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Susan submitted this June 2005.... made today June 07, 2006 When you close your eyes . . .
In
Kankakee County, Illinois: West of Bradley, IL, on the north side
of the river, where IL Rte 102 travels NW to Wilmington, there
was
a small, very old cemetery. It was on the south side of the
highway, just as it makes
the dogleg
-- after it passes through the main part of the Kankakee River State
Park and after it crosses the bridge over Rock Creek. If you look
at a property map of the park grounds, there's a small triangular
patch of non-acquired land abutting the highway. If you see it in
person, today, the county or state park keeps the grassy knoll
well-mowed -- but the tipped stones and little broken fences are no
longer there.
My father (his 100th birthday
would have been Saturday, June 25, 2005) took me out there
several times in the mid 1950's to step-around the headstones
and straighten-up some of the little iron fences around the
graves. He said that some of his oldest relatives were there,
old relatives from Kankakee and St. Anne (Saltsider's and
Blessing's, from 1853 on, I'd imagine). And, no, I am not
mistaken. I have a photographic memory of 'place': Once I've
been somewhere (and that includes driving around Boston), I know
and I remember.
Two years ago, as we started
'putting the family on paper', my sister and I did a
cemetery-crawl out south to the
Peotone
Cemetery, Peotone, Will Co, to look at the Pfeil
Graves (G-Grandparents Pfeil and many other family graves).
Then we did another cemetery crawl to the
Elmwood
Cemetery, Manteno, Kankakee Co, to look at the
Blessing Plot (GG-grandparents Blessing and
many
family graves).
As a lark, I said that
as long as we're down here, we should go to 'the cemetery in
Kankakee' where the Saltsider's and more Blessing's were
buried. My sister is that much younger than I am, that she had
no idea! So we drove down Governors Highway, made the big turn,
and there it was,
Mound Grove
Cemetery, Kankakee Co. We stopped and got
instructions to the Saltsider's graves (GG-grandparents
Saltsider). Then I said, now let's find the rest of the
Blessings -- and there they were . . . I'd been dragged to those
funerals & burials, 1948 ~ 1960. She was so surprised, didn't
know, hadn't an inkling.
On our way back up
Governors (she lives in Homewood, IL, a South Suburb, and I live
in Glenview, IL, a North Suburb, 1 hour from her by I-294) I
suggested we look-in-on a primitive cemetery -- what happens
when they're
really old and they aren't cared for. It was gone!
TOTALLY GONE. Nicely graded -- I did not fear for a broken
ankle -- grassy, and very-neatly mowed, but gone.
Shy person that I am, I charged
into the Park (Kankakee River State Park) Superintendent's
Office -- "Where's the old cemetery?" (since their property
surrounds it . . . ). Basically, no one knows nottin' about
nottin', and that was that. They seem to have no knowledge that
that cemetery ever existed or what became of it, or the stones,
or the fence portions. So there.
I see an
Old Settler's
Cemetery on their map IN THE PARK itself, now, and
I wonder if the stones were removed and reset in this
cleared-area. I would think the graves couldn't have been
moved, from a country cemetery, infants dating back to the
1850's? To do that legally is a major undertaking - literally.
I don't know what the original Burying Ground was called, and
our family death and burial records aren't
that specific --
the best I could hope for would be a surviving chatty
Death Notice or Obituary.
I will pursue this
a bit,
as to dbl-checking the headstones in the State Park's 'little
cemetery' on our next cemetery crawl. But, if I were to bring a
bouquet of garden flowers with me, it would go out on the grassy
knoll by the highway.
Susan Blessing McConnell
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