MANY HOPES LIE BURIED HERE - Lulu E. Fellows

I received such an overwhelming response to last week's story about the Frances Pearce monument at Rosehill Cemetery that I though this week I would tell you the story of what is probably the second most photographed monument in Rosehill Cemetery, the monument of Lulu E. Fellows:

Lulu E. Fellows

You can see it is a statue of a young girl from the Victorian era, wearing a long dress with a cameo or locket around her neck, seated in a chair holding an open book.  Like the Pearce monument, it is covered with a glass box to preserve it from the elements.  Below the statue in the front is a panel that reads:

LULU E. FELLOWS

Died Nov. 23, 1883.

Aged 16 Years.

Many Hopes Lie Buried Here

As I have mentioned previously, I don't think there is a greater trial for a parent than the loss of a child.  I think Lulu's parents wanted to share with us just what a tragedy Lulu's death was to them.  Let's take a look at Lulu Fellows and her family to see what we can "dig up" about them.

Lulu Edith Fellows was born November 5, 1869 in what became Arlington Heights, Illinois to Jonathan H. Fellows (1822-1891) and Charlotte A., nee Rich (1840-1917).  Lulu joined her sister Alice Vivian Fellows (1864-1924) and her brother Allan Reynolds Fellows (1868-1926).  Jonathan Fellows was a carpenter by trade.

Jonathan Fellows and Charlotte Rich Fellows were both originally from New York.  Unfortunately the genealogical information on them is sparse, so we don't know exactly when or why they came to Chicago - we do know that they were here by the time their first child Alice was born in 1864.

The 1880 US Census gives us the best snapshot of the Fellows family.  They were living at 309 S. Western Avenue (now 520 S. Western Avenue):

309 (now 520) S. Western Avenue, Chicago

Jonathan (who shaved a few years off his age for the census-taker), Charlotte, sixteen year-old Alice, fourteen year-old Allan and twelve year-old Lulu. 

Lulu Edith Fellows died November 23, 1883 of typhoid fever.  She had been sick only eleven days:

She died at 66 Dekalb Street (2077 DeKalb Street) which no longer exists.  It was a residence, so if the Fellows were living there, or they moved Lulu there because of her illness is unknown.

She was buried at Rosehill Cemetery the next day, November 24, 1883.  Like Horatio Pearce before them, the Fellows decided to have a special monument sculpted to mark the grave of "The Baby."  They hired noted Chicago sculptor Andrew Gagel (1846-1938), and here is his work entitled "Lulu":

It is signed on the side, "A. Gagel, Sculp. 1885"

  

Like the Pearce monument, it was decided to enclose Lulu Fellows in glass, but in this case, it was done by Rosehill Cemetery:

Unfortunately the Fellows monument was not covered until the elements had done quite a bit of damage.  Lulu's right hand is gone, as well as the tip of her nose:

However, whatever damage there is should not keep us from enjoying this masterpiece.  Here are some views walking around the monument:

Lulu Fellows' statue is quite similar to another one that Andrew Gagel did.  This one is in Graceland Cemetery and is known as Inez:

Graceland made the decision to cover Inez early on, so she has not suffered the damage that Lulu has. There is another difference as well. Lulu's covering has vents through which people slip money, candy and even small toys.  There are no vents in Inez' covering, so no "leavings". Little is known about Inez, and some say she never even existed and that her monument was a showroom sample of Andrew Gagel.

What about the rest of the Fellows family?  Lulu's father Jonathan died in 1891 and her mother Charlotte in 1917.  They are buried next to Lulu:

Lulu's sister Alice went on to marry and have two children of her own. She died in Rock Island, Illinois in 1924

Lulu's brother married as well, and had three children.  He died in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in 1926.  Allan Fellows named his first daughter Lulu.  She was born in 1887 and unlike her namesake, died in 1980 at the ripe old age of 92.

Thanks to the artistry of Andrew Gagel, we have a wonderful remembrance of a young girl who lived, was loved, and died at sixteen as her life was just beginning.

Lulu Edith Fellows - may she rest in peace.

THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED MONUMENT IN ROSEHILL CEMETERY - Frances Pearce Stone

I have mentioned before that historic Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago is filled with many magnificent monuments.  I have featured several of the most memorable monuments in past posts in this blog.  But there is one monument that can only be described as "exquisite" and is, by far, the most often photographed monument in Rosehill - the monument to Frances Pearce Stone and her infant daughter:

The internet being what it is, there is as much erroneous information out there about this monument, as there is correct information.  The purpose of this article is not only to acquaint you with this beautiful piece of funerary art, it is also to present the correct facts about this monument and its history.

The monument marks the final resting place of Frances Manette Pearce Stone (1835-1854) and her daughter Frances Pearce Stone (1853-1854).  Let me first correct the most-often reported fact about the mother and daughter:  neither the mother Frances, nor the daughter Frances died in childbirth.  But before we get into that, let's go back a little further to see what we can learn.

Frances Manette Pearce (the mother) was born June 29, 1835 in Middlesex, New York to Samuel Pearce (1792-1874) and Eliza "Betsey" nee Larned (1799-1876).  Frances was the only daughter of Samuel and Betsey, but there were four brothers:  William Larned Pearce (1816-1871), Myron Larned Pearce (1821-1914), John Irving Pearce (1827-1902) and Samuel Darwin Pearce (1829-1862).  Samuel Pearce (the elder) was a farmer, and a native New Yorker, tracing his lineage back to Revolutionary War patriot Michael Pearce who fought under Colonel John Waterman of Rhode Island.  

The 1850 US Federal Census shows fifteen year-old Frances living in Phelps, New York with her parents and her brother Myron.  William had already moved to Joliet, Illinois to try his hand at farming.  John and Sam had moved to Chicago - John was a hotel-keeper and later a banker, and Sam's occupation was unknown.                       

Horatio Odell Stone was born January 2, 1811 in Victor, New York to Ebenezer Stone (1771-1843) and Clarissa nee Odell (1774-1811). Horatio had three siblings:  Warren Stone  (1799-1867), Hiram Hoyt Stone (1800-1891), and Thankful Ann Stone (1807-1861).  Horatio's mother died just forty-five days after he was born.  Some sources say that his father ultimately remarried, but I could not find any evidence of this. Ebenezer Stone was a wheelwright by trade.  Like the Pearces, the Stones also relocated to Chicago, where Horatio pursued a career as a grocer, dry goods seller and Land Agent.

Horatio Stone married for the first time to Jane A. Lowry (1813-1851) in about 1833.  They had two daughters:  Samantha (b. 1834) and Agusta (b. 1838).  Unfortunately Agusta died on Christmas Day, 1839, and Samantha died four days later on December 29, 1839.  Jane Lowry Stone herself died on November 11, 1851.   

Horatio Stone went on with his life, and married seventeen year-old Frances Manette Pearce on September 21, 1852 in Clifton Springs, New York.  It is not known whether they met in New York or Chicago, where both had connections.

Frances became pregnant in late 1852 and in July, 1853 gave birth to a daughter, who they named Frances Pearce Stone, after her mother. Tragically, Horatio's second wife Frances died on March 12, 1854 in Chicago.  Frances did not die giving birth to her daughter - little Frances was eight months old when her mother died.

To compound the tragedy, little Frances died in May of 1854, when she was only ten months old.

We have few records from this period that could give us causes of death or other information.  Unfortunately all these records burned in the Great Chicago Fire of October, 1871.

Frances the mother and Frances the daughter were buried in the Chicago City Cemetery, where Horatio's first wife and children were buried.  Jane Stone's grave marker is lost, but here is the marker for little Samantha and Agusta:

In his grief, Horatio decided on a more elaborate memorial for his teenaged wife and infant daughter.  He commissioned a sculpture from noted sculptor Chauncey Bradley Ives from Rome, Italy (not Charles B. Ives as is often reported).  The sculpture of a reclining mother and child was completed in Rome in 1856:

C.B. IVES, Roma 1856

and then shipped to Chicago, where it was placed over their graves in the Chicago City Cemetery:

Another myth debunked:  In researching this article, I read that this sculpture was a replacement for an earlier one that was being shipped to Chicago on the RMS Lusitania.  The story is, that when the ship was sunk the original sculpture went to the sea bottom where it rests to this day.  The problem is, the Lusitania was launched in 1907 and sank in 1915, long after this sculpture was carved.  (Don't believe everything you read on the internet...).

In the late 1850s, Chicago decided to close the City Cemetery and relocate the buried remains to other cemeteries farther away from the downtown area.  If you want to read a fantastic history of the Chicago City Cemetery and the removal of (most) of its graves, go here: 

http://hiddentruths.northwestern.edu/

Horatio Pearce wisely realized that for the remains of his loved ones to be moved correctly, he needed to make the arrangements himself.  On October 22, 1861, the Chicago Daily Tribune reported:

After the bodies and the monument were moved, it was decided to cover the sculpture with a glass enclosure to protect it from Chicago's heat, cold and wet.  If it had not been covered, I doubt that there would be much left to admire today.

Photos do not do it justice, but let's take a look at this magnificent memorial:

   

The side panels are here:

and the best I can figure out, here is what they say:

There is also a rumor, passed along on many different "haunted" websites that this monument is haunted as well.  Here's one:

According to legend(!), on the anniversary of their deaths, a white haze fills the glass box that has been placed over the monument as the mother and daughter reach out from the other side to the husband and father who was left behind.

There are a couple of problems with this "legend":

1.  Frances the mother and Frances the daughter did not die the same day

2.  The husband and father that was left behind is left behind no longer - he died on June 20, 1877 - so shouldn't the mists have ended at that time???

   

With Chicago's changeable weather (sometimes as much as a seventy degree swing within 24 hours) it is possible that the air in the enclosed glass box could be either warmer or colder than the outside air, thereby causing a mist or fog to form inside the glass enclosure - but not just on the death anniversaries.

What of Horatio O. Stone?  What happened to him after the deaths of his second wife and third daughter? He went on to marry again - on November 10, 1855 to Elizabeth Anna Yager (1839-1913).  They had three sons and a daughter who all lived to adulthood:  Horatio Odell Stone (1860-1912), Carl Donner Stone (1870-1907), Althea I. Stone (1870-1953), and Robert Stone (1878-1947).

Horatio Odell Stone died on June 20, 1877 in Chicago, at the age of 66.  

He is buried next to the beautiful monument to his wife and daughter at Rosehill:

Here is the write-up about his funeral from the Chicago Daily Tribune of July 23, 1877:

May Horatio Stone, and all his spouses and progeny, rest in peace.

GOD'S GREATEST GIFT TAKEN - Leo Yarmulnick

Because of all the snow we have had in Chicago this year I have been unable to do any cemetery photography since the middle of December. The last few years Chicago has had had fairly mild winters, and I was able to keep up with my cemetery photography almost year-round, but this year the weather is not cooperating.  I decided to make use of this time to post some of the photos I have taken at Jewish Waldheim Cemetery over the past several years but have not had time to post to Find a Grave.  When I added them up, it turned out that I had over 6,000 photos of graves at Jewish Waldheim that I have not posted. Lest you think this is a lot, there are over 300,000 graves at Jewish Waldheim, so it really is just a drop in the bucket.

As I was posting some of the 6,000 photos I came across one that caught my eye.  It is the tombstone for Leo Yarmulnick:

As you can see, Leo died in 1934 and his family has added the epitaph:

A Fine Son

A Loving Brother

A Good Friend

Loving All 

And Much Beloved 

to the tombstone and then:  "God's Greatest Gift Taken."  So, I decided to check into Leo Yarmulnick and see what information I could "dig up."

Little did I realize when I started looking, just how hard it would be to find information on Leo Yarmulnick.  The more sources I checked, the less information I found.  In fact, if I didn't have a photo of his tombstone I would not have been convinced that he ever existed.  Sometimes when doing genealogy research you have to get creative with how you search for information.  Many immigrants from Eastern Europe had never written their names before, so whoever was writing the name down used their "best guess" as to how the name should be spelled.  I had mentioned in a previous post that when a reporter asked the name of a murder victim, the family responded "Aron Yegalovitch" which is how the reporter took down the name.  Imagine his surprise when the death certificate came back spelling the surname as "Iglowitz."

Well, after I got creative I was able to find Leo.  But just to show you how frustrating this can be, I found the surname that was spelled "Yarmulnick" on the tombstone spelled:

Yormulnick

Yarmulnik

Yormislonick

Yarmulneck

Yermulnyk
Yarmulink
Yarow

and lastly
Yarrow

Sometimes genealogy research can be maddening.

The 1930 US Federal Census showed 21 year-old Leo Yarmulnik living at 3237 W. Hirsch Street in Chicago with his mother Sarah, his brother Morris, and his sister Dina.

3237 W. Hirsch Street, Chicago

Sarah was a widow and not employed, Morris worked as a salesman for a fruit store and Leo as a salesman for a dry goods store.  They paid $65 per month rent for their apartment and said that they had immigrated to the U.S. in 1928.

That is all of the official records for Leo until we get to his death certificate:

According to the death certificate, Leo "Yarrow" died on July 11, 1934 at Michael Reese hospital of injuries he sustained when he was "struck by auto while driving his automobile."  The cause of death was "traumatic laceration of the stomach and bowel, local peritonitis, complications of May accident."  His accident had taken place May 23, 1934, but he did not die until July 11, 1934.

I checked the Chicago Tribune archives for information about the accident that ultimately killed Leo Yarmulnik, but could not find anything.  The same day as Leo's accident, May 23, 1934, a water tower collapsed in Chicago, killing six people, so most of the local news reporting was given over to that tragedy as opposed to reporting on Leo's car accident that caused no immediate deaths.    

Leo was buried at Jewish Waldheim Cemetery in Forest Park on July 13, 1934.  He was buried at Gate #265 - Ziditshover:

And what or the rest of Leo's family?  Big brother Morris died in Chicago on April 23, 1942.

Leo's little sister Dina started calling herself Vanya, and she married Alex Straus (1892-1974) from Chicago on November 4, 1936.   By the 1940 Census, Alex, Vanya (now calling herself "Tanya"), and Tanya's mother Sarah, had all relocated to Los Angeles.  They rented a house at 363 N. Stanley Avenue - near the intersection of Crescent Heights and Beverly Boulevards.  Alex opened a store in Glendale called "Al's Swap Shop."

Sarah Kirsch Yarmulnick died in Los Angeles on July 18, 1952.  She was 75 years old.  Dina/Vanya/Tanya Yarmulnick Straus died in Los Angeles on January 20, 1962.  She was 55 years old.  There is no record of Tanya and Alex having any children.

So, that's the story of Leo Yarmulnick and his family.  From Russia through Chicago to Los Angeles.  A lifetime of adventures that took them more than half-way around the world.

May Leo Yarmulnick (God's Greatest Gift Taken) rest in peace.

ALL THAT'S LEFT IS A BROKEN TOMBSTONE - Dora Rosa Sachs

In a cemetery as old and as large as Jewish Waldheim Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois, you will see  a great variety of tombstones.  There are very large, elaborate monuments, simple, small gravestones, and many graves that are not marked at all.  At Jewish Waldheim, as with other cemeteries in Illinois the responsibility for repair or replacement of damaged tombstones is with the lot owner, not the cemetery.  With a cemetery as old as this one, finding the heirs of an original lot owner is next to impossible - if there are any descendants still alive.  That makes the tombstone over the grave of little Dora Rosa Sachs even sadder than it would be ordinarily.

The broken tombstone over her grave is in the far back section of one of the older parts of the cemetery.  There are no recent burials there, and visitors are few and far between.  It is probably safe to say that any relatives of the people buried here are distant relatives, and there may not be anybody left in the Chicago area related to little Dora or those buried near her.  Let's see what, if anything we can find out about little Dora Rosa Sachs.

Her tombstone was not expensive to begin with, and is made of a softer stone that does not do well in Chicago's brutal weather.  The engraving on her stone has almost been worn away by time and weather.  Let's take a closer look and see what we can make out:

Almost nothing is visible to the naked eye, but digital cameras can sometimes pick up details that are not readily seen.  It appears to say:

Dora Rosa Sachs

Born Oct 24, 1902

Died May 14, 1905

If there was any Hebrew lettering on her stone it was on the part that has broken off.  A look at Family Search found the following record:

Rose Sachs, "Illinois, Cook County Deaths, 1878-1922"

Name: Rose Sachs

Titles and Terms:

Event Date: 14 May 1905

Event Place: Chicago, Cook, Illinois

Gender: Female

Race (Original): White

Race: White

Age (Formatted): 3y 6m

Birth Year (Estimated): 1902

Birth Date:

Birthplace: Chicago, Ill.

Marital Status:

Spouse's Name:

Spouse's Titles and Terms:

Father's Name:

Father's Titles and Terms:

Father's Birthplace: Russia

Mother's Name:

Mother's Titles and Terms:

Mother's Birthplace: Russia

Occupation:

Address:

Residence Place: Chicago, Cook, IL.

Cemetery:

Burial Place: Jewish Waldheim

Burial Date:

Funeral Home:

Informant's Name:

Informant's Name (Original):

GS Film number: 1239719

Digital Folder Number: 4004517

Image Number: 725

Reference ID: cn 10755



Having that information I was able to get her death certificate:

Little Rose died of pneumonia resulting from her having the measles and whooping cough.  She was sick for over three months, although she had pneumonia for about one week.  Unfortunately Cook County Death Certificates of this era do not contain parents' names, so we'll have to try other ways to find them.

I started out by trying to find Dora Rose's birth certificate.  Her death certificate says that she was 3 years and 6 months old on May 14, 1905, so that would make her date of birth November 14, 1901 (never mind that her tombstone seems to have the DOB as October 24, 1902.

I checked the Cook County Birth Register for any Sachs babies born in 1901-1902.  There is a Sachs baby born October 27, 1902, but that was a boy.  There was a girl Sachs baby born July 23, 1901 to a Henry Sachs and Jennie Becker Sachs but there is no evidence that this baby is little Dora Rose.

I also checked the records on Family Search as well as ancestry.com to see if I could find anything else, or to see if Dora Rosa showed up in one of the many family trees posted on those sites, but nothing.  Other than noting her burial, the cemetery records had nothing either.

Unfortunately the search for information on Dora Rosa Sachs leads to nothing but dead ends.  Here's all we know for sure:

Dora Rosa Sachs
Born in Chicago
Both parents born in Russia
Died May 14, 1905 of Pneumonia from Measles and Whooping Cough
Lived at 403 S. Clark Street in Chicago

Anything else is just conjecture.

Several years ago one of the salespeople at Rosehill Cemetery decided to try to look into re-purchasing unused graves in family plots purchased decades before so they could be re-sold at today's rates. She soon found that it was a fruitless pursuit - either there were no living heirs, or if there were, that they couldn't be tracked down.  After a short time, the project was dropped.

The purpose of this blog is to see that these people are not forgotten, and that's the case with Dora Rosa Sachs who died almost 109 years ago and who lies under a broken tombstone at Jewish Waldheim Cemetery.

Dora Rosa Sachs - we remember.

May she rest in peace.

PS - The physician who signed her death certificate Dr. Abraham Weissman turned out to be quite a scoundrel, but we'll save his story for another week.