52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - #23 "At the Cemetery" - Rosehill Cemetery, Chicago, Illinois

Prompt #23 (Jun 4-Jun 10): "At the Cemetery" - Rosehill Cemetery, Chicago, Illinois

Rosehill Cemetery was founded in 1859 as a "garden cemetery". A "Garden Cemetery" was one built typically 1 to 5 miles outside the city limits due to the overcrowding and health concerns of urban cemeteries. The "Garden Cemetery" came about in the 19th cemetery with images of hope and immortality. Depictions of angels, cherubs, botanical elements, elaborate monuments and mausoleums in a beautiful park like setting. Before Chicago had its many parks, Rosehill offered a place for the public to enjoy the outdoors and admire the artistic tombstones and sculpture previously only available to the wealthy. The land was donated by a Mr. Hiram Roe on the condition that it be named Roe's Hill. A secretary misspelled it and it stuck as Rosehill.

 All those elaborate stones and monuments were a nightmare to keep up and later Rosehill's outer acreage became a lawn cemetery with flat stones, much easier and economical to keep up. In that newer section, on the north end of Rosehill cemetery, my grandparents, Richard and Lydia Kallman and my parents, Melvin and Grace Kallman are buried.

Rosehill is a beautiful cemetery which is open to the public and even has guided tours of the monuments and mausoleums. Many famous (and infamous) people of Chicago are buried  there. For a longer look at beautiful Rosehill click here ↓ I guarantee an interesting read!

 The History, Heroes and Hauntings of Chicago's Famed Rosehill Cemetery

From Amy Johnson Crow, a genealogist, far more experienced then I. "The data that we've accumulated in our genealogy software and in our binders and folders doesn't do a whole lot of good just sitting there. We need to do something with it." Each week she sends out a prompt to share a bit about an ancestor, collateral relative, or family friend.