Ceremony could be last for veterans' graves

It could be the last Veterans Day at St. Johannes Cemetery in Bensenville for the 20 some men resting there who served in the nation's military over the past 150 years.

That's why Chaplain Jerome Kowalski of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War has organized a public ceremony honoring the veterans whose graves could soon be uprooted to make way for O'Hare International Airport expansion.

“We want to honor the veterans for the last time in the place where they were buried,” Kowalski said. “We have a bugler, we'll read the names and have a service with the same ritual the Grand Army of the Republic used.”

The veterans to be honored include three who served during the Civil War and another in the Spanish-American War. The rest served in the world wars and the Korean conflict, said Kowalski.

The ceremony comes amid concerns that the remains, especially the older ones, might not make it to their next resting place intact. When cemeteries are moved remains often do not end up with the right tomb stones, Kowalski said.

“Most of the coffins are wooden, and if they are moved with a backhoe very little of the remains will be intact, especially when done in a hurry,” he added. “I hope I'm totally wrong.”

Concerns that the disinterment will not be done well have been expressed by relatives, but are secondary to religious beliefs, Joseph Karaganis, a Chicago attorney representing St. John's United Church of Christ of Bensenville.

“These graves are 150 years old. You are excavating dust,” he said. “There's a great deal of concern that body parts or remnants might be missed.”

Relatives of people interred at the cemetery and St. John's are not through fighting against the city of Chicago's attempts to take the land as part of O'Hare expansion. The church filed a petition with the Illinois Supreme Court this week, said Karaganis.

The state's high court issued a stay last month after relatives appealed lower court rulings allowing the city to take possession of the graveyard.

Karaganis, who has been on the case for 15 years, said families that sold their farms to the city for the airport in the 1950s had a handshake agreement that their cemetery, which now holds about 1,200 graves, would be protected.

Karaganis also represented Rest Haven, a smaller cemetery in the same area, which has been spared.

“These cemeteries date back to the middle of the 19th century and were started by German immigrants fleeing religious prosecution,” he said. “They are the founding fathers of DuPage and West Cook Counties.”

Karaganis said both the U.S. and Illinois Constitutions protect Freedom of Religion, but in 2003 the Illinois Legislature passed a law taking away rights from St. Johannes at the request of the city of Chicago.

“People in the modern secular world are very dismissive of religious beliefs,” he said. “People buried there and their living relatives have a strong religious belief that the graves should remain undisturbed until the day of resurrection. Moving them is sacrilegious to their religious beliefs.”