Getting to know our Bohemian neighbors

It is easy to drive past Bohemian National Cemetery's rusty barrier every day without giving it a second thought or glance. You may glimpse the headstones out of the corner of your eye, but you probably never really think about the people they represent and the stories they tell. However, Northeastern's neighbors on the other side of that gate have plenty of stories to tell, if you're willing to get to know them.

Bohemian National Cemetery was established in 1877 as a burial place for Chicago's Bohemian (now Czech) population. According to cemetery historian Helen Sclair, Bohemian National was established because a Bohemian woman was refused burial at a Catholic cemetery. Bohemian organizations decided they wanted to create a cemetery where no Bohemian would be refused. The land was purchased in what was then the Township of Jefferson and the first burial was that of a child on July 1, 1877.

Sclair, who resides in a bungalow on the cemetery grounds, admires the purity of the cemetery.

"This is one of very few [cemeteries] where they have leveled no markers, they've dug up nothing, they've left it as it is," Sclair said. "What you see today is the way it's always been."

Besides the fact that the cemetery has not removed or leveled a single monument, it also contains a large amount of a particular type of monument, the tree stump. According to superintendent Phil Roux, Bohemian National has more tree stumps than any other cemetery in the United States.

The tree stump monuments are made of carved Indiana limestone. Each tree stump has many different symbols to represent different concepts and aspects of the person's life. According to Sclair, a dead limb represents a death, ivy represents immortality, and oak leaves represent strength and so on.

"If you understand the field of symbols you can know something about the deceased," says Sclair.

Other monuments throughout the cemetery may not be as telling as the tree stumps, but they still have stories to be told.

The cemetery provides a list of points of interest and maps for visitors. One of these places is the mausoleum of the Kolar family, landlords to the O'Leary family whose cow was blamed for the onset of the Great Chicago Fire in 1871.

Another noteworthy mausoleum is that of Chicago Mayor Anton J. Cermak. On Feb. 15, 1933, a bullet intended for President Franklin D. Roosevelt while he was at a political rally in Miami to support Roosevelt shot Cermak. A photograph in the cemetery's main lobby shows Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor, paying their respects at Cermak's mausoleum.

In 1915, as the cemetery began to open new plots of land, tragedy struck when the Eastland pleasure liner sank in the Chicago River on July 24. About 150 of the 844 people who died that day were buried in Bohemian National Cemetery, and headstones marking entire families whose year of death was 1915 suggest the tragic details of this event more than any written account could.

Aside from monuments marking the final resting places of the 115,000 people buried in Bohemian National Cemetery, there are many monuments to memorialize groups of people and important milestones.

Two of these monuments are bronze statues sculpted by Albin Polasek, a renowned Czech sculptor. The first is "The Mother" monument, which was dedicated in 1927 to honor mothers and the cemetery's 50th anniversary. The statue depicts a woman holding an infant in her left arm, the infant resting its head on her shoulder. On her right side is an adolescent boy holding a torch, and the woman is shielding the flame from wind with her right hand.

The other statue by Polasek is "The Pilgrim." This statue is of a hooded woman hunched over, with a walking stick in her right hand placed firmly on the ground. Her feet are bare and arched in a way that signifies she is walking.

Besides being a place where one can appreciate the monuments as works of art, a cemetery is also a reflection of its city or town. For instance, according to Sclair, Chicago's cemeteries make one fact very clear in the way they are organized by different groups of people.

"This is a very segregated city," says Sclair. "You see it clearly in looking at the cemeteries."

Although much of Bohemian National Cemetery's population is of Bohemian/Czech heritage, there are many different nationalities buried there and the cemetery welcomes anyone who wants to make Bohemian National their final resting place.

Bohemian National Cemetery is open every day from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. to anyone who would like to explore its grounds. Sclair encourages NEIU students to walk around the cemetery and get to know their neighbors.

"If you read the tombstones, you'd know a lot about them," says Sclair.