Lisle's cemeteries are historical markers

Cemeteries are a quiet encounter with history.

Lisle has six cemeteries where, with deep respect and reverence, families and friends interred loved ones who died.

Beaubien Cemetery

A single headstone distinguishes Lisle's smallest cemetery.

The Beaubien Cemetery, 2900 Ogden Ave., is on land set aside by Plank Road tollgate keeper Mark Beaubien for his family. The historical marker erected at the site in 1990 reads "The Beaubien Burial Ground 1844."

The 13 names on the stone are Mark's first wife, Monique Nadeau Beaubien, and five of their 16 children, along with two of Mark's children by his second wife, according to earlychicago.com/monuments.php.

Also interred in the area in 1864 is Gen. John Baptiste Beaubien, Mark's brother and an influential French fur-trader who fought in the Black Hawk War.

Morton Cemetery

Another Lisle family cemetery is located within Morton Arboretum near the Thornhill Education Center.

A stately wrought-iron fence and gate encloses the final resting place of arboretum founder Joy Morton, who died in 1934. Three white oaks frame the 70-foot-square family burial plot Morton selected.

In 2004, the gate and fence were refurbished and the grounds replanted to enhance the original yews that border the pathway and benches.

Others buried or memorialized with Morton are his wife, Margaret Gray Morton, in 1940; his brother, Mark Morton, in 1951; his son, Sterling Morton, in 1961; and Sterling's wife, Sophia Preston Morton, in 1969, as well as their three children: 6-year-old Caroline Morton in 1921, 4-year-old Millicent Morton in 1929 and adult Suzette Morton Davidson in 1996, along with her husband, Eugene Davidson, at the age of 100 in 2002.

"When you consider how prominent the Morton family was in Chicago history, as well as in establishment of the Morton Arboretum, I am touched by how completely unpretentious their monuments are and how eloquently they speak of the values that the family held," said Craig Johnson, director of education and information services.

St. Joseph's Orphanage Cemetery

Pine trees with weeping branches and a black wrought-iron fence border the small St. Joseph's Orphanage Cemetery on the northwest side of Benet Academy.

Twenty-three small identical headstones honor the memory of orphans and a workman who once lived at the orphanage. Two of the youngest interred are 3-year-olds, Libuse Bares in 1923 and James Tu Sack in 1929.

The orphanage closed in 1956 and is incorporated into the buildings of Benet Academy.

St. Scholasticas Cemetery

St. Scholasticas Cemetery behind the Sacred Heart Monastery, 1910 Maple Ave., serves the needs of the religious sisters who live there. Established in 1920 for the community's silver jubilee, more than 150 sisters are interred there today.

"A lot of wonderful sisters are buried out there," said Sister Barbara Ann Svec, the group's historian. "To see the graves reminds us of all the laughter, work and holiness they gave us."

A large Crucifixion sculpture welcomes visitors who pass under the brick pillar archway into the small cemetery. In the center is the grave of the religious order's foundress, Mother Nepomucene Jaeger, who died in 1933.

St. Procopius Abbey Cemetery

St. Procopius Abbey Cemetery is on the southwest end of the Benedictine University campus, behind Lake St. Benedict. Rows of stone terrazzo crosses stand sentry over the graves of Benedictine priests and brothers while parallel rows of yews edge the walkway.

A larger-than-life rustic granite cross indicates the plots of the religious order's abbots, centered with the founder of the abbey, university and seminary, the Right Rev. John Nepomucene Jaeger in 1924. He was the older brother of Mother Nepomucene Jaeger.

The oldest site is that of brother-novice Bernard Hruby, who became fatally ill at age 16 in 1902. Founders of the university's Jurica Nature Museum, Father Hilary Jurica and his brother, Father Edmund Jurica, are both resting here since the early 1970s.

The monastic community allows for the inclusion of relatives of the religious, as well as a few students and friends in the cemetery.

Every year on the Saturday closest to All Saints Day, Nov. 3 this year, the monks have a morning memorial service in the cemetery, said Father James Flint, abbey historian.

Lisle Cemetery

The largest local burial ground is Lisle Cemetery, on the 900 block of Ogden Avenue, established in 1832. The cemetery is one of the oldest registered in DuPage County.

The origins of the cemetery date to the first settlers in the area -- James C. Hatch, who gave a part of his farm for use as a cemetery, and his brother, Luther Hatch. Both are buried there along with other early settlers A.B. Chatfield, John Graves and George Willard, who is buried with two daughters who died of a plague.

Civic-minded Alonzo Chatfield, credited with giving Lisle its name, was buried in 1893 near a stately obelisk along with his wife, Mary, 1885; son Albert Sherman Chatfield, 1934; and sister-in-law Lucy Ann Graves, 1881.

Under tall stately trees, the potter's field on the southeast corner has no marked graves and no written records.

Two Civil War veterans, Owen Mertz and Uriah White, rest nearby. Others include the family of Frank X. Haumesser, a blacksmith who ran a grocery store on Main Street and died in 1923; Ross A. Bishop, who died in 1945 while serving in World War II and is the namesake of the Lisle Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 5696; and Margaret Bryan in 1994, a charter member of the Lisle Historical Society, who left a legacy of finely drafted artwork of local architecture.

For 60 years, a one-room schoolhouse of Lisle Public School District 1 was located on the northeast corner of the property until it was destroyed by fire on Halloween night in 1909.

"The school was not rebuilt on that site because people were concerned for the quality of the well water for the children, being downhill and near a cemetery," said Lisle resident Carl Grumbles, a member of the Lisle Historical Society.

Since simple wooden boxes were used at that time and not sealed metal vaults, decomposing may have been a legitimate consideration. The school was rebuilt on Main Street.

Today, the village of Lisle owns and maintains the 2-plus acres that are Lisle Cemetery, but that was not always the case. For many years, Lisle resident Bill McKibben, a World War II veteran who was present at the first atomic bomb blast in a remote area of New Mexico, maintained the cemetery as a labor of love. He now rests next to his wife in the cemetery.

"When the village took over ownership, the back part of the cemetery was all weeds and we didn't even know how large it was," said former Lisle trustee Judy Yuill. "(McKibbon) gave us a book and a box of 3-by-5 cards to tell who was buried where."

The stone pillars and iron gates were added in 1994 under the direction of then-village assistant manager and Lisle resident Barbara Adamec. There are 477 occupied plots and 370 available plots, which go for $700 each, according to a spokesperson for the Lisle Village Public Works department.

Epitaphs on some of the old limestone markers are either obliterated or barely visible. A few have toppled over, and some seriously eroded. The dark blue-gray stones are slate. The headstones cast in metal and the newer granite stones should last longer.

Some of the names are familiar to anyone who knows the names of the streets in town.

There are no mausoleums in Lisle cemeteries. The Arboretum Village has only simple poignant memorials set in natural surroundings for contemplation in its six historic cemeteries.