Tombstone Tour

A few weeks ago me and Amy decided to head up to Chicago to check out some cemeteries.  I know that sounds odd, even for me, but there was a reason behind the madness.  Amy is really big into genealogy and wanted to get some pictures of her great great grandfathers grave and some other relatives.  She asked me to go along, and since I love cemeteries, I said sure.  BUT, there were a few graves I wanted to check out also.  So with names and birth dates in hand, we headed north.

I knew it was going to be a long day when we were pulling out of QT and neither one of us had a clue what highway we needed to take to get to Chicago.  Luckily I had been there a few weeks earlier and knew we went through Springfield.  So out comes the atlas, and alas, our route is found.

On this trip I learned there is a website called findagrave.com.  WHAT???  Sweet!!!  If you type in what graveyard you are at, it tells you who all is buried there, with a section that tells you if anyone famous is buried there.  This made the trip so much better.

That is how I found John Belushi's grave.  I did find it a little weird that when we found Amy's great great whatever I started yelling and doing a little dance in the graveyard.  I don't think anyone was around  to see me.  I am sure few people actually do dances in cemeteries. But if you knew how hard it was to drive into a cemetery with nothing but a name and a small clue as to where they are buried you would understand the elation at finding grandpa.  At first we couldn't find John because it was in a big graveyard.  An old Greek graveyard.  Which was cool unto itself. But before Amy was going to make me ask some poor woman leaving flowers on her loved ones grave where we could find him we saw it.  Another little dance and a few pictures later we were headed to the next cemetery.

Next up, the Circus Cemetery.  Here is buried circus performers.  Why would I care you ask?  Well it seems back on June 22, 1918 a circus train was sitting on some tracks when another train plowed into the back of it killing over 86 people (approx).  Because of the seriousness of the wreck most of the dead where unable to be identified.  So they buried most of them in this cemetery and it then became home to many circus performers.  Don't ask questions, just go along....

Next stop, Mt. Carmel to go see my friend Al Capone.  I LOVE 1920ish Chicago mobster history.  And this graveyard is the holy grail of dead gangsters.  It was an old Catholic cemetery with old huge tombstones with amazing history.  On a sidebar here, I hate the new cemeteries where they only allow those little ground stones.  How boring.   I always said I want a fountain, spotlights, and a huge tombstone on my plot.  Of course there is a 1 in 19393848239439483 chance of that happening, but I can at least say I made my wish known.  I also want to be buried in a size 2 low cut red dress so people will walk past and say "wow, she looks awesome".  The mortician has my permission to make necessary cuts to get me into the dress  :)

Sorry, back to the story.

 You would think Al Capone would have a bigger stone.  However, since he didn't die during the gang wars, but actually died from syphillis after the gangster boom had ended, his death wasn't as big of a deal.  And this is the second cemetery he was buried in.  They moved him from somewhere else a few years after his death so he could be buried with his family.

Hermie Weiss was an American Polish mob boss who was a main rival of Al Capone.  Believe it or not, he was gunned down but a member of a rival gang.

Finding all my favorite gangsters was like walking thru the pages of a history book. Dean O'Banion was the local florist, and leader of the North Side Gang.  He was actually killed in his flower shop while working on the flower arrangements of another dead gangster.  Apparantly back then, when one of them was killed, a huge funeral took place and tens of thousands of dollars were spent by their rivals (and probably the person who orchestrated the hit) on floral arrangements.  See, those killers had class.

No idea who's grave this is but it is super spooky and cool.  Movie spooky.  Movie cool.

I have no doubt my parents will read this and wonder where they went wrong with me.  But hey, we all have our quirks.