Cemeteries provide look at Downers Grove history

Among the local haunts of particular interest this Halloween weekend are three Downers Grove cemeteries that are all but forgotten the rest of the year.

While the Main Street Cemetery stands front and center in our town, Oak Hill, Oak Crest and Pierce Downer cemeteries are tucked away in residential neighborhoods where they will undoubtedly add to the atmosphere for local trick-or-treaters, but are little known among other residents.

That's a shame, says Lois Sterba, who recently spent six weeks researching these historic gardens of the dead. She shared her findings at a presentation of "Downers Grove's Other Cemeteries" held Oct. 24 at the Downers Grove Park District Museum.

Through "a lot of huntin' and peckin,'" Sterba unearthed the intertwined history of the families buried at the cemeteries by searching the Internet and archives of newspapers, as well as files of information maintained by the museum.

She discovered that Oak Hill Cemetery, which adjoins Oak Crest at Howard and Glenview, is the town's oldest burial ground, dating back to 1835. That's 12 years before the earliest grave at Oak Crest and more than 20 years before the first burial at Main Street Cemetery.

Oak Hill was known first as Stanley Cemetery after the founding family that owned the land and buried its first member, son-in-law Luther Farrar, there. Later renamed West Side Cemetery, the site was widely used by Downers Grove's first families including the Puffers, Downers, Rogers, Blanchards and Roes, representing about 3,000 graves. Among those buried there is Israel Porter Blodgett, the only son of Israel and Avis Blodgett, and his wife.

Oak Crest was known originally as Blodgett Cemetery because it is the final resting place of Israel's son Charles and many other family members. Also buried there are William Herrick, who served on the Downers Grove school board for 59 years, and Lottie Holman O'Neill, the first woman elected to the Illinois General Assembly.

For all practical purposes, the two cemeteries appear as a single sanctuary, one that appears sadly neglected. Maintained by Downers Grove Township, the site is marred by rusty fencing and muddy paths. It also is lacking a sign, making it difficult for visitors to find.

While both cemeteries seem frozen in time, plots are still available on the Oak Crest side and burials continue to take place there.

Maintained with care by the Downers Grove Park District, the Pierce Downer Cemetery on Linscott Avenue is the resting place of the town's first settler and 10 other family members. Lucy Downer and her pioneer husband, Pierce, were the first to be buried there, after dying within a day of each other in 1863. The last family member interred there was Earl Downer in 1972.

While many recoil at the thought of spending time in a cemetery, Sterba welcomed the opportunity.

"Certain nationalities revere their cemeteries more," she said. Part of her Bohemian heritage was to observe All Saints and All Souls days and to visit family graves in Chicago's Bohemian National Cemetery twice a year.

Spending time in our town's historic cemeteries, Sterba was drawn to the stories of the people buried there, some of whom died young and tragically, others of whom lived to be 100.

She also was fascinated by the monuments, which range from granite and marble to metal, depending upon the era. Some of them were ordered from Sears and Roebuck or Montgomery Wards and shipped for free, she said.

"Tombstone art is a whole other thing," she said. Symbols of peace, harmony, innocence, modesty, leadership, purity and hope are prominent on many stones. So are messages like the one on Luman Nash's marker in Oak Hill.

"We meet where parting and pain are remembered no more."

Elaine Johnson has been a resident of Downers Grove since 1994. Contact her care of Sun Publications, P.O. Box 4830, Naperville, IL 60567, or at dgcolumnist@comcast.net.