commissioned by lumber merchant Henry Harrison Getty for his wife, Carrie Eliza. Every corner of this tomb is given to fine details including the hinges of the bronze gate. Henry joined his wife in the tomb shortly after he died in Paris, France on March 31, 1919. Their only child Alice was added in 1946.

William Kimball (1828 – 1904) A traveling salesman from Maine, stopped in Chicago in 1857, and was so impressed with its vitality, he stayed and went into business as a wholesale dealer in pianos and organs.

By 1881, he was successful enough to open an organ factory, and six years later, began making pianos, too.

Marshall Field (1835 -1906) Field, who went from store clerk to Chicago’s richest man, developed his famous company into the world’s largest wholesale and retail dry goods enterprise. French’s statue, the sad-faced woman titled “Memory,” holds oak leaves, a symbol of calm courage. The caduceus on the base, the staff of Mercury, is used today mostly to represent medicine. But we are told that here, it stands for commerce. Mercury was the classical god of commerce – as well as of skill, eloquence, cleverness, travel and thievery.

Charles Wacker (1856 – 1929) He is the man for whom Wacker Drive is named, thanks to his position as chairman of the Chicago Plan Commission, which gained public acceptance of Daniel Burnham’s Chicago Plan of 1909.

Potter Palmer (1826 – 1902) & Bertha Palmer (1849 – 1918) The grand Greek temple with the twin sarcophagi gives a clue to the lavish lifestyle of its occupants. Potter Palmer pioneered customer satisfaction in his dry goods store, with money-back guarantees, merchandise on approval, and attractive store displays. He sold his successful business to Marshall Field and became successful in real estate.

Alan Pinkerton (1819 – 1884) Pinkerton came to America from Scotland. Working as a cooper in Ohio, he discovered the hideout of a gang of counterfeiters, helped nab the gang, and became a deputy sheriff. His reputation spread, he became Cook County Sheriff, then Chicago’s first detective.

When he went private, his trademark was the unblinking eye. He was also an ardent abolitionist, and part of the Underground Railroad.

A memorial stone for Timothy Webster (buried in Onarga, Illinois) is next to Kate Warn who is buried near Pinkerton, their employer. Kate, the nation’s first female private eye, and Timothy helped Pinkerton escort Abraham Lincoln to his inauguration. Webster, in Pinkerton’s secret service, was hanged by the Confederacy as a spy during the Civil War.

William Hulbert (1832 – 1882) has a most appropriate memorial – a big, carved baseball. It marks the resting place of the man who founded the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs. Hulbert, a big fan of the game, became a stockholder in the Chicago White Stockings in 1870 and its president in 1875. The following year, he organized the National League with the 8 teams whose names are on the stone baseball. The White Stockings won the league’s first championship, and their descendants, the Cubs, play in Wrigley Field. Through an oversight, Hulbert wasn’t enshrined in Baseball’s Hall of Fame until 1995.

Lucius Fisher (1843 – 1916) He fought for the Union during the Civil War and settled in Chicago afterward. He became president of the Union Bag & Paper Company, and founded the Exhaust Ventilator Company. His monument is actually an early columbarium – a vault to hold urns of cremated remains, a practice much more common today than a century ago.

There are also simple headstones in Graceland too.

Wm. H. Mitchell's Tomb

A Soul Effigy

Tomb covered with lotus flowers means creation, intelligence,rebirth, immortality and royal power.

Beauty flowers blooming in Graceland...

Sorrow

A ladybug starting to fly away...

A woman holding Narcissus (Daffodil) means triumph of divine love and sacriface over vanity, selfishness and death.

More flowers...

Acanthus leaves decorate this tombstone...it is said that whoever has them adorning their tomb has overcome the biblical curse of Genesis 3...God's curse of Adam after he ate the apple given to him by Eve. Poppies are associated with sleep and death.